Too Inconvenient ?

A friend who knows I write this blog, sent me an article about a baby stolen from her family in Korea to feed the demand for adoptable babies in the US. However, I have written about that issue more than once. Below that article was another one that caused me to go – oh Wow !!

Here is that story from Slate by Allison Price – LINK>My Sister-in-Law Asked Us to Adopt Her Twins Because She Missed Her Old Life. Somehow, We Said Yes.

Last year, when our kids were 3 and 4, we decided to explore adoption and/or fostering, as we felt like we still had room and love for more children in our life. Around the same time, my sister-in-law got married and pregnant with twins. She had never expressed much desire to have children and was definitely stressed to discover it was twins. When the twins were about 6 weeks old, they all came to stay with us for a weekend to attend SIL’s friend’s wedding, during which we agreed to watch the babies. They ended up texting around 11 p.m. that they’d had more to drink than they’d planned and the party was still going, so would we mind if they just got a hotel room and we’d keep watching the babies overnight? We were fine with it. The next day, when it was 3 p.m. and they still weren’t back and hadn’t answered any texts, my husband called them. They’d decided to take advantage of sleeping in, had brunch then had a few shops they wanted to check out, and thought it was a nice break from the babies.

Two weeks after the wedding, they asked to come visit us again. They told us that having twins was significantly more difficult than either of them had imagined and they were really missing their previous life and the ability to do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. They said they knew we were considering adoption and wondered if we would take in their twins. They thought it would be the best solution as they could continue to see them and be involved in their lives (at their convenience). My husband and I were shocked. We spent the next month talking to them about it more and went to multiple counseling sessions with them. I went to the obstetrician with my SIL to discuss the possibility of postpartum depression affecting everything. The outcome of it all was that they didn’t want to be parents and wanted us to take the kids. Ultimately, we drew up a legal agreement, they surrendered parental rights and we adopted the twins.

We absolutely love the babies and feel like our family is complete now, but I don’t know how to interact with my brother-in-law and SIL anymore. I lost all respect for them when they basically admitted that their kids were an inconvenience they wanted to be rid of. (When we asked what they would do if we didn’t adopt them, they said they were considering other private adoption options.) It’s been a year, and everyone in my husband’s family just acts like what they did was perfectly normal. My BIL and SIL have even asked us not to tell the twins we aren’t their biological parents, which goes against the legal agreement we all signed. We plan to be open and honest with them about how they came to be a part of our immediate family. It’s so bizarre to me that everyone thinks this was a perfectly appropriate thing to do.

Asked advice – Is there a way to discuss this with them?

The Advice Columnist said – First and foremost, it sounds like you need to know whether the terms of your adoption agreement are legally enforceable, or whether some of the terms of the adoption can be changed.

How you talk with your brother-in-law and sister-in-law about disclosing the adoption to the twins needs to come from a well-informed decision that you and your husband make. Adoption can mean a lot of joy, love, and comfort, but it can also mean trauma, confusion, and anger. I foresee a lot of those latter feelings for these twins, knowing that their birth parents (who they will presumably develop a relationship with) saw them as inconveniences to be surrendered.

Keeping this important truth from them—one that is central to their identities—is likely to feel like a betrayal once the twins inevitably find out. You need to do a lot of research on open and kinship adoptions to be sure you’re making the decision that is right for your family and these twins; if you haven’t already, find a support group where you can crowdsource resources and feedback. Then you’ll be able to inform the birth parents and the rest of the family how you will be proceeding regarding disclosing to the twins. Make no mistake: No matter who else in the family has what opinions, this is ultimately you and your husband’s call as the legal parents.

It is a bizarre situation you are in—not just the surrender of the kids, but the supposed blasé attitude of the rest of the family. You sound understandably unclear about how you’re even going to maintain a relationship with your BIL and SIL, given how this has played out. Keep an eye on the family dynamics here; while I hope everyone can exude love and grace around these children and their adoption, I worry that this inauspicious start might signal more drama and discomfort to come. I hope I’m wrong, but that’s all the more reason to find a support group, and maybe also a therapist for you and your husband, to help you make sense of this unique dynamic. Good luck.

Ending Adoption – Chinese Babies

From Adoption.com – LINK>6 Things You Should Know – #1 There are no babies. Though dated (2018), “there are just no babies available for international adoption (in China). The world has changed a lot in the past twenty or so years, and while at one point it was common for parents to quickly bring home a very young girl, that is no longer that case. The children who are coming home now are older and have special needs of one sort or another. Younger children who are young and healthy are being adopted domestically, and it is not necessary to have them adopted overseas. This is a good thing.

