21st Century Children and Families Act

Whether it gets through or not, it is a step in the right direction. New legislation authored by California Rep. Karen Bass (D), would drastically change that standard: Under the 21st Century Children and Families Act, states could not even attempt to permanently sever children from their parents until they’d been in foster care for two full years consecutively, barring extreme circumstances — and even then it would be up to the states, and no longer a federal mandate. The reason that this is important is that the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) requires states to terminate parental rights when a child has been in foster care for 15 of 22 consecutive months. Granted this is just a tiny step.

“This bill is an important first step in moving away from cookie-cutter timelines that have caused devastating harm to children and families for decades,” said Kathleen Creamer, managing attorney of the family advocacy unit for Community Legal Services in Philadelphia.

Existing exemptions would be maintained for certain “aggravated” circumstances, such as when parents have committed sexual abuse or have been involved with the death of another child. But the legislation would free parents from the federal timeline when their custody rights are threatened due to incarceration or immigration detention — or in cases where they are actively working with the court to overcome hurdles in their lives to successfully bring the family back together. Parents are not subjected to the federal timeline if their children are placed with relatives.

Under the bill, if a state so chooses, it could eliminate all timeline requirements, except in cases involving aggravated circumstances.

Bass announced her landmark legislation in a news release Thursday. “It’s time to update old child welfare laws,” she said. “More needs to be done to improve foster kids’ options for stability in their lives. Premature modification of parental rights too often leaves children in foster care with no legal family.”

The legislation is at the earliest possible stage, and far from guaranteed, with many elements that could lead to controversy, including strengthening the rights of prospective LGBTQ parents. The bill could also be challenged by representatives of the adoption industry, policy watchers said.

“With respect to the timelines, we’ll be looking at those proposed changes carefully and considering how they affect children and families involved in foster care, especially BIPOC children and families, given the systemic discrimination they face,” said Mary Boo, executive director of the North American Council on Adoptable Children.

Children removed from their homes following allegations of abuse or neglect remain in foster care while their parents address the issues that landed them there, issues typically arising from extreme poverty. Under family and dependency court oversight, local child welfare systems must mitigate the circumstances that led to the child’s removal into foster care, offering the parents therapy, anger management, parenting classes and drug treatment, as well as the time necessary to overcome situational crises such as homelessness or illness.

Charles Redding barbecues for his two children last Easter at the home of a relative in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The family is now in dependency court fighting to stay together.

But that time is often not enough. The pandemic has brought heightened scrutiny to the “cruelty” of federal timelines. Parents such as Charles Redding of Minnesota have fought to regain custody of their children when circumstances are stacked against them to no fault of their own. Redding, for instance, had emerged from jail with no computer to attend court-mandated hearings and online classes, and the local center where he needed to go for drug testing suspended services. Earlier this year, Redding’s two children sobbed through a virtual court appearance, imploring a Hennepin County juvenile court judge to give their dad more time to secure stable housing for them to live together.

David Kelly, a former official in the U.S. Children’s Bureau, called the bill introduced this week “a critical, long overdue step toward justice for families,” adding: “I hope it proves a galvanizing moment for realizing the family children need most is their own.”

Bass is a longstanding champion of children and parents caught up in the foster care system — families who are disproportionately Black and Native American. She is among those emphasizing that the bar for reunification is often too high, and the impact of permanent family separation too damaging to continue the federal standards as they currently exist.

“The changes that I’m proposing today focus the foster care system on the child and the idea that children should be at the center of our efforts,” Bass stated.

Her legislation would require that before moving to terminate parental rights, states must describe the steps they took and services they provided to help keep a family together. It would also mandate data collection on the accessibility and availability of those services.

Shanta Trivedi, director of the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts at the University of Baltimore said that while states are already required under law to provide services under a “reasonable efforts” standard, the proposed law will ensure that protocol is followed for every family.

“This puts teeth into the ‘reasonable efforts’ requirement that were previously absent,” Trivedi said.

The bill has another key element: It adds sexual orientation, gender identity and religion to federal nondiscrimination protections that previously only included race and ethnicity. Under the proposed law, states and agencies they contract with could not “deny to any person the opportunity to become an adoptive or a foster parent” based on those additional factors. The provision would directly challenge laws in nearly a dozen states that permit faith-based providers to exclude members of the LGBTQ community by following religious ideology in choosing which foster and adoptive parents, or even which youth in foster care, they will and will not serve.

