[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 38 (Monday, September 25, 2000)]
[Pages 2143-2144]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on the Adoption Bonus Awards

September 20, 2000

    Today's award of nearly $20 million in adoption bonuses to States 
demonstrates the dramatic success of our efforts to move more children 
from the foster care system to loving homes they can call their own. 
With this second round of awards by the U.S. Department of Health and 
Human Services, all 50 States, as well as the District of Columbia and 
Puerto Rico, have now earned bonuses for increasing the number of 
children adopted from public foster care. Last year alone, 46,000 foster 
care children were adopted, an increase of nearly 65 percent since 1996. 
This puts us well on the way to meeting my goal of doubling the number 
of adoptions from 28,000 in 1996 to 56,000 by 2002. I commend the States 
for accepting the challenge to more rapidly move children from foster 
care into permanent homes and the many loving families who have opened 
their hearts and their homes to adopt children from the foster care 
rolls.
    I also want to thank the First Lady for her commitment and 
leadership on this issue. Hillary spearheaded my administration's effort 
to transform our child welfare system and promote adoption by leading 
the administration's Adoption 2002 initiative, which served as the 
blueprint for the Adoption and Safe Families Act that I signed into law 
in 1997. The adoption bonus awards were included as part of my our 
Adoption 2002 initiative, and were enacted as part of the Adoption and 
Safe Families Act, establishing the first-ever financial incentives to 
States to increase adoptions of children waiting in the foster care 
system.

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