America's foster program needs amending

By Hillary Rodham Clinton

The reality of foster care was brought home to Bill and me when we met a teenage boy at the White House this winter. Bill asked him where he was from. "Fairfax County," the boy said. When Bill asked where in the county, the boy shrugged and answered, "All over."

Unfortunately, thousands of children in our foster care system today have similar stories to tell. Because of the complex regulations, outdated assumptions, and understaffed and overwhelmed agencies of our child welfare system, too many children spend their formative years shuttling from one foster home to another. Today, even children lucky enough to find adoptive families will have waited an average of three years or more in a series of temporary homes.

But that can change. The Senate and the House of Representatives are both considering bills that will take important steps toward making sure that no child languishes in foster care.

Currently, a child's case can drag on for years in the foster care system as authorities make repeated attempts to reunite a child with his or her biological parents. Often, these parents, for a variety of reasons, are unable to change the behavior that caused them to lose their child in the first place. If either bill becomes law, "reasonable efforts" to return a child to his or her family would not be required in extreme cases such as torture, abandonment, or physical or sexual abuse. Court hearings to determine the placement of a child would be required within 12 months -- instead of the current 18 months -- of his or her arrival in the foster care system. To make clear their purpose, these hearings would be renamed "permanency planning hearings."

As a children's advocate and lawyer who has represented parents and children in their struggles with the foster care system for more than 25 years, I believe these steps are long overdue. In 1973, I wrote an article about children's rights under the law, specifically their rights in family situations that pose serious threats to their health and safety. Even a few years ago, some considered this view controversial. Critics suggested that by supporting a child's right to a loving family, I advocated giving government more power to break up biological families and giving children the right to bring trivial disputes with their parents -- such as bedtime or who takes out the garbage -- to court.

Thankfully that erroneous interpretation of my views has given way to a new bipartisan consensus around the idea that protecting our children from harm and working to provide them with permanent, loving families -- even when that may entail separating them from their biological parents -- should be a priority of our child welfare system. Finally, we are recognizing that there are parents who will never be able to care for their children. And, in order to secure a foster child's well-being and stable development, we as a society have the responsibility to decide as quickly as possible whether a child can return home safely.

Many of the provisions in the House and Senate bills reflect recommendations made in Adoption 2002, a report prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services in response to the President's directive to identify the barriers to adoption and double the number of children placed annually in permanent homes by the year 2002.

Over the years, my husband has dedicated a great deal of time and energy to improving foster care and promoting adoption. As a result of the Administration's efforts, it is now illegal to deny or delay an adoption simply because the prospective parents and child are not of the same race. And last year, the President signed into law a $5,000 tax credit to help families adopt children.

Federal leadership is crucial, but it will take the commitment of people from all corners of our country to bring about the sweeping change our child welfare system requires. This week, I'll be speaking at a national conference on adoption and child welfare reform sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The conference will bring together business and religious leaders, policy-makers, elected officials, judges, child advocates, and foster and adoptive families to discuss strategies to reduce the number of waiting children and limit the time a child spends in foster care to no more than one year.

The Kellogg Foundation has been working to reform child welfare systems in 11 states and localities. Last year alone, the foundation worked with churches and mounted aggressive media campaigns to recruit prospective adoptive families. And it helped child welfare agencies reform case work procedures, consolidate records and modernize data collection methods so that no child becomes lost in the system.

Now we must build on their work. With thousands of children leading transient lives in foster care, we cannot afford any more delays. We need to encourage Congress to pass the best adoption bill possible. Thousands of innocent children are counting on us.

-- Creators' Syndicate