[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 117 (Tuesday, September 19, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H6694-H6695]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1730

  I am a board member of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption 
Institutes, and it is a very, very worthwhile group out there to 
promote foster parents, good foster parents, as well as adoption.
  I have two beautiful children I gave birth to and one child that I 
adopted. She was an older, hard-to-place child, and usually in the 
adoption system the older children, especially someone designated as 
hard to place, are the last ones to be adopted.
  I certainly hope that this resolution will shine some light on the 
need for more people to step forward and consider adoption of children 
of all ages. In my heart of hearts, I have a very special place for my 
adoptive daughter who is now an adult. She was a special needs child. 
They do require more time, they require more love and certainly a lot 
of structure, and with that plan, they can become very productive 
members of society.
  We must build on the success of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 
1997 by continuing to raise awareness about foster youth and adoption.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I commend the preceding speaker, our 
colleague, for the personal commitment she has made in this area she 
indicated, and I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Davis).
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for 
yielding.
  First, I want to commend him and Mr. Camp for their outstanding 
leadership and the passion with which they display relative to this 
issue and their personal involvement.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the significance of the Adoption and 
Safe Families Act of 1997. ASFA provided sweeping changes in Federal 
child welfare law designed to ensure children's safety and to quicken 
permanent placements in the event that a child could not return home.
  By enacting the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, Congress 
recognized the need to align Federal incentives with the desired goal 
of providing abused and neglected children safe, permanent homes. This 
law has helped move States to promote adoption and has helped moved 
children into permanent homes.
  In praising ASFA, I want to take a moment to highlight the need to 
develop similar policies to promote permanency more broadly. ASFA has 
done much to promote adoption, but policymakers should extend ASFA's 
successes to other areas of permanency to address the needs of hundreds 
of thousands of children for whom adoption is not appropriate.
  Using ASFA as a model, the bipartisan Pew Commission on Children in 
Foster Care recommended that Federal policies create subsidized 
guardianship programs and State incentives to promote permanency more 
broadly, be it via reunification, adoption or guardianship.
  Also, we must use our understanding of the implementation of ASFA to 
make it better. I am particularly concerned about the over 29,000 
children who have entered our child welfare system due to parental 
incarceration, most often from nonviolent acts. The parameters set 
forth by ASFA do not align well with those of the criminal justice 
system, leading to a permanent separation of many children from their 
parents and family.
  I encourage my colleagues to consult the wonderful policy brief by 
the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law 
on the topic. ``Rebuilding Families, Reclaiming Lives,'' draws 
attention to hurdles created by the lack of consistency in Federal 
policies with regard to children of incarcerated parents. It also 
offers policy recommendations to promote stability and well-being for 
the children.
  Mr. Speaker, I also take this second to commend the One Church, One 
Family, One Child program in Illinois, who are indeed going to be here 
for the Angels in Adoption gala. They have developed a unique program 
of recruiting families to become foster parents to children coming out 
of correctional institutions. I commend them for that outstanding work 
and note Reverend Parks, Reverend Nelson and Ms. Hunt who have 
developed a fantastic program with the other members of their board.
  Again, I commend the gentlemen for their outstanding work on this 
issue.
  Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Res. 
959, which recognizes and supports the success of the Adoption and Safe 
Families Act of 1997 in increasing adoptions. I would like to thank the 
gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Camp, for introducing this resolution and 
for his work to enact legislation to improve the lives of abused and 
neglected children.
  The number of children adopted from our nation's foster care system 
has substantially increased since enactment of the Adoption and Safe 
Families Act from 31,000 in 1997 to over 51,000 in 2004. I applaud the 
judges, attorneys, state officials, and other adoption professionals 
who have worked tirelessly to move foster children more quickly into 
permanent, loving families. National Adoption Day in November 2005 
finalized the adoptions of more than 3,300 children from foster care 
and I hope the November 2006 National Adoption Day is even more 
successful.
  There are currently 118,000 foster children available for adoption 
and we must do more to find them loving families. Almost half of these 
children are aged 9 or older and therefore at risk of spending their 
entire childhood in foster care and aging out of the system without a 
permanent home. In 2003, President Bush signed the Adoption Promotion 
Act, which extended the availability of adoption incentive payments to 
the States while promoting the adoption of older children. We will 
continue to support policies that ensure children who cannot be safely 
reunified with their parents are

[[Page H6695]]

moved quickly into permanent, adoptive homes.
  I also wish to recognize the many talented and hardworking staff at 
the Department of Health and Human Services for their outstanding work 
in this area. More than 6,000 children have been placed in adoptive 
homes since the launch of www.adoptuskids.org., a website which 
connects families with waiting children. We must do more to help 
connect would-be adoptive parents with these children to ensure every 
child grows up in a safe, loving family.
  Again, I wish to thank the gentleman from Michigan for introducing 
this resolution. I'd like to personally thank the many child welfare 
professionals and most importantly all the adoptive families across 
America who have made a permanent commitment to improve the lives of 
these vulnerable children. They are the real heroes behind the many 
improvements we have seen in recent years.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support H. 
Res. 959 recognizing and supporting the success of the Adoption and 
Safe Families Act of 1997 in increasing adoption and the efforts the 
Act has spurred including National Adoption Day, National Adoption 
Month, and encouraging adoption throughout the year.
  As the Chair of the Congressional Children's Caucus, I especially 
understand the importance of providing a stable, safe, loving home for 
all of our children. Under the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, 
the number of children adopted from foster care has increased 
significantly, with approximately 51,000 children from foster care in 
fiscal year 2004 alone.
  This progress must be recognized, yet we know that there is much more 
work to be done to ensure that every child has a safe, permanent and 
loving home. On a daily basis, in America, children enter the foster 
care system as victims of abuse, neglect or abandonment. Most of them 
will wait at least five years before being adopted. Siblings will be 
separated from each other and most will have moved at least three times 
before being adopted. It is currently an unfortunate fact that one in 
five children will never be adopted, and will be forced out of the 
foster care system at the age of 18 with little or no family support.
  Modeling the successes of the Adoption and Safe Families Act and 
National Adoption Day, states have significantly increased adoptions 
from foster care. National Adoption Day inspires a collective national 
effort to raise awareness to the 119,000 children in foster care 
awaiting permanent, loving families. For the last six years, National 
Adoption Day has seen the dreams of thousands of children come true by 
working with courts, judges, and attorneys to finalize adoptions and 
find permanent, loving homes for foster care children.
  Let me add that I hope that before we recess, we may have the 
opportunity to make a further statement with H.R. 1704, Second Chance 
Act. This important legislation reauthorizes, rewrites, and expands 
crucial provisions regarding adult and juvenile offender reentry 
demonstration projects, in order to address issues of recidivism and 
the effects of the criminal justice system and child welfare services 
on families.
  The welfare of children must continue to be a priority for all 
Americans. Every child deserves a warm, safe, stable home environment. 
It is imperative that we support and recognize the success of the 
Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 of increasing adoption of foster 
care children. Because children are the future, we must support them in 
the present.
  I urge my colleagues to support this important resolution.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, seeing no other speakers, I yield back the 
balance of our time.
  Mr. CAMP of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my 
time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) that the House suspend the rules and 
agree to the resolution, H. Res. 959.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor 
thereof) the rules were suspended and the resolution was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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