Adoption

Closed adoption was intended to protect the privacy of birth parents and the rights of adoptive parents. To the adoptee, however, closed adoption is a legal magic eraser.

The process for adding new elements to what’s known as the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, or AFCARS, is now in litigation that started under the Trump administration and continues under President Joe Biden.

Lynn Johnson, former President Donald Trump’s top child welfare official, is now running children’s initiatives for CityServe, a national faith-based nonprofit.

Six new bills signed into law in Georgia this week are intended to accelerate the state’s ongoing efforts to make adoption easier.

The Oregon House of Representatives recently gave unanimous approval to legislation that would require state judges to accept tribal customary adoptions in cases involving Native American and Alaska Native children, ensuring that they can remain connected to their tribe.

Although it took longer than in many other aspects of American life, the racial justice reckoning finally may be having an effect on child welfare. As America is forced to take a new look at other draconian, racially biased laws of the 1990s – the “crime bill” and a law to “end welfare as we know it” – there now are calls to repeal the so-called Adoption and Safe Families Act.

Missourians who adopt children or take in foster kids will get meaningful tax breaks in the future since Gov. Mike Parson signed a pair of bills this week amid a rare legislative session in which child welfare is a major priority.

After the child was placed with strangers, his family fought the system on two fronts

The Missouri House of Representatives unanimously passed two bills on Jan. 27 that would increase financial support for foster and adoptive parents. Now, they await approval by the Senate. House Bill 429 would provide a tax deduction for foster parents — $2,500 for a single parent, $5,000 for a married couple — who have been caretaking for at least six months.