[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 117 (Thursday, July 24, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1226-E1227]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       PREVENTING SEX TRAFFICKING AND STRENGTHENING FAMILIES ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. DANNY K. DAVIS

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 23, 2014

  Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support H.R. 
4980, the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act. 
This bill advances child welfare policy in many important ways. For 
over a decade, I have advocated via the Stronger Families Act or the 
Investing in Permanency for Youth in Foster Care Act that federal 
policy should incentivize permanency for all foster youth regardless of 
how they exit care--adoption, guardianship, or reunification. I am 
especially pleased that H.R. 4980 takes a tremendous step forward in 
recognizing guardianship as an important permanency option for foster 
children who cannot return home. For the first time, the bill provides 
incentives for states for placing foster children with legal guardians.
  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. Nearly 400,000 children make up our nation's 
foster care population, with more than one in four (approximately 28%) 
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.
  Adoption is not a viable option for many children to exit foster 
care, with courts explicitly ruling out this option for thousands of 
children each year. Moreover, adoption is not equally availed by 
families of all races and ethnicities, especially those in African-
American and Native-American communities. Research--including a report 
by the Government Accountability Office--indicates 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 Importantly,

[[Page E1227]]

a study of the Illinois Subsidized Guardianship Demonstration Waiver 
showed 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. 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 connection between parent and child. A grandmother raising her 
grandchild does not want to erase the legal connection of her child to 
her grandchild. Guardianship affords the same legal responsibility for 
a child as adoption only without legally severing the familial 
connection.
  Thus, I applaud the bill for including an incentive for guardianship 
that is four-fifths the incentive for adoption as well as a 
guardianship incentive equal to that for that for adoption for older 
youth. Rewarding states for helping foster youth find permanent, loving 
homes via guardianship or adoption allows families to make the right 
permanency choice that best fits the particular needs and circumstances 
of their family, rather than incentivizing states to prioritize 
adoption alone.
  To further support relative caregivers, I am very pleased that the 
bill extends the Family Connection Grants for one year. These grants 
provide funding for intensive family finding, kinship navigator 
programs, family group decision-making meetings, and residential family 
treatment programs. These programs promote permanency for children in 
care. In addition to the positive outcomes for foster children in 
relative care, research shows that kinship care placements are cost 
effective. In Illinois, cost studies estimated an average of $4,778 in 
savings of IV-E administrative expenses over an 8 year period compared 
to a matched control group that did not have this option. Extrapolating 
to the 10,000 children in Illinois discharged to guardianship between 
1997 and 2007, the projected savings was approximately $48 million for 
the state of Illinois. Thus, Family Connection Grants improves the 
access of foster youth to safer, more stable family placements and 
reduce costs for state and federal governments.
  Further, I am delighted that the bill includes comparable successor-
guardian protections for children who exit to guardianship as those 
protections provided to youth who exit to adoption. Given that 
guardianship is an important permanency option for grandparent 
caregivers who are older and have health problems, the issue of 
continuity of care via successor guardianship is especially needed to 
protect children. Current law already provides this protection for 
adoptive parents; extending this protection to children in guardianship 
is a reasonable step to protect youth and keep them from re-entering 
the foster care system.
  The bill implements many important changes to child welfare law, 
including: protecting children and youth at risk for sex trafficking; 
ensuring the foster youth have important documents when exiting care; 
empowering foster youth in the development of their own case plans; 
improving information in child welfare reports; modifying the 
calculation of permanency incentives based on improvements in rate 
rather than number to better capture placement success; enhancing 
reporting requirements related to the use of state dollars; 
strengthening benefits and services; and increasing funding for the 
Chafee Independent Living program.
  Given the dramatic improvements to child welfare policy made by this 
bill, I strongly urge my colleagues to support the passage of this 
bill.

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