    [House Hearing, 113 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

    .
                     INCREASING ADOPTIONS FROM FOSTER CARE

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

                                     of the

                          COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
                         U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                               FEBRUARY 27, 2013

                                   __________

                              Serial No. 113-HR01

                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

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                          COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS

                         DAVE CAMP, Michigan, Chairman

    SAM JOHNSON, Texas                   SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan
    KEVIN BRADY, Texas                   CHARLES B. RANGEL, New York
    PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin                 JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington
    DEVIN NUNES, California              JOHN LEWIS, Georgia
    PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio              RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts
    DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington        XAVIER BECERRA, California
    CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana  LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
    PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois            MIKE THOMPSON, California
    JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania            JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
    TOM PRICE, Georgia                   EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
    VERN BUCHANAN, Florida               RON KIND, Wisconsin
    ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska               BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey
    AARON SCHOCK, Illinois               JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
    LYNN JENKINS, Kansas                 ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
    ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota              DANNY DAVIS, Illinois
    KENNY MARCHANT, Texas                LINDA SANCHEZ, California
    DIANE BLACK, Tennessee
    TOM REED, New York
    TODD YOUNG, Indiana
    MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania
    TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas
    JIM RENACCI, Ohio

            Jennifer M. Safavian, Staff Director and General Counsel

                      Janice Mays, Minority Chief Counsel

                                     ______

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

                    DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington, Chairman

    TODD YOUNG, Indiana                  LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
    MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania             JOHN LEWIS, Georgia
    TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas                JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
    JIM RENACCI, Ohio                    DANNY DAVIS, Illinois
    TOM REED, New York
    CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana

                                C O N T E N T S

                                   __________

                                                                       Page

    Advisory of February 27, 2013 announcing the hearing.............     2

                                   WITNESSES

    Rita L. Soronen, President and Chief Executive Officer, Dave
      Thomas Foundation for Adoption.................................     7
    Kelly Rosati, J.D., Vice President of Community Outreach, Focus
      on the Family..................................................    18
    Pat O'Brien, MS, LMSW, Founder and Executive Director, You Gotta
      Believe! The Older Child Adoption & Permanency Movement,
      Incorporated...................................................    29
    Nicole Dobbins, Executive Director, Voice for Adoption...........    36

                           SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

    Lilliput Children's Services.....................................    59
    Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network........................    63
    Family & Youth Initiative........................................    65
    Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.).............    68
    Human Rights Campaign............................................    71
    Family Equality Council..........................................    76
    Listening to Parents.............................................    80
    Northwest Adoption Exchange......................................    86
    Adoptive Parent and Advocate.....................................    89
    Marie Dolfi, LCSW................................................    91
    Center for Fiscal Equity.........................................    96
    Children's Home + Aid............................................    98
    NYS Citizens' Coalition for Children (NYSCCC)....................   101
    Hillside Family of Agencies......................................   104

                     INCREASING ADOPTIONS FROM FOSTER CARE

                                  ----------

                          WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2013

                 U.S. House of Representatives,
                           Committee on Ways and Means,
                               Subcommittee on Human Resources,
                                                        Washington, DC.

        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 4:13 p.m., in
    Room 1100, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Dave Reichert
    [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
        [The advisory announcing the hearing follows:]

    ADVISORY

    FROM THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

                                                    CONTACT: (202) 225-3625
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
    Wednesday, February 20, 2013
    No. HR-01

                     Chairman Reichert Announces Hearing on

                     Increasing Adoptions from Foster Care

        Congressman Dave Reichert (R-WA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on
    Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced
    that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on increasing adoptions from
    foster care, including through the Adoption Incentives program. The
    hearing will take place immediately following the Subcommittee
    organizational meeting that begins at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February
    27, 2013, in Room 1100 of the Longworth House Office Building.

        In view of the limited time available to hear from witnesses, oral
    testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only.
    Witnesses will include experts from organizations that have had success
    in increasing adoptions from foster care. However, any individual or
    organization not scheduled for an oral appearance may submit a written
    statement for consideration by the Committee and for inclusion in the
    printed record of the hearing.

    BACKGROUND:

        Congress began providing Federal financial support for adoption as
    part of Public Law 96-272, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare
    Act of 1980, with a goal of reducing the number of children in foster
    care. In 1997, Congress enacted Public Law 105-89, The Adoption and
    Safe Families Act, to further increase the number of children leaving
    foster care for adoptive homes. This law created the Adoption
    Incentives program, which provides incentive payments to States that
    increase the number of adoptions over a base year level. Initially,
    States were eligible to receive incentive payments either for increases
    in the number of foster children adopted or for increases in the number
    of foster children with special needs placed in adoptive homes.

        The program was extended by Public Law 108-145, the Adoption
    Promotion Act of 2003, which reset the State baselines and also added a
    new incentive payment category for adoptions of children age 9 and
    older. This new incentive category was created in response to research
    showing that once a child reached 8 or 9 years of age, he or she was
    more likely to remain in foster care than to be adopted.

        Public Law 110-35, the Fostering Connections to Success and
    Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, again extended the program and reset
    the State baselines. This 2008 law doubled the incentive payments for
    adoptions of special needs children under age 9 and for older child
    adoptions. The 2008 law also authorized incentive payments for States
    that increased the rate of children adopted from foster care. The
    Adoption Incentives program is currently authorized through September
    30, 2013, as is the Family Connection grants program which provides
    grants designed to better connect children in foster care to their
    relatives.

        A number of organizations have developed proven methods for
    increasing the number of children who are adopted from foster care,
    contributing to recent success in advancing this goal. For example,
    some organizations focus on reexamining the adult relationships a
    foster youth has had during their time in foster care to determine if
    any of these adults may be possible adoptive parents. Others are
    building more in-depth relationships with a smaller caseload of foster
    youth to better understand their needs and desires to find the right
    home for the child.

        In announcing the hearing, Chairman Reichert stated, ``While tens
    of thousands of children are adopted from foster care each year, twice
    as many foster children are still waiting for a permanent home. Past
    Federal efforts have increased support for adoptions and have helped
    States reduce the number of children in foster care each year. As we
    review the Adoption Incentives program in preparation for its
    reauthorization, we need to make sure these measures are still working
    well so we can ensure all children have a permanent home as quickly as
    possible. I look forward to hearing from leaders and experts alike
    about ways in which we can safely increase the number of children
    adopted from foster care, so every child has a permanent home and
    parents to call their own.''

    FOCUS OF THE HEARING:

        The hearing will review successful efforts to increase adoptions of
    children from foster care. Leaders of several private organizations
    achieving significant success are expected to testify about their
    programs, as well as their views on reauthorizing the Adoption
    Incentives program.

    DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS:

        Please Note: Any person(s) and/or organization(s) wishing to submit
    for the hearing record must follow the appropriate link on the hearing
    page of the Committee website and complete the informational forms.
    From the Committee homepage, http://waysandmeans.house.gov, select
    ``Hearings.'' Select the hearing for which you would like to submit,
    and click on the link entitled, ``Click here to provide a submission
    for the record.'' Once you have followed the online instructions,
    submit all requested information. ATTACH your submission as a Word
    document, in compliance with the formatting requirements listed below,
    by the close of business on Wednesday, March 13, 2013. Finally, please
    note that due to the change in House mail policy, the U.S. Capitol
    Police will refuse sealed-package deliveries to all House Office
    Buildings. For questions, or if you encounter technical problems,
    please call (202) 225-1721 or (202) 225-3625.

    FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS:

        The Committee relies on electronic submissions for printing the
    official hearing record. As always, submissions will be included in the
    record according to the discretion of the Committee. The Committee will
    not alter the content of your submission, but we reserve the right to
    format it according to our guidelines. Any submission provided to the
    Committee by a witness, any supplementary materials submitted for the
    printed record, and any written comments in response to a request for
    written comments must conform to the guidelines listed below. Any
    submission or supplementary item not in compliance with these
    guidelines will not be printed, but will be maintained in the Committee
    files for review and use by the Committee.

        1. All submissions and supplementary materials must be provided in
    Word format and MUST NOT exceed a total of 10 pages, including
    attachments. Witnesses and submitters are advised that the Committee
    relies on electronic submissions for printing the official hearing
    record.

        2. Copies of whole documents submitted as exhibit material will not
    be accepted for printing. Instead, exhibit material should be
    referenced and quoted or paraphrased. All exhibit material not meeting
    these specifications will be maintained in the Committee files for
    review and use by the Committee.

        3. All submissions must include a list of all clients, persons,
    and/or organizations on whose behalf the witness appears. A
    supplemental sheet must accompany each submission listing the name,
    company, address, telephone, and fax numbers of each witness.

        The Committee seeks to make its facilities accessible to persons
    with disabilities. If you are in need of special accommodations, please
    call 202-225-1721 or 202-226-3411 TDD/TTY in advance of the event (four
    business days notice is requested). Questions with regard to special
    accommodation needs in general (including availability of Committee
    materials in alternative formats) may be directed to the Committee as
    noted above.

        Note: All Committee advisories and news releases are available
    online at http://www.waysandmeans.house.gov/.

        Chairman REICHERT. I call this Subcommittee meeting to
    order. We welcome you to today's hearing. I can't think of a
    more important or more bipartisan topic than promoting
    adoption. This is an area where both parties have worked
    together to improve outcomes for children, which is what I
    would like to do whenever possible as the Chairman of this
    Subcommittee. I know Mr. Doggett agrees with that goal, and I
    look forward to working with all the Members to work
    productively toward that end. Of course, we won't always agree,
    but whether it involves adoption, data standards, or preventing
    wasteful spending, there is a lot we can do, and should do,
    together.
        As Mr. Doggett mentioned, I have a background with 33 years
    in law enforcement, but also some personal experience in the
    adoption/foster care arena. Two of my grandchildren are
    adopted. I was a foster grandparent for a while for a number of
    children and also now, of course, an adoptive grandfather, and
    we are very proud of the fact that my daughter and her husband,
    my son-in-law, have adopted two little children: Emma, who was
    a crack cocaine, heroin-addicted baby when she was born; and
    Breyer, who was a meth-addicted baby when he was born. And you
    can imagine some of the challenges they now face as they grow
    older at 9 and 10 years old. But they now have a strong
    foundation, a loving family, and a good, strong base to start
    their lives from, which gives them so many more opportunities
    than they would have had.
        On the other hand, as the sheriff and as a detective, a
    homicide detective, working in King County--and especially my
    memory goes back to the days working the Green River murder
    cases, if you are familiar with those, a series of murders of
    street people, women and young girls, 51 cases were closed. The
    suspect pled guilty to 49 murders. I worked with a lot of those
    young kids on the street. Those were kids who were in and out
    of foster homes, who weren't adopted, who were in their teens,
    early teens and late teens, some even younger. I would get
    calls at night at home: ``I am at a phone booth, I ran away
    from my foster home.'' You take them to the YWCA and the YMCA;
    they run away from there.
        You folks on the panel know this, have seen this
    yourselves, and have experience there. I know members on this
    panel have heart for this issue, and I wanted to share those
    stories with you so that you understand how close this is to me
    personally in so many different ways. And I could tell so many
    other stories, but we will move on.
        As I said, not every child has been so lucky to have a
    home. For example, in the 10 years from 1987 through 1997, the
    number of children in foster care rose dramatically, climbing
    from 300,000 to 537,000. That surge in foster care caseloads is
    one of the reasons why Congress, led by our current Chairman
    Dave Camp, passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.
    That law was designed to ensure more foster children were
    quickly adopted when they couldn't return to live safely with
    their parents.
        The Adoption Incentives program, created as part of that
    law, was one key measure to encourage more adoption of children
    from foster care. In short, it rewards States if they increase
    the number of children leaving foster care for adoptive homes.
    We all know it worked. Since the passage of the Adoption and
    Safe Families Act, foster care caseloads have fallen
    dramatically. After peaking at 567,000 in 1999, foster care
    caseloads have fallen by almost 30 percent. At the same time,
    adoptions from foster care increased in the late 1990s and
    remain much higher than before the law's passage.
        Today we will review how the Adoption Incentives program
    supported these improvements. We will hear directly from
    adoption experts, including from organizations that have proven
    they can increase the number of children adopted from foster
    care, and we will start to consider whether we need to make
    changes to encourage even more adoptions.
        In my view, the Federal Government should continue to
    support efforts to increase adoptions, as there are still over
    100,000 children in foster care waiting to be adopted. These
    kids deserve a place to call home. They need someone who will
    commit to caring for them, and they deserve our best efforts to
    ensure that they are adopted.
        Again, I look forward to the testimony of all of our
    witnesses today and also thank you so much for your patience. I
    am really interested in how we can work together to ensure more
    children grow up in a safe, loving, and permanent family.
        Without objection, each Member will have the opportunity to
    submit a written statement and have it included in the record
    at this point.
        I would like to recognize Mr. Doggett for his opening
    statement.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I believe that our Federal Adoption Incentives program,
    which provides financial awards to the States that increase the
    number of children adopted out of foster care above a certain
    baseline, is an important part of the effort, the joint
    bipartisan effort, to try to encourage permanent loving homes
    for children who are placed in foster care. These awards are
    due--and this program is due to expire at the end of September,
    not that far from now, and I am hopeful that we will be able to
    work together to reauthorize the program.
        Under the Adoption Incentives program, the States become
    eligible for awards if they increase the number of total
    adoptions, those for children over age 9 that are adopted, and
    the adoption of children with special needs. The goal of the
    program is to incentivize and encourage the States to increase
    the adoptions out of foster care and to quickly move children
    who are unable to return to their parents into permanent homes.
    States must reinvest these payments back into services, such as
    postadoption services for children and families and other
    services generally provided under the child welfare system.
        Forty-three million dollars is available for the program in
    this fiscal year. Since the program was created, as the
    Chairman described, roughly $375 million has been awarded, and
    every State in the country has participated in the funding. In
    fiscal year 2011, Texas, my home State, received about $7
    million in incentives, the largest amount of any State in the
    country. San Antonio has been viewed as a particular model of
    success.
        Bexar County has been creative in safely moving children
    into permanent homes. Each month there at the county
    courthouse, the county hosts an adoption day event that allows
    dozens of families on the same day to complete their adoptions
    in a single day, and that happens every month. These
    proceedings have allowed countless children to have shorter
    stays in foster care and move more quickly into stable homes. I
    believe that judges in Bexar County understand they are
    responsible for getting children who experience abuse and
    neglect into a safer foster environment and, in addition, are
    responsible for placing that child with a permanent family if
    it does not become safe for the child to return home.
        These improvements to the local adoption system, encouraged
    and utilized by child advocates like District Judge Peter
    Sakai, who has been a leader in the area over the last decade,
    and CASA San Antonio, have allowed faster and more efficient
    placement of foster youth into permanent families.
        We will hear from all of our witnesses finally this
    afternoon, but specifically I share the concern that I believe
    Nicole Dobbins will be expressing about the lack of clarity
    regarding how the States use these award payments. I know that
    some States under budget pressures have tended to use the
    Federal money for perhaps what they had been doing previously,
    and I think it is important
    that our Federal resources add to, not supplant money that was
    already being invested on adoption activities. The inclusion of
    a maintenance-of-effort requirement as part of reauthorization
    could help us ensure that the dollars that are so precious here
    that we are expending are actually being used to improve and
    strengthen child welfare.
        I welcome the opportunity to discuss how we can continue to
    increase adoptions for children in foster care, but I do think
    one step that is important is to avoid any cuts in these
    modest, federally-funded adoption initiatives that will occur
    within just a few days under the sequester. Cutting funding for
    this program could
    mean less funding for postadoption services for families that
    have adopted a foster child, or less funding to recruit
    adoptive homes through online adoption exchanges and
    promotional materials, or less support for training adoption
    workers.
        Another issue that requires our attention this year is the
    more recent Family Connection grants initiative. It is also
    scheduled to expire at the end of September. It has provided
    $15 million each year in grants for State agencies and
    community organizations. It has been a more narrow program, but
    it is designed to connect or reconnect children with their
    biological relatives when it is safe and appropriate to do so.
    This small program, fairly new, created only in 2008, is
    currently being evaluated, but it looks like a program, from
    the preliminary review that I have seen, that could be
    effective in improving the lives of at-risk children.
        I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses and
    working with our colleagues to continue to improve the well-
    being of all children in foster care.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Doggett.
        I want to remind our witnesses to limit their oral
    testimony to 5 minutes. However, without objection, all of the
    written testimony will be made part of the permanent record.
        On our panel this afternoon we will be hearing from Rita
    Soronen, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Dave
    Thomas Foundation for Adoption; Kelly Rosati, Vice President of
    Community Outreach, Focus on the Family; Pat O'Brien, Founder
    and Executive Director, You Gotta Believe! The Older Child
    Adoption & Permanency Movement, Incorporated; and Nicole
    Dobbins, Executive Director, Voice for Adoption.
        Ms. Soronen, you are recognized.