The legislation proposed by Bass retains current legal requirements that adoptions cannot be delayed to match children with families of the same race, gender, culture and religion. But it instructs states to consider such factors if that is requested by the child or their birth parent.

When the Adoption and Safe Families Act became law decades ago, nearly a third of all foster children had been in the system for at least three years. The timeline was designed to push those cases in the direction of adoptions or guardianships so that children didn’t languish with uncertain futures.

Since then, adoptions from foster care have more than doubled — from 30,000 in 1998 to 66,000 in 2019. Over the past decade, federal statistics show that the number of children awaiting adoption has also increased, by more than 20%.

The attempt to rewrite ASFA comes at a time when some are pushing for its outright repeal, including Jerry Milner, the Trump-era head of the U.S. Children’s Bureau. Along with Kelly, his former deputy, Milner now leads a consulting group helping state and local systems interested in significant reforms of their child welfare systems, including the strengthening of family bonds so children can avoid permanent family separation.

Critics of the current timeline that pushes for termination of parental rights after 15 months describe it as arbitrary and unjust to the families who mostly come from communities of color where daily life and the weight of historic and systemic injustice can bear down on home life. Advocates for parents say the federal timeline also penalizes people in recovery for substance abuse or seeking treatment for mental health challenges — complex healing that can take time and involve relapse and setbacks.

In a February 2021 op-ed, Creamer and Chris Gottlieb, co-director of the NYU School of Law Family Defense Clinic, described the social context around the original law: “Passed in the wake of the now-debunked ‘crack baby’ scare, and at the same time as nefarious federal laws on crime and welfare, it reflected the racial and class biases that were ascendant at the time and that to this day continue to inflict harm on children, youth and families.”

Under the proposed legislation, a 24-month timeline was selected to align with the Family First Prevention Services Act, a 2018 law that overhauled the federal child welfare system to decrease reliance on group homes and emphasize foster care prevention. But as it is currently worded in the Bass bill, states could choose not to abide by the two-year timeline — the legislation as written uses the word “may” — not “shall” — while continuing to receive federal funds for the children who remain in foster care.

“We are hopeful that this is just the beginning of making sure that states have the flexibility they need to embrace and uphold family integrity,” said Shereen White, director of policy and advocacy for the national nonprofit Children’s Rights.

Child welfare policy consultant Maureen Flatley, who helped craft both the original Adoption and Safe Families Act and Bass’ new bill, said the additional protections for parents would not only help more children reunify with their families, it could reduce the number of young adults who leave foster care alone and disconnected from stable housing, income or a support system.

Flatley said while the timelines can succeed at creating a greater sense of urgency around permanency for foster youth, roughly 22,000 youth still age out of foster care each year with no legal family ties. Meanwhile, many of their parents may simply have needed more time to complete court-ordered service plans.

“By maintaining those family connections and those relationships, we may be able to mitigate and limit the number of kids who are aging out alone,” Flatley said.

Under the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act, states have received financial incentives to push foster children along the adoption path, despite critics’ objections. Bass’s bill does not address adoption incentives, instead taking aim at timelines that lead to the termination of parental rights — a critical first step for children to be adopted.

Still, even staunch detractors of the existing law applauded Bass’s attempt to update it through a social justice lens.

“I don’t know what the chances are for passage, but the fact that we can even have this discussion shows that the racial justice reckoning finally is reaching child welfare,” said Richard Wexler, an outspoken foster care critic and executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. “If it passes, it will improve the lives of, ultimately, millions of children.”

Thanks to The Imprint for this blog.

How To Open Communication

Life happens and then you scramble to make the best of the situation. Today’s story.

