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| Library: Adoption | |||||||||||||||
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Adoption and Safe Families Act: Has It Made a Difference? |
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| Document Editor: National CASA - Carla Spaccarotelli,
Editor Author: M. Carmela Welte, National CASA Association Deputy CEO Publication: The Connection, Summer 03 Posted: 9/03 |
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The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), enacted in 1997, provides federal assurance that a child’s safety and permanence remains the principal focus while involved in the child welfare system. The most sweeping reform surrounds a mandate directing the state to initiate steps terminating parental rights (TPR) for a child that has been removed from his/her home for 15 of the last 22 months. However, ASFA allows the court the discretion to waive this requirement when it determines this is not in the child’s best interest. It also prescribes specific time frames for court review of the child’s case and the ability to bypass family reunification efforts for children in extraordinarily high risk situations (for example: chronic abuse, torture, abandonment or the death of a sibling because of parental abuse). A fourth key permanency provision provides incentive payments to states to increase the number of adoptions for waiting children and new funding with broad discretion for states to promote and support adoptions. Congress implemented ASFA legislation in response to the burgeoning numbers of children entering foster care and the length of time children languished in this system. The number of children in foster care by the mid 90s had doubled in just two decades. Children remained in care without stability or family for extensive periods of time because of a number of factors. Primary causes for delays in placing children were the need for parents to complete substance abuse rehabilitation, systemic barriers including overburdened child welfare workers, and resulting delays and postponements of court hearings. At the request of Congress, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) researched state implementation and impact of ASFA’s reforms specific to: 1) the “15 of 22 months” provision to initiate TPR; and 2) the provision to bypass reunification efforts (“fast track”) in extraordinarily high risk situations. The GAO analyzed national child welfare data, surveyed all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and conducted on site reviews with 6 states (Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon and Texas) to obtain information on implementation and outcomes. Regrettably, the GAO report cited inconclusive evidence and therefore improved outcomes could not be attributed exclusively to ASFA reforms. The research cites lack of reliable data because of different methodologies and sources for data collection over the past five years, and improvements in the data that is now being collected. Nonetheless, the GAO report reveals two trends in improved outcomes for children in care: the number of adoptions post-ASFA and promising practices to surmount traditional barriers in moving children into permanent placement. Additionally, the states visited by the GAO acknowledged that ASFA plays an important role in their new focus on permanence for children within the first 18 months that they enter foster care. Adoptions have increased 57% since passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. In the year prior to ASFA, 31,000 children were adopted. In fiscal year 2000, more than 45,500 children were adopted. Many states had instituted reforms to increase expediting children into permanent placements even before the federal statute. In fact, in the five years between 1995 and 2000, adoptions increased 89%, averaging an 8-12% increase per year. In 1999 during the period that all states were beginning to implement ASFA reforms, the number of adoptions increased 29%. One of the more helpful facets of the GAO report is the identification of innovations by states to work through challenges in order to expedite children into permanent placements. States identified four major challenges impeding their ability to comply with ASFA timelines, and promising practices to resolve these challenges.
Next Steps in Measuring Implementation of ASFA. The Government Accounting Office recommends that the Department of Health and Human Services Children’s Bureau review the feasibility of collecting data, in the most cost-effective way, on implementation of ASFA’s “fast track” provision and implementation of the “15 of 22 months” provision. National CASA’s COMET database, and its statewide aggregate feature, may prove helpful to state data collection in this endeavor.
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