      STATEMENT OF RITA L. SORONEN, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
              OFFICER, DAVE THOMAS FOUNDATION FOR ADOPTION

        Ms. SORONEN. Thank you, Chairman and Members of the
    Committee. I am Rita Soronen, President and CEO of the Dave
    Thomas Foundation for Adoption. I am honored to be with you
    today.
        I would like to start with a short video before I make my
    comments, and I think that is cued to run.
        [Video shown.]
        Sometimes a video can say it all, but I will try to sum it
    up in a few words as well.
        You all know, and thank you for your comments, that
    children come into the child welfare system through no fault of
    their own. They are victims of traumatic abuse and neglect, and
    when they are permanently freed for adoption, our promise to
    them is that we will find them a family. Last year in this
    country, we negligently failed to live up to our promise of a
    family for more than 26,000 children who aged out of care.
        This child-focused recruitment model, or Wendy's Wonderful
    Kids, that was developed, tested, and, until 2012, privately
    funded by the foundation, proves that there is a family for
    every child. We started the program with 7 pilot sites in 2004
    and now provide individual grant commitments to public and
    private agencies that support 169 adoption professionals in 49
    States, the District of Columbia, and 4 provinces in Canada. We
    have served 8,800 children, 3,400 of whom have had a finalized
    adoption, and another 500 are in their preadoptive placement,
    and these numbers are even more compelling when we understand
    the children successfully served.
        The average age of a child served through this program is
    12. At the point of referral into Wendy's Wonderful Kids, 30
    percent of these children had already experienced six or more
    placements, and 50 percent had been in care 4 years or more.
    Half of the children have at least one identified clinical
    disability, and one in five of these children have already had
    a failed or a disrupted adoption. Critically, prior to Wendy's
    Wonderful Kids, more than half of these children had
    experienced no adoption recruitment activities on their behalf,
    none.
        Child-focused recruitment demands that rather than ignoring
    these children because of a perception of unadoptability, or
    casting a broad net of general recruitment, or funding public
    displays of children, experienced adoption professionals work a
    model that includes smaller caseloads of typically harder-to-
    place children, intensive contact with the child and others,
    extensive case file review, diligent search for families and
    expert adoption preparation, and we know this works at a cost-
    effective level.
        For example, before the State of Ohio took our program to
    scale, their fiscal experts estimated our grant commitments of
    $3 million for seven Ohio recruiters had already saved nearly
    $32 million for the State of Ohio. With a financial partnership
    that added 32 more recruiters focusing on youth, they
    anticipated savings of more than $105,000,000.
        Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, no child has to
    age out of care, hoping to make it on their own in this complex
    world. We can and we must keep our promise of finding families
    for all of our children. I will welcome your comments at the
    end of the testimonies.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Soronen follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you for your testimony.
        Ms. Rosati, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

     STATEMENT OF KELLY ROSATI, J.D., VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNITY
                     OUTREACH, FOCUS ON THE FAMILY

        Ms. ROSATI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the
    Committee. It is an honor to be here. I am very grateful that
    this is the subject of your hearing today, and it is a
    privilege to be able to be a part of it.
        My name is Kelly Rosati, as you said, and I am the Vice
    President of Community Outreach at Focus on the Family, and as
    a part of our community outreach, Wait No More, our event to
    focus on foster care adoption recruitment, is a cornerstone of
    our work.
        Focus on the Family is a donor-supported, global Christian
    ministry that reaches about 238 million people in 130
    countries, and as I said, we are very passionate about foster
    care adoption. Our President, Jim Daly, was, in fact, orphaned
    as a child and lived in the foster care system, and so part of
    that experience has been what fuels his passion for this.
        I am blessed. My husband and I are parents to four
    children, who came to us through the blessing of foster care
    adoption, three of whom have special needs, the kind that are
    the subject of the children who are still waiting for families.
        Wait No More began in 2008, and the idea was that we would
    use the voice and the reach of Focus on the Family to try to
    increase awareness about the needs of kids that are in foster
    care that need families, just like we saw in that video, and
    the idea was that we would partner with local child welfare
    officials, adoption agencies, church and ministry leaders in a
    given community to try to work collaboratively to raise
    awareness and help recruit families for these kids.
        Since 2008, we have had 15 Wait No More events in 12
    States, and we have had some very encouraging outcomes. We have
    seen 8,300 attendees at our events, representing 4,700
    families. We have worked with 200 county, State, private
    agencies and ministries all across the United States, and those
    folks that have attended have represented 2,100 different
    churches in communities across the country.
        The best news of all, though, is that at the end of the day
    at these events, we have seen more than 2,100 families who have
    begun the process of foster care adoption. They are beginning
    this process with a full understanding of the challenges that
    they are about to encounter.
        Frankly, one of the things that we do at our events is that
    we give the attendees the opportunity to hear perspectives from
    adoptive parents, to hear the perspective from young adults who
    were adopted as teenagers or as a part of sibling groups. We
    give them the opportunity to hear from social workers about
    what the process is going to be like and what some of the
    barriers may be. And, frankly, we talk an awful lot and almost,
    you could say, try to talk them out of it in a way, because we
    want them to be very serious that this is about the needs of
    the child. And again, as you saw in the great messaging on the
    video, it is about the needs of the child, not the wants and
    desires of the adults.
        We are talking specifically about teenagers, sibling
    groups, and kids with special needs, and so that is why we are
    encouraged that knowing all of that, knowing some of the
    barriers and the challenges, including the specific behaviors
    that they may encounter, and why they may encounter those
    behaviors, and what strategies might be effective in helping
    that child, after all of that we have seen more than 2,000
    families that have begun the process of foster care adoption.
        We are very passionate and committed to postadoption
    support. We want to have integrity in recruiting these families
    for our kids, and we want to also be there for them after the
    fact, when they encounter difficulties, and so as a part of
    that commitment, we have spent an equal amount of money on
    complementary postadoption support for families. We have
    provided about 50,000 units of resources that are designed to
    be adoption competent to meet
    the needs of the families. We have trained 200 counselors
    across
    the country in partnership with Texas Christian University's
    Insti-
    tute on Child Development; we have helped train them to have a
    greater adoption competency. We underwrite the training, we pay
    for it, but we say to them in return, we ask that you would
    provide counseling to a family at no cost to the family so that
    we can increase access to the kind of help our families need.
        We have a 1-800 hotline that families are able to call.
    Actually it is a warm line where they can receive free
    counseling and also referrals then to adoption-competent
    counselors in their areas.
        Finally, I would like to say, as you think about barriers
    to adoption and to increasing foster care adoption, one thing
    to be mindful of, I suppose, is the fact that I think we have
    perverse disincentives built into the system. So right now if
    you are a teenager in foster care, you may have access to
    certain benefits, including mental health services and
    postsecondary education, if you stay in foster care, but if you
    choose a family, you don't have access to those same benefits,
    and we don't believe that children should have to choose
    between those things.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Rosati follows:]