More current is this article in The Guardian dated Sept 5 2024 – LINK>China says it is ending foreign adoptions. Here is a statistic – US families have adopted 82,674 children from China, the most of any country.

At a daily briefing on Thursday, Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said Beijing was no longer allowing intercountry adoptions of children from China, with the only exception for blood relatives to adopt a child or a stepchild. Mao did not explain the decision other than to say that it was in line with the spirit of relevant international conventions. “We express our appreciation to those foreign governments and families, who wish to adopt Chinese children, for their good intention and the love and kindness they have shown,” she added.

In letters sent to some adoption agencies on Wednesday, and shared on social media, the US state department said it had been told by Chinese authorities that all other pending adoptions were cancelled, except those with already issued travel authorizations. In a phone call with US diplomats in China, Beijing said it “will not continue to process cases at any stage” other than those cases covered by an exception clause. The embassy is seeking clarification in writing from China’s ministry of civil affairs, the US state department said on Thursday. The state department said: “We understand there are hundreds of families still pending completion of their adoption, and we sympathize with their situation.”

The Nanchang Project, a US-based group that works with Chinese adoptees and their adoptive parents to help adoptees find their biological families said the announcement marked “the end of an era”. It added: “It is our profound hope that the remaining children in China receive the attention, medical care, and love they deserve.”

The number of newborn babies in China fell to 9.02 million in 2023, and the overall population declined for the second consecutive year. Amid a series of government measures designed to encourage more births, China’s decades-long one-child policy – which was a key driver of babies, especially girls, being put up for adoption – was phased out.

Adoption Reform

Trying to come up with a topic for today – two words came to mind as closest to my heart – Adoption Reform. I googled the words and found LINK>The Outspoken Adoptee. I am happy to share her with you.

She writes – “I am a domestic private infant adoptee, that was adopted transracially by white parents in 1976, in Utah. I was giving up at birth, and left in a hospital by my racist biological maternal family. This was done because they believed their Mormon faith could not sustain a Black child within the home. My biological mother had been dating my father for many years, even living with him, yet she chose to leave her firstborn daughter in a hospital alone. My biological mother went on to become pregnant six months later with my all-white half sister, whom was kept and raised by the very family that exiled me from it. My mission now it to bring awareness to the corrupt private adoption system that profits billions off of selling babies, and children.”

She posts the definition of “reform” – “verb, Make changes in (something, typically a social, political, or economic institution or practice) in order to improve it.” and adds “an opportunity to reform and restructure an antiquated adoption model.”

It is generally recognized that to be adopted is to be traumatized. She shares – “Trauma-informed care (TIC) is defined by the LINK>National Child Traumatic Stress Network as medical care in which all parties involved assess, recognize and respond to the effects of traumatic stress on children, caregivers and healthcare providers. In the clinical setting, TIC includes the prevention, identification and assessment of trauma, response to trauma and recovery from trauma as a focus of all services.”

She notes – “Adoptees are often asked if we’d rather kids stay in foster care forever rather than them find homes to care for them. This is such an unintelligent question that lacks all critical thinking. So what are the alternatives to adoption, and why are they important?” She lists Kinship, as well as the Fictive type, and Legal Permanent Guardianship.

To answer why these alternatives are better, she writes (I encourage you to go to the link above because she has much more to say) – [1] “The way adoption in the United States is done it’s strips a child in crisis of their basic birthright.” [2] “Furthermore, adoption in the United States also severs all ties to the child’s biological family including siblings, as well as all medical history.” [3] “Children do not need to be legally adopted and stripped of their birthright for a family, whether biological or stranger to care for them. Legal permanent guardianship offers all the same rights.” [4] “Children cannot legally give informed consent to being put into a legally binding contract for life.”

Finally, she notes – “Adoption in the United States also breaks 15/30 rights of a child set-forth by the UN.” LINK>Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Grief Needs Space

Today’s story – not my own – I adopted my nephew a few years ago. My sister has a crippling addiction and Child Protective Services got involved. It’s all devastating and we all know adoption is born of broken hearts.

Anyway… So we try to keep in contact with his mom but she is very unavailable and doesn’t have stable living at any given time. Currently she’s been gone for about 2 years with no phone contact but we have checked with people who know people to make sure she is still around and ‘okay’. Her son is 4 years old. (We have had him since he was 5 months old, after being in emergency care for 2 months.)

