[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 55 (Thursday, May 1, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S3898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADOPTION PROMOTION ACT

  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I think our friends in the House of 
Representatives deserve a great deal of praise for what they did 
yesterday. They passed a bill that would save the lives of many gravely 
threatened young people in this country. I am referring, of course, to 
the Adoption Promotion Act of 1997, the Camp-Kennelly legislation, 
which passed the House by an overwhelming vote of 416 to 5.
  For the children in foster care in this country, the average time 
they spend in foster care is almost 2 years. That is just the average 
time. These 2 years are often the most important time in that child's 
development. We need to do everything we can to get these children in 
safe, stable, permanent, loving adoptive homes.
  Why are these children being kept in foster care for so long? I said 
the average time was 2 years. Sometimes it is 3, 4, 5 years. Sometimes 
the most important years of their lives are spent in foster care, and 
sometimes they move from foster home to foster home to foster home. Why 
do they get shoved from one home to another? Why do they spend so many 
years in foster care? One reason is that, in some of these cases, the 
child protective services feel hemmed in by a misinterpretation of a 
Federal law, a well-intentioned Federal law that this Congress passed 
in 1980, a law that has done a great deal of good, but a law that 
contains one provision that I believe has caused a great deal of harm 
and has caused a great deal of confusion.
  Under this 1980 law, the Federal Child Welfare Act, for a State to be 
eligible for Federal matching funds for foster care expenditures, that 
State must have a plan for the provision of child welfare services 
approved by the Secretary of HHS. The State plan must provide, that in 
each case, reasonable efforts will be made, first, prior to the 
placement of a child in foster care to prevent or eliminate the need 
for removal of a child from his home and, second, to make it possible 
for the child to return to his home.
  In other words, Mr. President, no matter what the particular 
circumstances of a household may be, the State must make reasonable 
efforts to keep that household, that family together, and then to put 
it back together if it falls apart.
  There is very strong evidence, evidence that I have seen firsthand as 
I have traveled the State of Ohio and talked to people who are 
professionals in this field, talked to judges, talked to child services 
workers, very strong evidence that reasonable efforts have, in some 
cases, become extraordinary efforts, efforts to keep families together 
at all costs, efforts to keep families together that are families 
really in name only. This has resulted in children being put back in 
abusive homes, put back in situations where no child should have to 
exist or live.
  Every day in this country, three children die of abuse or neglect. 
Children who are being abused by their parents should simply not be 
reunified with those parents. That is common sense. The legislation 
passed yesterday by the House of Representatives makes it clear, by an 
overwhelming vote, that this is what the House thinks.
  Now is the time for the Senate to take action. We have a very good 
piece of legislation, the Chafee-Rockefeller bill, of which I am 
honored to be a cosponsor, that has been introduced in this body. It is 
a piece of legislation that contains many good provisions. One of the 
provisions it contains is identical language to what the House passed 
yesterday to simply say what we all know in our heart was intended by 
the 1980 act, and that is, yes, we should make reasonable efforts to 
put families back together, we should try to help them, but--but--when 
those decisions are made at the local, county level or city level, the 
people who make those decisions must always put safety and the welfare 
of that child first. The safety of the child must always be paramount. 
That is good common sense; it is good legislation.
  We are halfway there. Now is the time for the U.S. Senate to complete 
the action and send that bill on to the President. The President has 
already said that he supports this language, that he supports this 
concept, that there is, in fact, a problem. The Senate should act very 
quickly and move on this legislation and really plug this loophole, 
which has caused a great deal of pain and many problems for our young 
people in this country today.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Stevens). The Senator from Missouri.

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