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        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you for your testimony.
        Mr. O'Brien, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

       STATEMENT OF PAT O'BRIEN, MS, LMSW, FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE
        DIRECTOR, YOU GOTTA BELIEVE! THE OLDER CHILD ADOPTION &
                   PERMANENCY MOVEMENT, INCORPORATED

        Mr. O'BRIEN. Thank you.
        I am Pat O'Brien, founder and CEO of You Gotta Believe! The
    Older Child Adoption & Permanency Movement, an organization
    that first and foremost considers itself a homelessness
    prevention program. And the way we prevent homelessness is to
    find permanent parents for teens and young adults before they
    are discharged from the foster care system to no one but
    themselves.
        When we started You Gotta Believe back in 1995, I noticed
    an interesting statistic when homeless populations were
    surveyed. In every survey we looked at, over half the homeless
    reported having grown up in foster care as youth. They had
    actually come into our system for their own safety and well-
    being, only to be placed in harm's way when they were
    discharged from the very same system.
        I believe the sad result is the direct product of two
    primary barriers. The first barrier is simple: Lack of belief
    that we can find permanent parents for teens and young adults
    as they are aging out of foster care. This lack of belief keeps
    laws from being created that would mandate concurrent planning
    at the exit end of the system. My over 25 years of experience
    has taught me that our child welfare system must never stop
    recruiting permanent parents for children at any age that they
    are at risk of aging out to our Nation's streets.
        The second barrier is actually a child welfare permanency
    planning goal referred to or called in the law Some Other
    Planned Permanent Living Arrangement which May Include a
    Residential Educational Program. Many in our field refer to
    this permanency planning goal as Another Planned Permanent
    Living Arrangement, or APPLA.
        APPLA is focused on preparing youth for adulthood. APPLA
    focuses on skills development and teaching youngsters the
    important skills to survive in the world on their own. And
    though skills development in preparing for adulthood is very
    important, there are still very few, if any, young people in
    the general population, including yours and my children who are
    over 21, making it on their own without the help of their
    parents.
        For example, as you know, the overwhelming majority of 22-
    year-old college graduates who come from fairly well-off one-
    or two-parent families return home to their parents after they
    graduate college with a 4-year bachelor's degree.
        But we, as a child welfare system, are putting youth
    between the ages of 18 and 21 in harm's way without even trying
    to get them permanent parents before they are discharged from
    our foster care system because there is no law that mandates
    even the effort.
        So how do we find permanent parents for aging-out youth?
    You Gotta Believe has a three-pronged approach. The first we
    call the friend's approach. You see, once you believe that a
    permanent parent must be found for every youth before they age
    out of care, the first place you look for this permanent parent
    is by talking to the constructive adults who are already in an
    individual young person's life. And when we identify someone
    who is known to the youth, we ask these folks to take a 10-week
    learning experience we call Adopting Older Kids and Youth, or
    A-OKAY, to see if making a lifetime commitment to this young
    person they so much care about is something that they can do.
        Our statistics and research show us that this is the single
    most effective way to recruit a lifetime parent for youth aging
    out of care. During a 4-year period under a Federal adoption
    opportunities demonstration grant, it took nearly 1,000
    prospective applicants from the general public to walk through
    our door to get 37 young people a parent. However, during the
    same 4-year period, it only took 154 prospective applicants to
    walk through our doors who knew a teen to get 83 young people
    placed in a lifetime family. This approach is a simple, highly
    efficient means of recruiting permanent parents for aging-out
    teens.
        Our second approach is the acquaintances approach. There
    are many young people in the system where it is believed by the
    people around them that they have no constructive adults in
    their lives. For these youth we set up opportunities for them
    to share the same time and space with our prospective and
    certified families. We do this by bringing young people into
    our A-OKAY parent preparation classes as consultants to teach
    our prospective families what it is like to be a teen growing
    up in foster care.
        Many families who come forward having no interest in
    adoptive teens have decided a teen on our panel was someone
    they could adopt. Dozens and dozens of youth have been placed
    as a direct result of sharing the same time and space and
    becoming acquaintances with the prospective and certified
    families who have taken our A-OKAY course. This is the second-
    best way.
        The third approach is community education. Years ago our
    organization realized that we were having little success trying
    to sell what we were doing to the general public in 15- or 30-
    second sound bites. That is why we created our own media, both
    TV and radio. These broadcasts serve a local purpose of
    recruiting local parents and a more global purpose by inspiring
    the rest of the world by introducing them to the wonderful
    youth who need permanent families and the parents who adopt
    them, all in one-half hour thoughtful interviews and
    conversations.
        Finally, where should adoption incentive rewards be
    reinvested? There are two equally important areas. The first is
    funding to continue to recruit the very permanent parents that
    we know are out there for each and every youth. Reinvesting
    these incentive dollars to utilize the three strategies noted
    above would be an impactful way to get more youth into
    permanent families before they are discharged from the foster
    care system.
        Parents and families are the foundation and springboard to
    every child's future. Parents and families give youth access to
    the village we so often talk about needing to raise children.
    It sure does take a village to raise a child, but only if the
    child has a parent in that village to provide the foundation he
    or she needs. This is equally true for the 18-, 19-, 20- or 21-
    year-old as it is for the infant, toddler, latency-age, and
    tween-age child.
        Second, we must support families after the youth move in.
    Almost all the youth at the age range we place had serious
    trauma in their lives. We prepare parents for what to expect,
    but we must also be there to support them during their hard
    times.
        If we could provide these two basic adoption services, then
    each youth will have what the child welfare system promised
    them when they first came into foster care, and that promise
    was a home that provides safety, the opportunity for well-
    being, and a permanent parent and family who will be there for
    them long after their years in foster care are over.
        I want to thank you very much for the time.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. O'Brien follows:]

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        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. O'Brien.
        Ms. Dobbins, you are recognized.