Tonight he was crying at bedtime and when my husband asked why he said he misses his mom. (He knows he is adopted.) My husband just held him close until he settled and then he went to sleep.

But I don’t know how to handle this. I have pictures and thought maybe we can look through them but then panic that maybe that will make it worse. He saw his biological half siblings all day today (also placed for adoption to kin on the father’s side) so I wonder if that was a trigger but the answer can’t be to not see his siblings. I just don’t know how to help him.

I did reach out to a friend of my sisters to see if maybe he can relay a message and haven’t heard back but even then I don’t know what will help. She has only seen him maybe 7 to 10 times since being placed with us, so I don’t know if it will help or hurt for him to see her?

Anyone. Help. Tell me what to do, please. (Other than not adopt him because I didn’t ask for this…) I never intended to “steal him” or anything… I just needed my nephew to be in a safe place surrounded by as much family as possible.

From someone involved in counseling – I think he’s grieving and it doesn’t necessarily need to be “fixed.” Grief needs space and to be witnessed. His heart hurts for good reason and he needs safety to feel what he feels. A therapist might help you too as you hold space for grief with him. I suggest seeing an adoption competent therapist.

An adoptee shares – Holding him while he misses his mom and loving on him is the right thing here and you’ve done that. Therapy with an adoption trauma informed therapist and just being there for him. Letting him talk about her. The pictures are a good idea. Addiction is so freaking hard. Don’t give up on them – someday they might be ready. I think you should be in therapy too, you’ve pretty much lost your sister to addiction at this point, that’s a lot and it’s okay to need a little lift of support.

Love For Them Is Natural

Image from a reunion story at LINK>Cafe Mom

I read this from an adoptive parent today in my all things adoption group – “We as adoptive parents shouldn’t feel threatened when adoptees express their love for their biological parents.”

The comment above came in response to something she had read in a different group (that I am not a member of) – “How do you handle your kids saying they love their biological parents more than you ? My oldest son is 5 but I’ve had him since he was 9 months old. He was allowed overnights with biological mom until he was 2-1/2 years old. He’s only seen her 5 times since she lost custody. From my prospective, he doesn’t really know her because they have rarely been together. The overnights were for one night every month or two. It just hurts my feelings when he says he loves his birth mom and her husband (not his bio dad) and not me”.

One mother of loss noted a bit cynically – OMG did an adoptive parent just admit their own fragility and insecurity ?! Better put this one on the calendar. Someone get this lady a medal. Sorry you weren’t able to erase an unbreakable bond. And as how to “handle” it ? You ACCEPT it. You know what ? Your feelings are not what matters. You get a shrink and you just deal with it. Or you use a 5 year old’s true feelings to alienate the child for your own selfish gain by cutting contact and closing the adoption, like 89% of the rest of the vultures do. He hasn’t seen her but 5 times and they’re rarely together because you haven’t allowed it, because you’re jealous. From overnights to nothing, hmmm what do we think the outcome will be ?

One woman who works with young people wrote – Doing youth work, it’s been enlightening to see how the way the adoptive parents treat the whole subject and how the kid processes it all as they get to an age to understand this stuff with more detail. The ones who have been treated like belongings have had real internal struggles. There was quite a bit of kinship caring in the families we worked with and there’s been more than one “family visit” night where like 25 people have turned up. LOL I’m like, well the room isn’t that big so pick 3 people and I’ll go get the client. A lot of times when the kid was from a really remote location the whole family, like half the community, would come down and camp in the park across the road. Especially elders. I wish the people who had the attitudes like that woman could see that.

An adoptee notes – The adoptive parent expects a 5 year old to manage their feelings, with an adult-level understanding of how to do that, while denying any preferences of his own. Also in my opinion, describing it as hurting her feelings, after expressing disbelief that her son could love his biological mom more, is really her projecting her resentment about that onto the child. He’ll definitely learn not to express anything like that to her – eventually. That’s how it’s getting handled: by him.

An experienced foster/adoptive mom writes – it’s SO important that anyone getting getting involved, particularly in the foster care system, be free of the super common “looking to expand our family”. You can’t expect a child, let alone a traumatized child, to fulfill your emotional needs. That’s not what kids are for. If you’re truly interested in helping kids… Then you should be thrilled they have a great connection to their family. That’s to be celebrated. Like yay! You did a good job! Your kid has connections and is able to recognize those emotions and feels free to verbalize them! It’s just such a fundamental baked-in part of the problem that, when you pay for a child, you think you own it. You have expectations. It’s yours. It’s late stage capitalism in one of its worst forms. The inherent power structure and commodification of *children*.