We were foster parents advocating for reunification with each placement. Knowing what we know now, we would find other ways to support family reunification. With our last placement, relatives were contacted weekly for months according to the social worker, but did not want to take placement of the child nor have any communication with us. Then, mom tragically passed away while fighting hard to regain custody of her child. We were told that if we didn’t want to pursue adoption, the child would be placed in additional foster homes until a permanent placement was found. We loved him so much and ultimately decided to adopt as we couldn’t imagine him bouncing from home to home until he found permanency. We know he clearly has living relatives including a half-sibling who he has never met at the aunt and uncle’s choosing. This half-sibling lives with them. We know our son would value these irreplaceable connections with family, but we as adoptive parents don’t know if it is our place to initiate them – especially since the aunt and uncle don’t seem to be interested in contact at this point. The social worker did provide us with their phone number and our contact information was given to them months ago. Do we reach out? Give the aunt and uncle space to come to us? Wait until our son is older and let him decide? Adoptees, what would you have wanted adoptive parents to do?

The first response came from an adoptee – Call them. Talk with them, verify the information you’ve been told, set up times to talk or see each other. Keep trying, even if they aren’t responsive. This child has already lost so much, he needs his family connections honored.

Some further information on this situation – we had been told by a third party not to contact them as they were very hurt by the situation with his mom and that they were not ready to have a relationship or contact. However, I have never personally spoken to the family, and agree that the foster care agency could have said one thing when the family actually said another. I would love for nothing more than my for my son to have these family connections and family mirrors. My biggest fear is that I don’t want to cause more pain or sever the relationship further if they indeed were not ready and I seem disrespectful for not following their wishes. I know they are on social media Maybe being honest and saying all that might be the best approach when initiating contact?

Another adoptee responds to this with – A third party told my biological dad’s family the same thing (biological dad died when I was a baby). They stayed away based on the fact that they knew they had no power and the information said third party had given them. My adoptive parents never reached out to them because the same third party had told them that my biological family didn’t care about me. I didn’t have them as family as a child (and honestly I STILL don’t have a real family relationship with them) as a result. Suffice to say, it has literally ruined that part of my life.

An adoptive parent shares – I had a very similar situation with my son. Child Protective Services case worker told me they contacted his siblings adoptive parent twice and that they wanted no contact. After my son’s adoption finalized, I just decided I had to reach out anyway – the adoptive parent on the other end started to cry when I told her who I am. She said she is so glad I found her number, and that all Child Protective Services had asked was whether they would be a placement resource! She had never told Child Protective Services that they didn’t want contact. The result? These two brothers have a close relationship and see each other several times a month, sometimes multiple times a week. Definitely call.

Bottom line – Until you hear it with your own ears (or see it with your eyes, etc), I would not trust what the system says someone else says.

The Importance Of Names

From the UK Mirror –

A mum-to-be has sparked an interesting debate online, after confessing she’d found herself in a bitter row with the biological family of her soon-to-be adopted twins.

The woman and her husband are due to become parents to a gorgeous pair of twins when they are born next year – but while everything had been going smoothly between the two families, they’ve recently come to a huge road block over names.

“My husband and I are in the process of adopting two cute little twins that will be born in January,” the 25-year-old explained on Reddit’s Am I The A**hole forum.

“The biological mother is a 15-year-old girl, G, who doesn’t want to keep them. She’s the daughter of a friend of a friend of ours and somehow it got through that we wanted to adopt so her family called us as soon as they knew that G was pregnant.”

The couple have been with G all throughout her pregnancy and have assured her that even though she doesn’t wish to be a mother to the twins, she can still be a part of their life and visit them whenever she wants, as they’ll all be living in the same city – despite the fact the teen has shown no interest in having a relationship with them at all so far.

“As soon as we found out about the baby, we began looking for names and when it was confirmed that it were going to be twins, a girl and a boy, we decided on the names Ellie and Evan,” the woman continued.

“Last week however, we were informed that G had chosen names herself; Walter and Agnes. She didn’t choose them because of a relative, just because she thought they sounded cool. I don’t think I have to mention how outdated the names are and my husband and I simply don’t like them.”

The mum-to-be added that even if the name chosen by G were great, they’re still hers and her husband’s children and they will be raising them, therefore it’s their place to choose the names.

“They will also get our last name and legally be our children, which was decided and agreed on five months ago,” she continued. “G’s family is upset with us for not accepting their ‘real’ names and is threatening to look for new parents.”

The mum explained that while she was considering naming the girl Ellie Agnes to appease the family, there was no way she would ever name the boy Evan Walter.