                     STATEMENT OF NICOLE DOBBINS,
                 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, VOICE FOR ADOPTION

        Ms. DOBBINS. Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of the
    Subcommittee, I direct an organization that is an advocacy
    organization called Voice for Adoption. Our members recruit
    families, and they provide postadoption support services.
        I would like to shed light on four key areas within my
    time: The rate of adoption from foster care is increasing, but
    adoption of older youth continues to be a struggle. Our aging-
    out youth population you heard about, we need to connect them
    to permanency before exiting. Postadoption services is a
    critical need identified, but there are a lack of resources to
    support these efforts. And lastly, accountability for Federal
    funds that have been dedicated to adoption, we need to make
    sure that we are reviewing those to ensure that reinvestment is
    happening as required by law.
        The Fostering Connections Act as well as the ASFA of 1997
    took great strides in increasing adoptions. The rate of
    adoption has increased by 77 percent, but more needs to be
    done.
        Consistent with the national number of children in foster
    care decreasing, so is the number of children waiting to be
    adopted. As adoption populations decline, States won't be able
    to continue to meet and exceed the rates they are basing their
    adoption incentives on, which is fiscal year 2007.
        Voice for Adoption recommends adjusting the baseline level
    so that more current levels are reflected so that the Adoption
    Incentives program can continue to be an effective approach.
        We also request that detailed reports on the number of
    adoptions by each category be reported by HHS, because
    currently only information about the amounts is being reported.
    It is hard to have a clear picture of what types of increases
    States are having because of this amount-only information being
    reported.
        Despite the achievements we have seen, connecting waiting
    children with adoptive families still is a struggle within
    these States. It is critical that we find ways to increase the
    likelihood of adoption of older youth, and as you understand
    from what you have heard, promising practices for older youth
    differ from that of young children. These efforts include a
    variety of things that should be strengthened, encouraged at
    the State level, including youth engagement, permanency
    planning, smaller caseloads, intensive family finding, kinship
    connections, and reunification efforts when possible. Voice for
    Adoption recommends reauthorizing the Family Connection grant.
        Another way we see to continue to promote the effective
    practices to encourage State leverage of public-private
    partnerships is to promote a key provision of the Fostering
    Connections Act, which is the Federal Title IV-E reimbursement
    training for a range of services. We believe that this benefit
    has not yet--the expansion has not yet been realized, and we
    recommend that some clarity in successful State examples be
    pushed through HHS, specifically toward effective models that
    we know work for adopting children, specifically older
    children.
        When we take these youth from their homes, we know that we
    have an obligation to create better circumstances for them, and
    right now as a system we are failing older youth. An area that
    warrants greater examination is something you have already
    heard about, the APPLA case goal. It replaced long-term foster
    care in the legislation 16 years ago, but we fear, and there is
    a growing concern in the field, that it simply changed the
    terminology and not the trajectory of these young people's
    lives.
        Voice for Adoption recommends providing incentives to
    States for the reduction of youth who exit without permanent
    connections. Furthermore, I urge the Committee to hold future
    hearings on this specific issue.
        I have two last points. Postadoption services help adoptive
    families and children move through the stages of becoming a
    family, especially children who have been adopted from foster
    care, as they work through past traumas and strengthen the
    family as a unit. The Federal Government has invested millions
    of dollars into increasing adoptions without reciprocal
    mandates to services to support these families after
    finalization.
        There has been a great deal of research about the quality
    of postadoption services, and parents sometimes are faced with
    seeing practitioners who don't understand the dynamics, which
    escalates the issues. For this we recommend greater development
    of implementation of adoption-competent mental health providers
    and appropriate funding streams to accomplish this goal.
    Specifically we recommend that States be required to use the
    adoption incentive bonuses to meet the needs of families
    postadoption.
        Lastly, I would like to highlight an issue that you may be
    interested in, which is the Fostering Connections maintenance-
    of-efforts provision that came out of the Federal de-link for
    the adoption assistance. States are seeing a greater increase
    in their budgets. Due to this, the Congressional Budget Office
    scored the Fostering Connections Act at a $1.4 billion savings
    to States. The Federal Government required States to reinvest
    the savings back into child welfare and adoption services, but
    despite legislative attempts, it has been unclear whether these
    funds are being reinvested.
        As States continue to accrue savings on what they would
    have been spending on State adoption assistance, there is an
    even greater opportunity for the investment in making sure that
    postadoption services are available. With that, we recommend
    that a percentage of these funds be designated if no other
    funds are, and that public reporting of these uses by States
    are reported by HHS.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Dobbins follows:]