Truth No Longer Matters ?

When there is no agreed criterion to distinguish science from pseudoscience or just plain ordinary BS, it is post-empirical science, where truth no longer matters and it IS potentially very dangerous.

Case in point – Diane Baird – who labeled her method for assessing families the “Kempe Protocol” after the renowned University of Colorado institute where she worked for decades. From a ProPublica expose – LINK>An Expert Admits Her Evaluations Are Unscientific.

From that story – Diane Baird had spent four decades evaluating the relationships of poor families with their children. But last May, in a downtown Denver conference room, with lawyers surrounding her and a court reporter transcribing, she was the one under the microscope. Baird is a social worker and professional expert witness. She has routinely advocated in juvenile court cases across Colorado that foster children be adopted by or remain in the custody of their foster parents rather than being reunified with their typically lower-income birth parents or other family members.

Was Baird’s method for evaluating these foster and birth families empirically tested? No, Baird answered: Her method is unpublished and unstandardized, and has remained “pretty much unchanged” since the 1980s. It doesn’t have those “standard validity and reliability things,” she admitted. “It’s not a scientific instrument.” Who hired and was paying her in the case that she was being deposed about? The foster parents, she answered. They wanted to adopt, she said, and had heard about her from other foster parents.

Had she considered or was she even aware of the cultural background of the birth family and child whom she was recommending permanently separating? (The case involved a baby girl of multiracial heritage.) Baird answered that babies have “never possessed” a cultural identity, and therefore are “not losing anything,” at their age, by being adopted. Although when such children grow up, she acknowledged, they might say to their now-adoptive parents, “Oh, I didn’t know we were related to the, you know, Pima tribe in northern California, or whatever the circumstances are.” (Actually, the Pima tribe is located in the Phoenix metropolitan area.)

A fundamental goal of foster care, under federal law, is for it to be temporary: to reunify children with their birth parents if it is safe to do so or, second best, to place them with other kin. Extensive social science research has found that kids who grow up with their own families experience less long-term separation trauma, fewer mental health and behavioral problems as adolescents and more of an ultimate sense of belonging to their culture of origin.

But a ProPublica investigation co-published with The New Yorker in October revealed that there is a growing national trend of foster parents undermining the foster system’s premise by “intervening” in family court cases as a way to adopt children. As intervenors, they can file motions and call witnesses to argue that they’ve become too attached to a child for the child to be reunited with their birth family, even if officials have identified a biological family member who is suitable for a safe placement.

A key element of the intervenor strategy, ProPublica found, is hiring an attachment expert like Baird to argue that rupturing the child’s current attachment with his or her foster parents could cause lifelong psychological damage — even though Baird admitted in her deposition that attachment is a nearly inevitable aspect of the foster care model. (Transitions of children back to their birth families are not just possible, they happen every day in the child welfare system.)

In the Huerfano County case, Baird filed a report saying that the baby girl’s life with her foster parents was “predictable, safe, and filled with love”; that removing her from them and placing her with her biological grandma — with whom the girl had been having regular, joyful visits — would “derail her healthy development and create lifelong risk”; and that her “healthy development and mental health will be best protected if her current caregiving environment does not change.”

Baird, in an interview with ProPublica, admitted that “I do sometimes use the same verbiage in one report as I did in others.” But, she added in an email, “My consistency is not a boiler-plate approach, but rather reflects developmental science which applies to all children.” She emphasized, “In all cases I advocate for what I am convinced is the child’s best interest.”

Baird also noted that in many cases she is hired by county officials, rather than directly by foster parents, although ProPublica’s interviews and review of records show that this typically happens when officials are in agreement with the foster parents that they should get continuing or permanent custody. Baird, despite not being a child psychologist, achieves credibility with these officials — and with judges — in part via the impressive label that she uses for her methodology: the Kempe Protocol.

Founded in the 1970s, the Kempe Center is best known for getting laws passed across the country requiring “mandated reporters” like teachers and police officers to call in any suspicion of child abuse or neglect to a state hotline — after which kids were to be removed from their families, into foster care, if there was evidence of maltreatment. “No organization,” said Marty Guggenheim, the founder of the nation’s indigent family defense movement, “played a more direct role in shaping the modern system of surveillance, over-reporting, and under-emphasizing of the harms associated with state intervention.”

