Kids Are Waiting E-Update: Youth, Advocates Tell Congress to Fix Foster Care Now

Kids Are Waiting E-Update: Youth, Advocates Tell Congress to Fix Foster Care Now

March 8, 2008

Congress Holds Hearing on Improving the Child Welfare System

On Wednesday, February 28, the House Ways and Means Committee Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support convened a hearing on the state of the U.S. foster care system and needed reforms. Hope Cooper of Kids Are Waiting and The Pew Charitable Trusts testified that federal foster care reform is urgently needed, and that "proposals before Congress would achieve important changes to outdated federal policies that govern the way millions of vulnerable children and families receive support."  

Representative Jim McDermott Introduces Comprehensive Invest in Kids Act

Representative Jim McDermott, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, recently introduced the Invest in Kids Act (H.R. 5466). This legislation is designed to reform many aspects of the current child welfare system, including: making federal investments in prevention services proven effective at helping children stay with their families safely and reducing the need for removal from their home and being placed in foster care; promoting more permanency options for children in foster care; strengthen adoption incentives for all children in foster care, including children with special needs; and make relative guardianship assistance available when adoption or safe reunification is not possible. 

Kids Are Waiting Campaign is Growing

The Kids Are Waiting campaign is growing! The list of leading national, state and local child health and welfare, judicial, adoption, family and other organizations partnering to ensure that all children in foster care can have the safe, permanent families they deserve through federal foster care financing reform is expanding. Our newest partners include the Prevent Child Abuse America and Youth Villages. The complete list of partners is available here.  

In His Own Words: A Young Man Speaks About Leaving Foster Care with the Help of Relatives

In 1994, Rob Johnson's mother Jaunice slipped into a deep depression triggered by trauma from her childhood. While Jaunice received mental health services, her children's godparents became licensed foster parents and took Rob and his older sisters Debra and Chrissy to live with them in Indiana. Jaunice became concerned when she became more and more cut off from her children, and asked her sister Carol to step in. In 1997, Carol became the children's foster parent in Chicago. Not long after, she was granted one of the first subsidized guardianships in Illinois, and Rob and his sisters were able to leave foster care permanently. Read Rob's story here.
 

In Her Own Words: Foster Youth Sherena Johnson Makes the Case for Supporting the Kinship Caregiver Support Act

I entered Georgia's foster care system when I was only 10 years old. I spent eight years in foster care, from 5th grade all the way through 12th grade. Unlike thousands of children in foster care, I did not move once during this time. Because I lived with my aunt, I was able to stay in the same school, keep the same friends, and even remain in the same neighborhood.  Almost one-fourth of the more than 14,000 foster children in Georgia will move three or more times while in foster care. Read's Sherena's story here.