[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 15, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Page S803]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROMOTING PERMANENT FAMILY CARE FOR CHILDREN
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 378, which was submitted
earlier today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 378) expressing the sense of the
Senate that children should have a safe, loving, nurturing,
and permanent family and that it is the policy of the United
States that family reunification, kinship care, or domestic
and inter-country adoption promotes permanency and stability
to a greater degree than long-term institutionalization and
long-term, continually disrupted foster care.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
resolution.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I further ask that the resolution be
agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid
upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and that any
statements related to the resolution be printed in the Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 378) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:
S. Res. 378
Whereas the family is the basic unit of society and
contributes to the emotional, financial, and material support
essential for the healthy growth and development of children;
Whereas children without a family or connections to
siblings and relatives or a permanent relationship with a
caring adult are at risk of being homeless, growing up in
substandard institutional care, and are vulnerable to sexual
and labor exploitation and abuse;
Whereas research has shown that children who are abandoned,
abused, or severely neglected can face significant risks that
are costly to society, including lower individual lifetime
earnings, poorer educational achievement, and higher
consumption of health services, which in turn could lead to a
greater risk of criminal activity and greater risk of
incarceration;
Whereas there is scientific evidence that children deprived
of a family, including connections with siblings, often
experience trauma, which can have a detrimental impact on the
development of a child;
Whereas some estimates show that there are approximately 18
million children in the world who have lost both parents and
at least 2 million children in the world who are in
institutional care;
Whereas there are approximately 408,000 children in the
United States foster-care system and 107,000 of them are
awaiting adoption;
Whereas within the current foster-care system, many
children are overmedicated, housed in inadequate group homes,
denied the ability to engage in age-appropriate activities,
such as afterschool activities, and often denied access to
their siblings or placement with a relative guardian due to
insufficient efforts to locate family members;
Whereas thousands of children who ``age out'' of the
foster-care system in the United States every year lack the
security or support of a biological or adoptive family,
connections with siblings and relatives, or a permanent
relationship with a caring adult and struggle to secure
affordable housing, health insurance, higher education, and
adequate employment;
Whereas current governmental efforts to assist these highly
vulnerable children in the United States and around the world
do not include an effective strategy for securing a
protective family, connections with siblings and relatives,
or a permanent relationship with a caring adult for every
child; and
Whereas while there have been several bipartisan laws
enacted in the past several years that have made progress on
a number of needed child-welfare reforms, much remains to be
done to ensure that all children have a safe, loving,
nurturing, and permanent family, regardless of age or special
needs: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That--
(1) the Senate--
(A) affirms that all children in the world, including those
with special needs, deserve a safe, loving, nurturing, and
permanent family, connections with siblings and relatives, or
a permanent relationship with a caring adult;
(B) acknowledges that the United States Government can and
should do more by working with the private sector, nonprofit
organizations, and faith-based communities to implement cost
effective strategies that connect children living outside of
family care with a permanent, supportive family, or
connections with siblings and relatives, or a permanent
relationship with a caring adult;
(C) encourages States, counties, cities, and to the extent
appropriate, other governments to invest resources in family
preservation, reunification services, services to help older
youth transition out of care with a connection to siblings,
relatives or a caring adult, kinship adoption, domestic
adoption, and intercountry adoption and post adoption
strategies to ensure that more children in the United States
are provided with safe, loving, and permanent family
placements or a permanent relationship with a caring adult;
and
(D) recognizes the United States Agency for International
Development and the Department of State for recent efforts to
develop a strategy for meeting the unique needs of children
living outside of family care;
(2) it is the sense of the Senate that children should have
a safe, loving, nurturing, and permanent family; and
(3) it is the policy of the United States that family
reunification, kinship care, or domestic and intercountry
adoption promotes permanency and stability to a greater
degree than long-term institutionalization and long-term,
continually disrupted foster care.
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