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        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you.
        And now we move into the question phase, so we will have an
    opportunity to use up 5 minutes and ask you some questions,
    too.
        We will focus on some of those things you just mentioned to
    us in your testimony. For example, in fiscal year 2011, HHS
    reported that there were over 38,000 children who had been in
    foster care for over 5 years. In the same year over 26,000 kids
    aged out of foster care with no permanent family connection,
    and this, again, was a point most of you made during your
    testimony.
        Why do some of these kids stay in foster care so long?
        Ms. SORONEN. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee,
    based on our experience with this child-focused program across
    the Nation, in all of the States, what we see are a number of
    layers of challenges to getting these children out of care. You
    saw the ``unadoptable'' word. Unfortunately, with lack of
    training at the feet-to-the-ground level with social workers to
    show that the children on their caseload are adoptable, we hear
    time and again caseworkers assuming that they can't be adopted,
    so let's put our resources into helping them age out of care.
    So first we have to train, I think, the frontline workers a
    little bit better about these children, their needs, and their
    adoptability.
        We also have the very children themselves who have suffered
    such trauma in their lives, who have moved--what I didn't share
    is 10 percent of the children in the Wendy's Wonderful Kids
    program had moved 10 or more times before they landed on the
    caseloads. So when a child moves multiple times, attends
    multiple schools, there is no reason to trust a notion of an
    adoptive family being any better for them. But what we found is
    when we had dedicated adoption recruiters who could work with
    those children, talk to them, explain and maybe work away some
    of their fears about simple things like changing their name or
    that they may not have to move again, the value of a family,
    the majority of the children who had previously been opposed to
    adoption then moved toward considering adoption. This is
    critical because those are the children who express a voice in
    court, and the court makes a designation of another planned
    permanent living arrangement or long-term foster care for that
    child.
        So it is that sort of devil's mix of wanting to respect a
    child's wishes, but sometimes those wishes are based on further
    trauma in the system that has said to them, I don't want to be
    adopted. So training for the frontline workers, I think, and
    making sure that they are working with the children so that
    they can understand the value of adoption.
        Chairman REICHERT. I am going to follow up on that just a
    little bit. On page 3 of your testimony, you noted that half
    the children Wendy's Wonderful Kids worked with never
    previously had anyone work with them to find an adoptive home.
    Are there any Federal policies that contribute to that or other
    reasons why children might stay in foster care so long without
    anyone helping them or finding them an adoptive home?
        Ms. SORONEN. I don't think so much there are Federal
    policies that push that they stay in care, but the way that we
    have trained our workers to deal with older youth has not been
    beneficial to getting them out of care. So putting their face
    on a website, for example, is one tactic, but then that
    charismatic wish that someone will see their face and come
    adopt them, let's face it, when we are all in a social setting,
    and we talk about teenagers, we all kind of screw up our faces.
    In just normal families teenagers are a challenge. Imagine a
    teenager who has been in care for 10 years, who has multiple
    challenges, who has pushed back against adoption, and a worker
    simply stops working on their behalf and says, what I think is
    best for this child is moving forward, and parents aren't
    stepping forward, either.
        So I think it is we can't legislate changing attitudes, but
    we can show success, that these children can be served, that
    they can be adopted and help drive a public will for getting
    them adopted.
        Chairman REICHERT. Yes. One of the biggest frustrations I
    had working on the street and working with kids, was trying to
    get them convinced that they were adoptable, that they could
    move into an adoptive home. So I have been a witness to that. I
    think you are very accurate in your description.
        One last quick question. Mr. O'Brien, your organization
    works with youth who are close to aging out of foster care. Why
    have those kids been waiting so long, in your view?
        Mr. O'BRIEN. In my view, it is because no law mandates that
    we must continue to never stop looking for a family. Almost all
    of those kids are receiving APPLA services, teaching them to
    prepare for adulthood, when they have everything provided for
    them up until a certain birthday, whether it is 18, 19, 20 or
    21, and then after that birthday they have been prepared for
    aging out, they age out, and they have absolutely nothing
    provided for them.
        If at the exact same time we were preparing them for
    adulthood we never stopped looking for a family, by law we
    would have found many, many more kids, because the crime is not
    not finding the family, the crime is not even having to look
    for the family, and when kids get old, we don't have to look.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you so much for your answers.
        And, Mr. Doggett, you are recognized for 5 minutes for
    questioning.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to each of
    our witnesses not only for your testimony, but for the devotion
    you show to this very important and challenging cause.
        The small role that we can play relates to the
    reauthorization of these two specific laws, and I gather that
    each of you favor our reauthorizing the Adoption Incentives
    program. Have you had--I believe, Ms. Dobbins, you mentioned
    the Family Connection grants, which is the newer program. Have
    any of our other witnesses, have you had experience with that
    program, and do you favor its reauthorization?
        Mr. O'BRIEN. Well, I mean, I would certainly favor anything
    that is good for kids.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Right.
        Mr. O'BRIEN. It is just that it almost avoids the real
    issue. I mean, as we are providing more and more services, we
    are not--there is no mandate to continue working with kids to
    try to get them parents at the same time. So I would absolutely
    recommend the reauthorization of it, but I would like it a
    little bit stronger where there is a mandate to look for
    families at the same time.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Ms. Rosati.
        Ms. ROSATI. I would like to add that I think not only do we
    not have that mandate, we unintentionally create these
    incentives that end up pushing things to the outcomes that none
    of us would actually desire. And so as the issue that I
    mentioned, sometimes you may have benefits that are there for a
    child only when that child stays in the system and ages out of
    the system, so that if you are a parent--if you are a foster
    parent in the life of that child, or if you are an acquaintance
    or a friend, and you have a connection there, and you want that
    child to support--to be supported, to go to college, or to
    access the mental health services that they may need, you can't
    also say, let's go ahead and I will adopt you and be your
    forever family, because the minute you do that, you are going
    to sometimes in some places then lose the opportunity to go to
    college, lose the opportunity for the mental health services
    that you need that will be the foundation for a successful life
    going forward. And so I think replacing some of those
    disincentives in the system would also go a long way to
    providing the outcomes that we all desire.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you.
        Ms. Dobbins.
        Ms. DOBBINS. Yes, I just want to make a point trying to get
    to both questions there. One of the questions is how come kids
    stay in care so long. There is a correlation between placement
    setting of children in care, especially for older youth. A lot
    of older youth are in group home facilities, congregate care
    settings. What we know about those youth is that recruitment
    efforts don't typically happen, but what we have seen with
    Family Connection grants, at least preliminary evaluations, is
    that these are actual efforts in reviewing caseloads for some
    of the harder children to find homes for, which are the
    intensive family findings, so who are the relatives of these
    children.
        And so, again, back to the correlation, if, you know, we
    have large populations of older youth in these facilities, then
    those are the ones not getting the attention that they really
    need to be working down some of the things that we talked about
    of, you know, what are their fears, do they want to be adopted,
    can we convince them that, you know, there is a family that
    wants them and that kind of thing.
        So I hope that kind of answers both questions. I think the
    Family Connection grants start to work toward the practice that
    we are seeing greater improvements in.
        Mr. DOGGETT. And why is it that we need additional data
    from HHS? And I guess in turn they are getting that from the
    States.
        Ms. DOBBINS. Additional data on which, I am sorry?
        Mr. DOGGETT. You indicated in your testimony that you
    wanted to see HHS reports by category. I am just asking you to
    expand on that.
        Ms. DOBBINS. Oh, a very good question.
        Mr. DOGGETT. I assume that means also they are requiring
    that from the States.
        Ms. DOBBINS. I am sure they are. I just haven't seen
    reporting at, you know, the public level, because, you know,
    what is reported is how much States actually earn, but I think
    it is important to also know what States are receiving the
    bonuses for, so in which categories? Are they receiving them
    because they are increasing the adoptions of older youth ages 9
    and older; or is it because they are increasing the special
    needs adoptions; or is it because their rates of adoption are
    increasing, which is something important to note, because the
    rates of adoption are only provided as an incentive to States
    if there is money left over in the allotment? And so what we
    have seen is that rates of adoption have increased, but are
    there States that possibly have rate increases, but can't reach
    the individual adoptions over a certain baseline that aren't
    getting the incentives because that is an afterlook?
        And so that is a question of, you know, a better reporting
    on the categories, or at least a deeper look into this as it is
    being reauthorized.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Do the maintenance-of-effort requirements need