Although it appears to be empty threats from G’s family, the woman turned to Reddit to question whether she was justified in putting her foot down when it comes to naming their adopted babies.

“I think you need to look at it from the bio moms perspective. She is giving you a really big gift. Regardless of practicality, opportunities etc, these are her babies. Naturally she would want to give them a name, it’s practically the only thing she will ever be able to give them,” one suggested.

“You will be the ones to comfort them, you will be the ones to cuddle them, you will be the ones there for every milestone. I understand hating the names, but I would try to either keep them as middle names or talk to her and see if you can come up with better names together.”

In my all things adoption group, the comment was –

To me it basically comes down to whose names are they?…The baby boy and the baby girls. It’s as simple as that. It’s not the adopter’s names nor the birth mother’s names…it’s the names she chooses and gives them. So it’s their names. Their name is their property, belonging to each of them. To take that away is identity theft, as happens in the majority of adoptions. It kinda happened in my adoption, as my adoptive parents didn’t know/weren’t told my name so chose what I was to be called. I was 38 before I learned my original name…MY name. I usually liken it to me calling someone by their wrong name eg Barbara, but I call her Bernice. She’d put me straight pretty damn quick, yet Adoptees live a life by the wrong name and are expected to put up and shut up! Adoption should be about the child’s needs and about their rights, respect and
autonomy, not ownership, imbalance or superiority. When will people get that?

My own experience –

My adoptee dad used to tease my adoptee mom by using her name at birth. It turns out that both of them had names relevant to their genetic heritage – for my dad, his middle name was the name of the man who fathered him. for my mom, her middle name was her grandmother’s middle name – my grandmother had lost her mom at the tender age of 7 and was seeking to honor her. I am against adoptive parents changing adoptee’s names. The change in the last name may be a governmental requirement as regards financial responsibility but then again, these days, with remarriage so common, does it really matter what the last name
of the child is ?

A Difference In Perspective

Within adoption reform communities, there is a deep commitment and ongoing effort to do adoptive relationships in a manner that is focused on the well-being of the adopted child, who through no choice of their own is not with the parents who conceived nor the mother who gave birth to them.

So, here’s the story of two conflicting perspectives on “doing it right”.

My husband and I live in West Africa with our 5 children. We recently adopted twin 4 year old girls in December. These children were being raised by their single Aunt who could not take care of them any longer since she was also raising 6 additional children (her own and also from other siblings), so she surrendered them to an orphanage because their mother had nothing to do with them since they were 1 year old. Unfortunately, this is a pretty common scenario here in West Africa.

We talk often about their “first mom,” allow the twins to miss her and express sadness, assure them they are loved and wanted. We keep in contact with their Aunt and have recently developed an online relationship with their mother. I send pictures and video to their family several times a week so they are able to know how the twins are doing. The twins have been able to talk with their aunt, cousins, and mother on two occasions. My husband and I had hoped to keep this relationship alive so the girls always had a connection to their African family.

Recently I received very harsh criticism from an adult Native American adoptee who was adopted into a privileged white family at birth. She has no connection with her biological family and claims she has never had any questions about them because “her parents did it right.” She insisted that the way we are referring to their mother as “first mom” and the ongoing connection we are attempting to foster will create an identity crisis and undermine my parental authority as their adoptive mother. We are a Christian missionary family (as is she) and she also told me that she believes our behavior and language will cause them to question God and fall away from their faith because of the uncertainty we’ll cause. In her opinion, we need to “squash” the connection with their mother and start referring to her as “the woman who gave birth to you” and to me as your “only mom.” She was also concerned that the girls have “romanticized” their memories of their mom, making her seem better than she was to them.

There is so much attention now being paid to issues of racial inequality and identity that I am not surprised that the first comment was somewhat harsh but here goes –

You are the definition of white saviorism. The very fact that you are missionaries in another country trying to recruit locals to your culture and belief system is white colonization. I find it disgusting and harmful. As to your adoption, it’s sad for all those involved, especially for the twins.

