[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17649-17651]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  EXPRESSING SUPPORT FOR NATIONAL ADOPTION DAY AND NATIONAL ADOPTION 
                                 MONTH

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the HELP 
Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 302 and 
that the Senate proceed to its consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report the resolution by title.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (S. Res. 302) expressing support for the goals 
     of National Adoption Day and National Adoption Month by 
     promoting national awareness of adoption and the children 
     awaiting families, celebrating children and families involved 
     in adoption, and encouraging the people of the United States 
     to secure safety, permanency, and well-being for all 
     children.

  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the 
resolution.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent 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 related statements be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The resolution (S. Res. 302) was agreed to.
  The preamble was agreed to.
  The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:

                              S. Res. 302

       Whereas there are approximately 408,000 children in the 
     foster care system in the United States, approximately 
     107,000 of whom are waiting for families to adopt them;
       Whereas 56 percent of the children in foster care are age 
     10 or younger;
       Whereas the average length of time a child spends in foster 
     care is more than 2 years;
       Whereas for many foster children, the wait for a loving 
     family in which they are nurtured, comforted, and protected 
     seems endless;
       Whereas in 2010, nearly 28,000 youth ``aged out'' of foster 
     care by reaching adulthood without being placed in a 
     permanent home;
       Whereas everyday, loving and nurturing families are 
     strengthened and expanded when committed and dedicated 
     individuals make an important difference in the life of a 
     child through adoption;
       Whereas a 2007 survey conducted by the Dave Thomas 
     Foundation for Adoption demonstrated that though ``Americans 
     overwhelmingly support the concept of adoption, and in 
     particular foster care adoption . . . foster care adoptions 
     have not increased significantly over the past five years'';
       Whereas while 4 in 10 Americans have considered adoption, a 
     majority of Americans have misperceptions about the process 
     of adopting children from foster care and the children who 
     are eligible for adoption;
       Whereas 71 percent of those who have considered adoption 
     consider adopting children from foster care above other forms 
     of adoption;
       Whereas 45 percent of Americans believe that children enter 
     the foster care system because of juvenile delinquency, when 
     in reality the vast majority of children who have entered the 
     foster care system were victims of neglect, abandonment, or 
     abuse;
       Whereas 46 percent of Americans believe that foster care 
     adoption is expensive, when in reality there is no 
     substantial cost for adopting from foster care and financial 
     support is available to adoptive parents after the adoption 
     is finalized;
       Whereas both National Adoption Day and National Adoption 
     Month occur in the month of November;
       Whereas National Adoption Day is a collective national 
     effort to find permanent, loving families for children in the 
     foster care system;
       Whereas since the first National Adoption Day in 2000, more 
     than 35,000 children have joined forever families during 
     National Adoption Day;
       Whereas in 2010, adoptions were finalized for nearly 5,000 
     children through 400 National Adoption Day events in all 50 
     States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico; and
       Whereas the President traditionally issues an annual 
     proclamation to declare the

[[Page 17650]]

     month of November as National Adoption Month, and National 
     Adoption Day is on November 19, 2011: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) supports the goals and ideals of National Adoption Day 
     and National Adoption Month;
       (2) recognizes that every child should have a permanent and 
     loving family; and
       (3) encourages the people of the United States to consider 
     adoption during the month of November and all throughout the 
     year.