    to be altered?
        Ms. DOBBINS. That is actually another issue. The
    maintenance of effort from the IV-E adoption assistance de-link
    is another issue. The Federal Government did a great job of
    legislating that these reinvestments do need to go back into
    child welfare services, but what we have seen is we are not
    really sure where they are going. We had hoped that States were
    spending them in the right places, but there is not a good
    reporting of that. And at Voice for Adoption we do believe
    since this money is coming from increasing adoptions, and we
    want to support that, that a modest percentage of that, 20
    percent, be dedicated to continuing to support these families
    so that we are not seeing families, you know, disrupted and
    that their needs for trauma and abuse are looked at at the, you
    know, family level.
        Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you.
        Chairman REICHERT. The gentleman's time has expired.
        Mr. Young is recognized.
        Mr. YOUNG. Well, I thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
    Member. This is a very important topic. I appreciate everyone's
    patience and presence here today. I know it has been a long
    day.
        Lowering barriers to adoption and to supporting families
    postadoption, I think there has been a Federal precedent for
    this effort. It is something we need to make sure that we
    continue and improve upon, and so your testimony has been
    helpful in guiding us in that regard.
        I will start off with this question for anyone on the
    panel, feel free to respond, but from the standpoint of those
    who are seeking to adopt a child from foster care, how
    efficiently do the various Federal and State programs
    supporting adoption appear to work together, in your
    estimation?
        And as you think about answering that, there may be some
    particular areas of focus that you want to attend to; perhaps
    the information that would-be adoptive parents need to access
    tax credits supporting adoption, do they receive sufficient
    information? Do they receive sufficient information about
    maintenance payments for children with special needs? Are they
    told of postadoption services from programs like Promoting Safe
    and Stable Families and Child Welfare Services?
        I will leave this open to the panel.
        Ms. DOBBINS. Yes, I will try to take a stab at that.
        I think one thing you mentioned specifically that I would
    like to touch on is the adoption tax credit. What we have seen
    with the changes in the adoption tax credit that have happened
    in the last few years is that a lot of adoptive families are
    not able to access it because they don't have a tax liability
    high enough. I can follow up; there is great information behind
    this. So that is one issue. So it became refundable in 2010 for
    2 years.
        It takes a certain amount of time and effort for that
    information to trickle down from the Federal level to States,
    to families, to caseworkers, and what we have seen most
    recently that when it was just reauthorized in January, it was
    not refundable, and for 2012 it is not. But what families were
    told, and we keep hearing from families, that it was
    refundable, so they were looking forward to using those
    services, that money, to support, you know, their children
    after adoption. So there is a lack of, you know, what knowledge
    is really getting to the families, and so that could be shored
    up.
        There was one other question that I wanted to get to.
        Mr. YOUNG. I will actually be coming back to you.
        Would others like a crack at that question?
        Ms. ROSATI. Yes. As someone who went through the process
    four times, I think those are really great questions. We were
    not aware of the adoption tax credit in the beginning. I guess
    for some reason we just assumed it was only for intercountry
    adoption and not for foster care adoption, so we missed it for
    one or two kids. That was a bummer. But we were then able to
    access it after the fact.
        I think that for the families that are going through the
    process, things are pretty overwhelming. The amount of
    paperwork is overwhelming, the time that things take can be
    overwhelming, the level of intrusiveness that it feels like
    into your life can be pretty overwhelming.
        I don't say all of those things, however, to say that we
    need to change them all. I actually have a little bit of a
    counterintuitive perspective on that. I think if you are going
    to welcome home a child who has experienced previous trauma,
    you have to be ready for a lot of situations that do not fall
    under the umbrella of nor-
    mal parenting, and so when you go through these processes that,
    frankly, are very difficult, I actually think it helps prepare
    you for the difficulty to come. And so I think there is a
    balance in how much we want to streamline.
        Mr. YOUNG. Sure.
        Ms. ROSATI. And so many of the processes, of course, are
    for safety, and so there is really not much that should be
    done.
        Mr. YOUNG. Thank you.
        I am going to follow up with Ms. Dobbins in my remaining
    time here. You mentioned a menu of different policy options
    that are available to us to both promote more adoptions and
    perhaps improve those postadoption connections. Mr. Doggett, I
    think, questioned you about more detailed HHS reporting. It
    makes great sense to me.
        You mentioned State examples of best practices need to be
    better enforced or regulated by HHS. If you could briefly--we
    have about 30 seconds left--indicate what you are referring to
    there or speak to the reduction of incentives for States that
    do not end up with permanent connections at a high level.
        Ms. DOBBINS. I think one thing is the IV-E training. We
    talked a lot about practices. I think it could be encouraged,
    especially with public and private partnerships, by using good
    examples of what this looks like. There is a reimbursement
    level that can be expanded, and--sorry, I am blanking on the
    next thing, but I hope that answers your question. I am happy
    to follow up after.
        Mr. YOUNG. That is all right.
        I yield back. Thank you.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you.
        The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Griffin is
    recognized.
        Mr. GRIFFIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Ms. Rosati, I want to ask what are your funding sources for
    each of your groups, and how much of that is composed of State
    funding or Federal funding versus private sources?
        Ms. ROSATI. We receive no government funding. We are funded
    by the generosity of our donors. And we are able to go into the
    areas that we work and essentially pay for the events ourselves
    so that we are able to hopefully add to the good work that has
    already been done in the community. And I think one of the
    reasons we are received well is that we are not asking for
    funds, we want to contribute our funds if they would like to
    have us.
        Mr. GRIFFIN. Before I hear from the others, I just want to
    ask you, does that model represent a very unique sort of small
    percentage of the groups that assist, in your experience?
        Ms. ROSATI. It seems like it, because people are pretty
    shocked and happy when we come in and offer that we want to
    contribute our resources to make those efforts work. So we are
    not aware of too many other things like that, but we are really
    happy to be a part of the good work that is already going on on
    the ground. And the public-private partnership is key. Having
    all of those stakeholders working together has been a real key
    to the success.
        Mr. GRIFFIN. To the others, do you care to comment about
    your funding sources?
        Mr. O'BRIEN. Sure. Our primary funding comes from local
    counties and the city of New York. And also the Dave Thomas
    Foundation funds three of our full-time staffers.
        Mr. GRIFFIN. Great.
        Mr. O'BRIEN. And then we raise some money, and we have a
    State contract through Adoption Opportunities Federal grant. So
    it is somewhat diverse, but it comes a lot from governmental
    local sources.
        Mr. GRIFFIN. Ms. Dobbins, Ms. Soronen, do you wish to
    respond?
        Ms. SORONEN. We are a national nonprofit public charity.
    Until 2012, we were exclusively funded through private donors
    and through our philanthropic partnerships.
        When we released the research on the Wendy's Wonderful Kids
    model in 2011 and then approached the State of Ohio to scale
    that program as a test site for scaling was the first time we
    took State funds in order to scale that program, but we still
    manage them. The funds come through us, and we manage those
    grants as a nonprofit organization.
        Mr. GRIFFIN. Ms. Dobbins.
        Ms. DOBBINS. We are a very small advocacy organization. We
    are membership based, so our members actually pay in dues,
    annual modest dues. We don't receive government funding,
    Federal funding, and we receive donations as well.
        Mr. GRIFFIN. Got you. Ms. Rosati, is your group the only
    faith-based group here today, or do any others represent faith-
    based organizations? And you would characterize yours as faith-
    based?
        Ms. ROSATI. Absolutely, yes.
        Mr. GRIFFIN. I am familiar with your group.
        Mr. O'BRIEN. Well, we do a lot of believing at my place,
    but we don't----
        Mr. GRIFFIN. Sure. Yes.
        As a faith-based group, have you found that there are
    additional legal barriers because you are a faith-based group?
        Ms. ROSATI. I am pleased to say that we have not really
    experienced barriers. We went into this with our eyes wide
    open, understanding that there may be some issues. We have had
    tremendous working relationships with our government partners.
    I think there are some basic rules we all observe about how it
    is that we interact, and it has worked very, very well.
        I do know, however, that there are places where those who
    are involved in child welfare from a faith-based perspective
    have had difficulty maintaining their continued presence in
    those areas. And certainly the ability for those faith-based
    organizations to continue to operate in accordance with the
    dictates of their faith is something we think is very
    important. So while we haven't seen those barriers, we know
    that they exist, and we certainly hope that they won't expand
    any further in the States where we have already seen that
    happen.
        Mr. GRIFFIN. I am running out of time, but I just want to
    real quickly ask, you mentioned, Ms. Rosati, that there were
    some Federal incentives that you thought were not necessarily
    accomplishing the stated goal. And that happens a lot with the
    Federal Government; well intentioned, but misses the mark. Can
    you elaborate on that a little bit?
        Ms. ROSATI. Yes. The two biggies that we see a lot are the
    opportunity for those who age out of the system to go on to
    college and to have that funded and benefited. I think