And the original woman’s response –

I teach at an American Christian school for North American children who have parents living abroad either as missionaries, humanitarian workers, or for business. We actually do not interact with locals in the manner you are assuming. But, let me educate you on what happens here in West Africa to children whose parents cannot take care of them…. the lucky ones are given to “schools” that use these children as slaves, abuse them, and force them to beg on the streets for money usually shoeless and hungry. Others are taken out to remote villages and left to starve or sold as human sacrifices or into human trafficking. The fact that you make such a bold statement without knowing anything about what happens here just shows your own ignorance and first world privilege.

The criticism was gently affirmed by another woman –

What was brought up is a valid point. I think your heart is in the right place, but you should always be mindful of how your actions have potentially negatively affected your adopted daughters’ natural family.

In adoption reform circles, financial and other resource support for natural families and keeping children within their birth culture (which means ending transracial adoption, which is not the same is a mixed race family birthing mixed race children, to be clear on this point) is the direction that reformers are seeking in an effort to end the need for removing children from the biological and genetic families.

And finally, an adoptee shares –

As an adoptee ALL I wanted my entire childhood was to know who and where I came from. Since I had no answers I would make up stories about how my first mom was a famous actress etc etc. I found out later in life that many adoptees made up elaborate stories about their bio families. It was literally torturous to not know. I feel now that SO much was straight out stolen from me as a child. And for what purpose???

Since I had no answers about my own parents’ origins, I “made up” stories. My mom was half African-American – she was not. My dad was half Mexican – he was not. I would have preferred the reality and an opportunity to know those persons who I was genetically related to. My parent died without ever having that opportunity. Since I have recovered the knowledge of my genetic origins, I am thankful also to now know people I am actually related to by blood. It has healed to wholeness something that was previously broken within me – without denying the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins I knew as a child due solely to the adoptions of my parents.

Separating Siblings

Life is messy and stuff happens. It is sad that siblings grow up never knowing one another. My dad had 3 half-siblings he never knew. My mom had 4 half-siblings she never knew.

Parental rights get terminated for a variety of reasons. In these cases, there are often multiples of siblings who end up torn asunder.

Take a very complicated case. 8 children in 5 different homes. Each situation with a different perspective on the circumstances. One of the most worrying is a white grandma with a baby who’s mother and other siblings are from an African-American heritage. The grandma delayed adopting because she wanted to see how “white” the baby would be. It doesn’t end there because people who know about these things suggest – this child is likely going to get darker as they get older and their hair may get kinkier as well. This grandma has no interest in staying connected to mom, mom’s family, or any of the siblings/adoptive families. She has been pretty standoffish.

One set of 3 yr old twins is being raised by an enlightened adoptive mother who is desperately trying to somehow maintain a connection among all of the siblings and admittedly, there is never going to be a huge amount of interaction among these children until they are mature and then it will be up to them to try and locate one another and build a relationship that basically includes not having grown up with one another in a similar environment.

Two of the siblings remain with their mother in a different state from all of the rest. One child was adopted by a family that has other children. This family is very open to a relationship. The adoptive mother of the twins had to track them down herself… because of privacy rules. This woman’s story proves that if there is the will to do the right thing then a way will open up.

Finally, two of the other siblings were adopted by a couple that has no other children. They are in contact with the adoptive mother of the 3 yr old twins but will be moving out of state this summer.

8 children in 5 homes is not ideal. Other than the 2 siblings that remain with their mother, she is entirely shut out of 3 of the other families. Grandma doesn’t allow contact with the baby and the two other adoptive families never knew her and and are not interested in being in contact with her even though the termination of her parental rights happened before they took placement of the kids.

Some empathy came to this adoptive mom trying to do the right thing from a woman who was one of seven kids total between the two parents. Not unusual in what is called blended families. She was the only one who was put up for adoption. She has two sisters and a brother on her mother’s side and three brothers on her father’s side. She admits that “It’s hard to maintain a close sibling relationship with them, even as an adult. We are currently in 5 separate homes.” None of these children have the same two parents.

Her perspective is this – “I feel like complete understanding of the situation from a younger age would have helped with this, but separate homes is just really hard to get around, especially when it takes a road trip to visit. It’ll require a lot of time to keep them close to one another.”

Life is messy and it is so very sad that children get caught up in the middle of chaos and yet still grow up and must find a way for their own selves if family connections matter to them.