Nowhere is the human spirit of kindness and generosity shown more vividly than it is through adoption. When families open their hearts and their homes to foster children, they are giving them the love and stability that all children deserve, as well as a solid foundation on which to build a successful life.
Since Congress enacted the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, we have made progress in getting more children living in foster care into safe, permanent homes. In the past ten years, adoptions from foster care have risen from 31,000 in 1997 to 51,000 in 2006. Still, far too many children—129,000 nationally and 834 right here in Maine—remain in the foster care system, waiting to be adopted into a loving home. Many of these children have been victims of abuse or neglect, and are at risk for emotional and other problems. Others have special physical or developmental needs. As a consequence, they require extra special care and attention.
Unfortunately, the financial costs associated with caring for a child with special needs are often prohibitive for many foster families who might otherwise consider adoption. Older children or siblings needing to be placed as a group may also have a difficult time moving from foster care into a permanent, safe, and loving home. While federal subsidies are available to help families with the extra costs associated with special needs children, there are barriers in current law that prevent many potential adoptive families from qualifying for this assistance.
Currently, federal subsidies are available only to families who adopt special needs children whose biological family would have qualified for welfare benefits.
This law must change. The income of a child’s biological family should have no bearing on the adoptive family’s eligibility for these federal subsidies. After all, the legal rights of the biological parents to have custody of these children have been terminated, in many cases because of abuse or neglect. Subsidies are an important link in securing adoptive homes for special needs children who, without this support, might otherwise not be adopted.
I am a cosponsor of the bipartisan Adoption Equality Act introduced by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) to correct this situation and ensure that no child adopted from foster care is denied federal support strictly on the basis of the birth family’s income. Our bill will encourage more adoptions of special needs children, and it will also provide relief and assistance to families who have already opened their hearts and homes and adopted a child from foster care. The bill will also help to improve our child welfare system by requiring states to reinvest the foster care dollars they save as a consequence of this legislation back into child abuse and neglect programs.
While adoption is the preferred option for children who cannot return to their birth families, it should not be the only choice. I am therefore also a cosponsor of the Improved Adoption Incentives and Relative Guardianship Support Act introduced by Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), which will provide federal guardianship support to help children living with relatives leave foster care permanently when returning home and adoption are not viable options. Relative placements are safe, stable, and effective at keeping siblings from being separated, while also providing families with financial support to meet children’s special needs.
This legislation will also increase the financial incentives for families to adopt older children. I recently had the good fortune to meet with Gail Neher and her daughter Alexandria who traveled to Washington, D.C. from Cary Plantation in Northern Maine to advocate for these improvements in our federal adoption assistance programs. Alexandria is celebrating two landmark events: graduation from high school and the finalization of her adoption into the Neher family.
She told me how important it is for teenagers in foster care to find a safe, loving and permanent home. Alexandria is starting college in the fall, and she told me how important it is for her to know that she has a mother and father who care about her and will help her. Since she finally has a place to call home, she is not going far. The University of Maine at Presque Isle suits her just fine.
(Photo (L to R) – Bette Hoxie, Adoptive and Foster Families of Maine, Senator Collins, Alexandria Neher, Gail Naher)