In recent years, Kempe has taken a more critical look at its past, accepting some institutional responsibility for what it has called the “myth of benevolence”: the idea that certain kids should be redistributed from their families to (often better-off) foster and adoptive parents. The center recently released a statement saying that it had participated in ignoring poverty by placing sole responsibility for poor children’s health and well-being on their families’ alleged maltreatment of them. The statement acknowledged the center’s “complicity” in its “generation-spanning impacts.”

Some of Kempe’s staff have called Baird’s method a “bogus Kempe protocol” and “junk science” used “to rip apart families.” She is “leveraging the Kempe name to bolster her opinion.” Drawing from the foster parents’ version of events, Baird routinely reports to the county or testifies in court that visits with the birth family have been detrimental to the child, and, accordingly, she recommends that the foster parents keep the child indefinitely or permanently, on the basis of attachment theory. She has called just this amount of evaluation “the Kempe Protocol” in several cases we reviewed.

Sadly, there appears to be no clear recourse for all of the birth families who’ve lost their children in the past because of Baird’s work.

The Thief Lord

It is the story of orphans and adoption. It reminded me a lot of August Rush without a cruel Robin Williams and all of the music. Both house the street urchins in an abandoned theater but the one in this 2006 movie is much nicer. The story is set in the canals of Venice and includes elements of magic, especially from the perspective of Bo, who is 6-3/4 years old. From a review at LINK>Chucks Connection –

Two orphaned brothers have been separated by their aunt Esther Hartlieb, who is only interested in taking care of Bo and has put Prosper in an orphanage. As the film opens, Prosper successfully escapes from the orphanage, and is able to get Bo away from the Hartlieb house, although in doing so he triggers an alarm that awakens the Hartliebs. The two boys have made a pact to run away and go to Venice, where their mother was thinking of taking them before she died.

The two boys are able to arrive in Venice by stealing rides on trains and boats. By the time they have reached their destination, Bo has come down with a bad cough. Prosper goes into a drug store to get some medicine, but doesn’t have enough money to purchase the drugs. He contemplates stealing the medicine, but is startled by the shop owner, and the bottle falls to the floor and breaks. The shop owner yells “thief” and begins chasing Prosper down the corridors and alleyways of Venice. Prosper is able to escape, due to the unexpected assistance of another young teen wearing a black beaked mask.

The kids support themselves through petty thievery. They sell what they steal through a local fence, Barbarossa (who reminded me of my sons’ obstetrician). He is the owner of a local antique shop. Meanwhile, the snobbish couple who were raising Bo hire a local detective. It is not clear why they would even be interested in finding Bo and his older brother, Prosper, as they seem totally uninterested in relating to either kid.

Eventually, the Thief Lord is offered a large sum of money to steal what seems to be a somewhat worthless object — the wing of an animal from an old wooden merry-go-round. “Chuck” notes that there are many plot turns and twists in this story along with some magical events that change the focus of the story. But it would spoil your experience of viewing the film to reveal any more of the actual story, other than to say it might take you a couple of viewings before you pick up on everything that goes on in the course of the film.

I enjoyed the movie but then, I believe in and love magic. The Thief Lord is based on the fantasy novel by Cornelia Funke. When I checked the dvd out at our local library, the librarian said she had read the book but had not seen the movie. The director and screenwriter, Richard Claus, is noted to have remained faithful to most of the details of the book. While it is a family film. it has some complexity to it. It is not difficult for a viewer to get wrapped up in the action of the storyline. LINK>Common Sense Media describes the movie as a magical orphan drama that explores the definition of family.

My favorite character is an adult woman, Ida Spavento, who is a photographer that helps the kids. Turns out, she is also an orphan and is the one who possesses the wooden wing. It belongs to the lion on the long-lost merry-go-round with magical powers that was once at the Merciful Sisters convent.

Vimeo Trailer

Foster Parents and Trauma

I just read a post from a hopeful adoptive parent who is kin to a child and would like to adopt them out of foster care – “I just found a Go Fund Me for the foster moms fighting us for custody of my cousin. Is there a point where it really is better for my cousin to stay where he’s at ? They keep arguing about the trauma the move will cause. He just turned a year old recently. They make me feel like a monster for trying to step up and keep him connected to his biological family and that I’ll cause him significant trauma.”