    legislators at the State level are afraid it will break the
    bank. In fact, it will do no such thing. And because they limit
    it, if you go on and get adopted, you lose that benefit. You
    shouldn't have to choose between higher education and an
    adoptive family.
        Another big one that we see a lot relates to certain kinds
    of mental health services that are fully funded and accessible
    if the teenager stays in foster care, but if they get adopted,
    then it becomes much more difficult to access.
        And those would be two things I think where we would need
    parity in order to eliminate the disincentive that currently
    exists.
        Mr. GRIFFIN. Thank you. Sounds like something we need to
    look at. Thank you.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you.
        Mr. Davis, you are recognized.
        Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.
        Let me thank the witnesses for coming. Chairman Reichert,
    Ranking Member Doggett, let me, first of all, thank you for
    this hearing. I think it is a very important one as we attempt
    to improve the Adoption Incentives Act.
        For almost a decade now, I have advocated to draw on the
    successes of the Adoption Incentives program in increasing
    adoptions to amend the focus of the law to promote permanency.
    The witnesses have discussed the need to focus on finding
    permanent homes for foster children, and, as I understand it,
    there are three paths to permanency for foster youth:
    reunification, guardianship and adoption.
        We know from research, including the GAO report requested
    by the Ways and Means Committee, that African American children
    stay in foster care longer because of difficulties in
    recruiting adoptive parents and a hesitancy to terminate
    parental rights as is required for adoption.
        African American and Native American families tend to
    choose guardianship as a route to permanency rather than
    adoption because they do not see a need to legally sever the
    relationship or connection between parent and child.
        Given the fact that my congressional district has the
    highest percentage of grandparents raising grandchildren in the
    Nation, followed by two other congressional districts in
    Illinois, one right next to mine and then the other one a
    little further away, guardianship as a permanency option is
    critically important. A grandmother raising her grandchild does
    not want to erase the legal connection of her own child to her
    grandchild. In the Fostering Connections law, this Subcommittee
    and Congress recognize the disproportionate negative effect of
    excluding guardianship with regard to foster care parents.
        Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member and other Members of this
    Subcommittee, I ask you to help make sure that we improve the
    Adoption Incentives Act by encouraging States to promote
    permanency for foster children so that more children, and
    especially more children of color, can exit care to permanent
    homes faster.
        Ms. Dobbins, you have done a great deal of work in this
    area, and Voices for Adoption does a great deal to promote
    permanency. Based upon your expertise on the Adoption
    Incentives program, what are some of the ways in which we can
    amend the law to better promote permanency?
        Ms. DOBBINS. Thank you. And great question. I think what is
    important is permanency. We do support permanent options and in
    broadening the incentive, especially as we can look to what the
    Federal Government has done in this area of really promoting
    this and seeing a really big increase in States taking this on
    and those resources becoming a permanent family for kids who
    otherwise would be in foster care for long periods of time.
        I think we also have to understand how to measure the
    incentive and make sure that it is the right fit, so we do
    support it.
        Mr. DAVIS. My time is going to expire, Mr. Chairman, but if
    the other witnesses could just indicate whether or not they
    view this as a very important recognition.
        Ms. SORONEN. Congressman, we do. And, in fact, when we
    provide our grants and set aggressive goals for those grants,
    we have included guardianships as those goals. And of those
    numbers I told you, nearly 200 of those finalized permanent
    numbers are guardianships.
        Mr. O'BRIEN. And a lot of the homes that we find for older
    teenagers are with people that they are related to, and that is
    a very important source of permanent parents.
        Ms. ROSATI. I concur as well. We have a partner out in the
    Seattle area who just formed what is called The Children's Law
    Center to provide volunteer lawyer services for the
    grandparents and others who are in the situation you described
    to allow them to lock in and get what they need in terms of
    permanent guardianship.
        Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I yield
    back.
        Chairman REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Davis, and I look forward
    to working with you on this important issue that you just
    raised.
        Mr. Renacci, you are recognized.
        Mr. RENACCI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank all
    the witnesses for being here.
        Ms. Soronen, I want to thank you as a fellow Buckeye for
    being here and testifying as well.
        Ms. SORONEN. Thank you.
        Mr. RENACCI. Adoption is generally always a better outcome
    for kids than remaining in foster care. In addition to the
    benefits the child receives, I believe adoption has the
    potential to have huge economic benefits.
        Ms. Soronen, you mentioned on page 7 of your testimony that
    your program is resulting in State savings as well, just in
    terms of the cost of foster care versus the cost of the
    program. Can you tell us more about the impact your program is
    having on State spending in Ohio?
        Ms. SORONEN. Yes. And we were pleased that the Ohio
    Department of Job and Family Services came forward and said, we
    want to move these children out of foster care into adoptive
    homes. And I believe in their heart of hearts that is their
    first goal, but they also understand the financial impact.
        Ohio is one of those States that has not been able to hit
    the threshold of adoption incentives for a number of years. And
    so this program, as we looked at it and worked with the fiscal
    manager at the Ohio Department, we said, help us understand
    what is the financial impact in Ohio, so as we potentially move
    this to other States, we can use this as both the human and a
    financial template as well.
        What we found is with a $2.3 million investment from this
    budget from the Department, and then in--hopefully negotiated
    in the next biennial with Ohio, over a 3-year period with a
    potential $6 or $7 million investment, what they believe is the
    savings to the State will be in excess of $100 million, and
    that is because we are getting children age 9, 10 or 11, and we
    know that by the time a child turns 8, the likelihood of
    adoption is significantly decreased. So to keep a 9- or 10-
    year-old in care for 8 or 10 more years, if you look at those
    costs, take out the subsidy that the State provides, that
    savings is still significant.
        And the State has said to us they look forward to using
    those savings to continue to invest in embedding and growing
    this as best practice for Ohio's older youth.
        Mr. RENACCI. Thank you.
        Ms. Dobbins, I want to go a little further on the incentive
    payments. You know, as you mentioned in your testimony, 22
    States did not receive incentive payments for fiscal year 2011.
    I know this is an issue that does affect the State of Ohio. Not
    only did Ohio not receive incentive payments for 2011, but the
    last incentive payment Ohio received was for fiscal year 2003.
        But I know Ohio has made great strides to increase the rate
    of adoption, yet the way the program is currently structured,
    Ohio does not receive incentive payments for its progress.
        Should the current baseline remain, or should it be changed
    again?
        Ms. DOBBINS. I think there are two things, and I did
    highlight this as an example, where there is opportunities
    where States are increasing the rates of adoption, but the rate
    of adoption is afterlook, so States only get that incentive if
    there is still funding allotted for the adoption incentives.
        So the first way that States get money is that they have to
    increase the numbers of adoptions of older youths and children
    with special needs above a baseline which was set in fiscal
    year 2007, but if then they can show that they have also
    increased the rates of adoption, then whatever money is left
    over, the States receive that incentive.
        So we do think this should be looked at more closely,
    especially by people who do data analysis, to see if changing
    it affects the rate, and if that is a greater indicator of
    success among States, we think that might be an issue that the
    Subcommittee could look at.
        Mr. RENACCI. Do you see waiting periods for foster youth to
    continue to decline?
        Ms. DOBBINS. Well, populations of foster care are
    declining, yes. So these numbers have steadily declined over
    time, even the number of waiting children. So, yes, we do.
        Mr. RENACCI. Ms. Soronen, do you have any comments on the
    baseline, especially since it affects Ohio?
        Ms. SORONEN. I think I agree with everything that Nicole
    has mentioned. I would also add that we should look at what Mr.
    O'Brien talked about, those caseloads of children in long-term
    foster care, and scrub those caseloads and see what we can do
    relative to the Adoption Incentives program of also assuring
    that those children aren't simply in that indeterminate status
    for their lifetime in foster care of another planned permanent
    living arrangement.
        Mr. RENACCI. Do any of the other witnesses have any
    comments on the baseline at all to add?
        All right. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman REICHERT. Well, you made it. That concludes the
    questioning. So we just appreciate you waiting, being patient
    with the rest of what we were doing here today. And then just a
    real heartfelt thank you for what you do for our young people
    across the country.
        And I know this was a good hearing, because Mr. Young just
    whispered in my ear, ``This is an excellent hearing.'' And you
    heard Mr. Davis' comments about, thank you for holding this
    hearing. So we take this issue very, very seriously. And just
    again, thank you so much for being here and for your patience
    today.
        So if Members have additional questions for the witnesses,
    they will submit them to you in writing, and we would
    appreciate receiving your responses for the record within 2
    weeks.
        And now the Committee stands adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 5:20 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
        [Submissions for the Record follow:]

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