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, the resolution just approved by 
unanimous consent is a very important resolution that Senator Grassley 
and I are proud to support, along with Senator Inhofe and others. It is 
a resolution recognizing that this Saturday is National Adoption Day.
  I am happy to report that on this Saturday, there will be over 3,500 
children who will be adopted into permanent families.
  This day was started about 10 years ago by some very enterprising 
organizations, and the Senate and the House of Representatives have 
been helping to promote the concept of National Adoption Day for many 
years now, maybe as many as 10. We sure have been working to help 
highlight this special day. It was started by nonprofit organizations 
to highlight the fact that we have orphans in the United States.
  People don't believe this, but there are over 100,000 children in our 
foster care system between the ages of 0 and 21, who are in our foster 
care system, whose parents' rights have been terminated for good 
reason--maybe terrible or gross abuse or neglect. Those parents are 
unable or unwilling to raise their biological children. These children 
need a forever family, a relative to step up, a cousin or an aunt or a 
grandmother to step up, or they need someone in the community to step 
up and say: You can be a part of our family.
  People don't stop needing families when they are 21 years old. They 
age out of the foster care system, unfortunately, at 21 despite the 
good work we have done here to extend that time from 18 to 21. 
Unfortunately, every year 25,000 children age out of our foster care 
system, as the Senator from Iowa knows--he has been a phenomenal leader 
on foster care reform--without ever having been adopted.
  When you are 25 or 24 or 23 and you are trying to apply for your 
first job, it would be nice to have a mother, father, grandmother, or a 
grandfather to call and ask: How do I dress? What should I say? Does my 
resume look OK? These children don't have that. When you are engaged, 
it would be nice to be able to call a parent and say: Can you help with 
the expense of the wedding or can you be there for me? These children 
don't have that. That is what National Adoption Day is about, 
highlighting the fact that there are children in our foster care 
system--beautiful, strong, intelligent children who need a forever 
family. We are doing our best to promote adoption for them.
  Not only in our system in the United States, but sadly there are 
around 163 million children around the world living outside of family 
care. We think that number is conservative because we have reason to 
believe that even those who do a lot of counting are not really 
counting all the children in orphanages. The number is probably larger 
than that.
  It sounds overwhelming--and it can be at times--to think about our 
goal to try to find a home for every one of these children. But just to 
put in perspective the U.S. numbers, it is 107,000 children. But the 
good news is that we have 300,000 churches in America alone--not 
counting synagogues or mosques. Mr. President, you can easily do that 
math. If just one family out of every three churches adopted one of 
these children in foster care, we would not have any more orphans in 
America.
  That is why we are promoting this today and this week, National 
Adoption Month and National Adoption Day. You don't have to be perfect 
or wealthy; you just have to have a big heart and step up and be 
willing to add this blessing to your family. So many families have been 
blessed by adoption. As many people know, our family has been blessed 
by adoption.
  This day is to commemorate National Adoption Day. In fact, I said 
3,500, but it is 4,500 children who will be adopted on this day, and 5 
will be adopted in New Orleans, LA. I thank Judge Ernestine Grey and 
all of the judges for their good work to make that possible. We want to 
finalize these adoptions in all 50 States.
  Saturday, we will celebrate families who adopt and encourage others 
to adopt children from foster care, build stronger collaborations among 
local adoption agencies, and, again, raise awareness about the 107,000 
children who are waiting. Many of these children, despite our laws that 
mandate an 18-month wait period, maximum, sometimes wait more than 3 
years.
  In conclusion, let me just say we need to do more. We can do more. I 
wish to highlight for the record two wonderful organizations that, in 
my mind, have been going above and beyond the call of duty.
  One is the Dave Thomas Foundation Wendy's Wonderful Kids Program. 
They are a great example of just one organization that is doing great 
work to find homes for children who are considered ``unadoptable'' or 
``hard-to-place'' simply because they are 7 or 8 or 10 or 12 and not 1 
or 2. They are ``too old'' to be adopted. I never thought I would hear 
the words ``too old'' when referring to a child who is 7, 8, 10, or 12, 
but that is what people think. They have worked hard--Wendy's Wonderful 
Kids--and have come up with a new approach, a better approach. They 
have had extraordinary success in piloting a new child focus 
recruitment plan and finding 2,500 children permanent homes since 2004. 
Rita Soronen, executive director of Dave Thomas Foundation, is a 
leader, and Wendy's Wonderful Kids is a great example.
  Let me just put into the Record another organization that has a 
gallery right here, the National Heart Gallery, which has an exhibit 
here at the Capitol in the Russell Senate Rotunda. The National Heart 
Gallery is another very organic, nonprofit, community-based movement. 
They took beautiful portraits of these children to show their 
personalities and life. When people are looking at their portraits, 
they could be pulled in by the beauty and true reflection of the 
child's personality. So the National Heart Gallery is another wonderful 
organization, and I want to recognize those two. There are many others.
  In conclusion, I thank the Senator from Iowa. He and I chair the 
foster care caucus together. It has been a pleasure working with him. 
We look forward to another great year ahead. We have had some success--
actually, a great deal of success--in promoting adoption out of foster 
care and reforming the foster care system. It is a pleasure to work 
with Senator Grassley.
  I yield the floor to my colleague.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I appreciate the kind words of the 
Senator from Louisiana. Likewise, it is a pleasure not only to work 
with her, but the two of us have been able, on most foster care and 
adoption issues, to find a broad coalition of Senators. Many people 
don't have permanence because of the lack of adoption or because of 
faults within the foster care system. These Senators are very 
interested in bringing changes in legislation that makes that 
permanence and stability more a fact and creates a better quality life 
for these young people. I thank Senator Landrieu for her leadership.
  I likewise, as she has, rise to honor National Adoption Month. I will 
take a few minutes to discuss my support for S. Res. 302 and for 
policies that promote and encourage adoption.
  For years, I have championed efforts to increase awareness of 
adoption and help streamline the process for families who open their 
hearts and homes to children who have no other family. S. Res. 302 
helps promote national awareness of adoption and the children awaiting 
families, celebrates children and families involved in adoption, and, 
lastly, encourages the people of the United States to secure safety, 
permanency, and well-being for all children.
  As cofounder and cochair of the Senate Caucus on Foster Youth, I have 
taken a keen interest in helping children who find themselves in the 
foster