And there was this reply from someone who was in foster care during their youth – Trauma lol. Let that child be a child they don’t want – they could care less about trauma. I was in 24 foster homes. Foster parents don’t pull the trauma card or bonding card with kids they don’t want.

Right now they’re lying and hoping to drag the case out. The truth is they’re causing trauma. I’m sorry to say this but being ripped away from your foster family can’t be compared to being ripped away from your biological family. They want to compare it but they can’t. It’s more painful to be ripped away from your biological family than a foster family. A foster family, you don’t lose anything. Losing your biological family causes life long issues. They want to sound important but they’re not.

And I speak as someone who had only one good foster home (out of 24). Explain how adoption is legal after kids spend years in foster care or with their caregiver, only to be ripped away. My advice is fight until the end. It’s better to be fought for. One day the child will know the truth.

And a foster parent writes – If they were truly concerned about the move causing more trauma they would be working with you on visits and a transition plan. This isn’t about the baby it’s about them. We’ve transitioned a little one before and by the time we made the final move he was just as bonded to his aunt as he was to us. Transitions can happen in a way that is fun and easy for the little one – IF everyone works together. I am so sorry you are going through this. Keep fighting.

Progress in Washington State

Washington House Bill 1747: “Keeping Families Together” would encourage guardianships over termination of parental rights when possible. Black and Brown families are especially vulnerable — in Washington, Indigenous children are 2.7 times more likely and Black children are 2.4 times more likely than white children to experience the termination of both parents’ rights. This bill would help to reduce racial bias and inequities in the child welfare system.

Jamerika Haynes-Lewis who wrote an op-ed, LINK>HB 1747 Offers a Pathway to Keeping Families Together, for the South Seattle Emerald a year ago in January 2022 write – I think of my own experience as a foster child in the system. My world completely changed at 5 when I stepped into my first foster home. Though I had relatives and other people that could have served as guardians, this option was not considered. Instead, adoption was the only choice. This event led me to moving from the Eastside of Tacoma to becoming one of few Black children in Poulsbo, Washington. Away from my family and community connections, I suffered immensely from racism and an identity crisis. And I had to experience this alone, on my own.

I am unable to determine the current status of HB 1747’s effort. I did also find Washington House Bill 1295 at The Imprint LINK>Hidden Foster Care, which would guarantee legal counsel for hundreds of parents ensnared in “hidden foster care” — informal placements arranged outside of court oversight. In a practice deployed to varying degrees nationwide, social workers with the state’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families offer parents the option of voluntarily handing over their children to friends or family. In exchange, parents can provide input on where they would like to have the children stay without the dictates of a formal foster care placement. Legislation introduced by Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self (D) would provide public defenders for those parents, who currently face separation from their children through contracts with the child welfare agency known as “voluntary placement agreements.” Such arrangements have been criticized by social work scholars and child welfare advocates, who say they can be coercive and strip parents of their due process rights.

“When you look at representation for such a critical decision in your life — whether or not to place your children in the care of the state — we just want to make sure that parents fully understand what they’re stepping into and what their options are,” Rep. Ortiz-Self said in an interview last week.

Optimistically, I believe that activists will continue making progress and will endeavor to remain informed as well as sharing what I learn here.

National Adoption Awareness Month

The original intent of this effort was NOT to take newborn babies away from their first parents but to raise awareness about ALL of the children in foster care who may age out of the system without supportive people in their lives.

In his LINK> proclamation, President Biden committed to “extending the adoption tax credit to legal guardianships — including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives — which would make it easier for loving family members to care for children who need their support. This measure could also help reduce racial inequities in our country’s child welfare system, which too often render some children of color more likely to be removed from their homes and cut off from their families and communities.” This is a reform to the adoption system long advocated by activists and that I frequently mention here.

President Biden also said – The Department of Health and Human Services will provide training and technical assistance to State child welfare agencies in order to better support LGBTQI+ youth, whose needs are often unmet in the foster care system, and take steps to ensure all youth are placed in supportive environments.

Additionally, the administration is committed to ensuring that older adolescents transitioning from the foster care system have access to housing and education and can pay their bills and prepare for adulthood. President Biden has proposed increased funding for the John H. Chafee Successful Transition to Adulthood program by 70 percent. John Chafee was a Republican, Governor of Rhode Island and a US Senator. He also served in the Marine Corps. He died in 1999.