Members of Foster Care Alumni of America and our advocate partners are celebrating President Bush's signing of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008.  Our members have been active in the passage of the bill in both houses of Congress through our campaigns to email and call our Senators and Representatives over the last several months.

The bill does the following to support our younger brothers and sisters from foster care:

• Extends and increases incentives for permanency, particularly incentives for the adoption of children with special needs and older youth in foster care.

• Allows states to offer federal assistance to children who are in foster care but who have grandparent or other relative guardians who want to care for them permanently outside of the formal foster care system.

• Makes it easier for relatives to step in to raise children when their parents cannot.  

• Improves educational opportunities for children and youth in foster care.

• Significantly increases resources available to young people as they age out of foster care to help them successfully transition into adult life.

Our next job is to make sure the states fully implement the options available to them through this bill.  Stay tuned to learn what you can do in your state.

Earlier this year, the conventional wisdom was that there would be no reforms until 2009.  FCAA wants to thank the Senators and Representatives and their legislative aides who worked with our public policy partners to draft and pass a bill that would be broadly supported in Congress.  Everyone worked hard and we were proud to add our efforts to make this bill law.

Finally, our heartfelt thanks to the Pew Charitable Trusts for their huge investment through the Kids Are Waiting campaign.  They deserve much of the credit for coordinating the many ideas for foster care reform into a unified voice. 

 

 

Approximately 465,000 U.S. Children in Foster Care are Waiting for Reform

Fewer children would be in foster care today if states were allowed to use federal child welfare funds to provide prevention services (avoiding foster care for some children) and to support post-foster care services to help others leave foster care quickly for safe, permanent families – by supporting successful reunification with their parents, adoption or legal guardianships.  Savings created by the decreased need for foster care could be reinvested by States into a continuum of services to keep children safe and strengthen families.

In the United States, only 10% of federal dollars for child welfare can be spent flexibly to serve children and families. Approximately $709 million dollars out of a total of $6.8 billion child welfare dollars are flexible.

Who are the children waiting in the U.S. foster care system?
 
Gender of the Children in Foster Care:
Male - 53% 243,740
Female - 47% 219,260
 
Alaska Native/ American Indian - 2% 8,802
Asian - 1% 2,631
Black - 31% 142,502
Hawaiian / Other Pacific Islander - 0% 877
Hispanic (of any race) - 20% 92,464
White - 40% 183,149
Unknown - 2% 10,753
Two or more races - 5% 21,822
 
Average Age of a child entering foster care in 2008 -
7.3 years old
 
Average Age of children who exited care in 2008 -
9.0 years old
 
Average Length of Stay in Foster Care -
21.8 Months

What are United States' foster children waiting for?
 
123,000 are waiting to be adopted
(children 16 years of age or older who have a goal of emancipation have been excluded from this estimate)

Average time foster care children have been waiting to be adopted after parental rights have been terminated: 
 
14.1 months