[[Page 17651]]

care system. In the United States today, more than 400,000 children 
live in the foster care system. Many of these children have been 
welcomed into adoptive homes. However, over 105,000 of those in foster 
care are still waiting to be adopted.
  According to the Administration of Children and Families in my home 
State of Iowa, more than 4,700 kids entered the foster care system last 
year, a total of 6,500 kids were in my State's foster care system in 
2010.
  Foster youth simply desire to have what so many of us were blessed to 
have; that is, a home with caring, loving parents and siblings. In 
other words, in a short statement, they want permanency. They want 
stability. Too many older children in foster care, especially those 
with special needs, are often the ones who wait the longest to leave 
foster care. These kids are less likely than younger children to find 
what we refer to as ``forever homes.''
  While research shows that 40 percent of the Americans have considered 
adopting, many are reluctant because they are unsure of the adoption 
process. They have inaccurate perceptions about the children who are 
eligible to be adopted. Some believe children in foster care are there 
because of delinquency and other behavioral problems. The unfortunate 
fact is most children who are in foster care are there because they are 
abused, neglected or abandoned. These vulnerable children desperately 
need a family structure. They need parents who serve as positive role 
models, helping them become bright and successful members of their 
community.
  While progress is being made to increase adoption, there is always 
more work to be done. Helping in this process are numerous agencies and 
nonprofit organizations that work tirelessly to find worthy American 
families who want to be adopting parents. In Iowa, one such agency is 
Four Oaks Family and Children Services of Cedar Rapids, IA. Four Oaks 
has had a recruiter working with Wendy's Wonderful Kids since 2005.
  Wendy's Wonderful Kids is an innovative program of the Dave Thomas 
Foundation for Adoption, named after the late American business icon 
who founded Wendy's Restaurants. The foundation's mission is to promote 
adoption. It recently released a report about the success of the 
Wendy's Wonderful Kids Program. Specifically, the program is more 
focused on hard-to-place children. Recruiters work with children to 
find them the most appropriate placement. This program is a success 
story.
  Congress has also adopted and acted on legislation. In 2008, I was 
part of a bipartisan effort to pass the Fostering Connections to 
Success and Increasing Adoption Act of 2008. This new law represented 
the most significant and most far-reaching improvement in child welfare 
in over a decade. It provided additional Federal incentives for States 
to move children from foster care to adoptive homes. It included 
legislation that I had introduced to make it easier for foster children 
to be permanently cared for by their own relatives, including 
grandparents, aunts and uncles, and to stay in their home communities. 
That, of course, is one way of bringing about greater stability.
  Provisions in the law also made all children with special needs 
eligible for Federal adoption assistance. Previously, that assistance 
had been limited to children who were removed from very low-income 
families. The law broke new ground by establishing opportunities to 
help kids who age out of the foster care system at age 18 by giving 
their respective States the option to extend their care and by helping 
them pursue education or vocational training.
  In late 2009, Senator Mary Landrieu and I formed the Senate Caucus on 
Foster Youth to give older youth in and out of care and their families 
a place where their voices could be heard. We wanted foster youth to be 
part of this legislative process. By hearing from young people and from 
their families who have experienced the foster care system firsthand, 
congressional leaders will become more aware of the issues facing young 
people and their families.
  The caucus has and will continue to generate new ideas to prevent 
negative outcomes and create new opportunities for success. We wanted 
to focus on helping young people when they age out of the foster care 
children, typically at age 18. As many as 29,000 children age out every 
year without ever having found adoptive placement. Without the security 
of a family, they often end up homeless, end up incarcerated or end up 
maybe addicted to drugs. Children who age out of the system enter 
adulthood without knowing what it was like to be raised having their 
own families because they were under the State's supervision. In a 
sense, the State was their family, and that is not much of a family. 
They missed out on having a mom and a dad and maybe brothers and 
sisters to grow up with and to learn from and with whom they would have 
relationships for the rest of their life. They missed out on a very 
important part of childhood that they will never know, one that too 
many of us take for granted.
  They are thrown into the world and forced to take care of themselves. 
They struggle to pay bills, to find and hold a job, and to simply make 
ends meet.
  That is why adoption awareness is so very important and hence the 
resolution we are talking about. Since the First National Adoption Day 
in 2000, more than 35,000 children have joined ``forever families'' 
during National Adoption Day. In 2010 alone, adoptions for almost 5,000 
children were finalized through 400 National Adoption Day events in all 
50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
  These are impressive numbers--numbers that make us proud of the work 
being done to help foster children get the proper care. But there is 
always more work to be done. I have said that twice but can't say it 
too many times. It is through awareness such as this that we can help 
the work to continue.
  In passing S. Res. 302, this body will make an important statement 
about our collective support for the needs of foster children. It 
recognizes the families who took the giant leap to open their homes to 
other children. National Adoption Month is about kids who need a home, 
it is about kids who just want a mom and a dad, it is about helping 
children who are victims of neglect and abuse, and it is about giving 
children living in foster care the ability to live their dreams.
  We need to keep working together to break down the barriers to 
adoption so every child feels the relief of a solid family. I am proud 
to support the many kids who wait for permanency and stability but, 
more importantly, I want to salute the many organizations that are 
helping to make their dreams come true.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________