[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 150 (Thursday, October 24, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1571]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PROMOTING ADOPTION AND LEGAL GUARDIANSHIP FOR CHILDREN IN FOSTER CARE 
                                  ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. DANNY K. DAVIS

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, October 22, 2013

  Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I wish to take a moment 
to voice my support for the Promoting Adoption and Legal Guardianship 
for Children in Foster Care Act. This bipartisan bill makes important 
advancements in encouraging states to place children in permanent, 
caring homes. I am especially pleased that the bill extends the Family 
Connection grants that help link foster children with family members. 
Nearly 400,000 children make up our nation's foster care population, 
with more than one in four (approximately 28 percent of these 
vulnerable children living with a grandparent or other relative. 
Research clearly shows that kinship foster care families are safer, 
more stable placements that are more likely to keep children connected 
with their siblings and communities than non-relative placements. 
Continuing these grants will advance the safety and well-being of 
children in care by connecting them with safe and caring relatives. I 
also strongly support the protections for youth from returning into 
care or losing assistance in the event that their legal guardian dies 
or is incapacitated. I actively worked to advance both of these 
provisions that encourage permanency and strengthen services to support 
children and families, and I am very happy they are included in this 
legislation.
  In addition, I commend the bill and its authors for recognizing 
guardianship in addition to adoption as an important permanency option 
for children in care. Guardianship and kinship caregiving are very 
significant for Chicago, for Illinois, and for the African American 
community. My Congressional District has the highest percentage of 
children living with grandparent caregivers in the nation, followed 
closely by two other Congressional Districts in Illinois. Given the 
research showing that African American youth remain in care longer in 
part because of a hesitancy to choose adoption given the requirement to 
terminate parental rights, rewarding states for promoting permanency 
via guardianship is an important step forward to helping children in 
care find safe, permanent homes. Importantly, a study of the Illinois 
Subsidized Guardianship Demonstration Waiver demonstrated that the 
offer of subsidized guardianship increased overall rates of family 
permanency by six percentage points over and above the level of 
performance in a randomly-assigned control group that was limited to 
the option of adoption only. Incentivizing guardianship rather than 
incentivizing a particular path to permanency allows families to make 
the permanency choice that best fits the particular needs and 
circumstances of their family. It is my hope that we can increase the 
symmetry between guardianship and adoption incentives as this bill 
advances.
  This bill makes a number of other improvements to the law. It 
calculates permanency incentives based on improvements in the rate of 
adoptions rather than the number of adoptions, so that states that 
reduce their caseloads still can demonstrate their success in moving 
youth to permanent safe homes. The bill also focuses more resources on 
older youth, enhances reporting requirements related to the use of 
state dollars, and strengthens benefits and services by establishing a 
minimum for post-adoption services. In closing, I urge my colleagues to 
support this important bill that will help the 100,000 children in 
foster care find permanent homes.

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