Senator Gordon Smith's Statement for National Foster Care Month

May 22, 2008

AMERICA'S FOSTER CARE CHILDREN -- (Senate - May 22, 2008) 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise in observance of National Foster Care Month. Throughout our Nation, so many families provide loving and caring homes for children who have suffered from abuse and neglect. This month is an important reminder to thank the families who welcome these children into their homes, as well as the State and local officials, social workers, health care workers, and others in our communities who look for signs of abuse and take action to ensure it stops.

Social workers, in particular, have numerous demands placed on them in their efforts to ensure appropriate care of abused and neglected children, those with disabilities and our vulnerable elderly. To help these workers in their important jobs, I recently introduced the Dorothy I. Height and Whitney M. Young Jr. Social Reinvestment Act with Senator Mikulski. I look forward to swift passage of this bill so that we can better support our Nation's social workers.

I also want to thank those who help parents who may have a substance abuse problem or who suffer from mental illness. These important professionals help so many parents to overcome their illnesses, which can be a barrier in providing safe and stable homes for their children.

Our justice systems, including our judges, attorneys and local law enforcement, who work every day to ensure the safety of our children, also deserve our recognition this month. So many of them take the extra time in their overburdened caseloads to ensure they are doing the right thing for the future of each abused and neglected child. In fact, in my home State of Oregon, Judge Pamela Abernethy runs a program in her courtroom that engages mental health professionals, law enforcement officials, child development specialists and others in a team approach that has produced great outcomes for children and their parents. Her work helps to stop the cycle of abuse that we see too often in families. I look forward to continuing to work with Senator Harkin to pass our bill, the Safe Babies Act, which will work to replicate successful programs like Judge Abernethy's across the Nation.

However, we know that often children may not be able to return to their birth families. In America we are lucky that many families, including my own, have a great love in their heart for children and are looking to adopt.

Oregonians Tim and Sari Gale, for example, originally were very interested in adopting an infant. However, as they continued to look into adoption, they could not get the images out of their minds of the older children they saw in the brochures. ``We started to ask ourselves why we would adopt an infant, when so many children were in need of parents,'' said Shari. ``It started making more and more sense for us to adopt an older child.''

Soon, Andrew became a member of the family. ``It has been heart-warming and amazing to watch the gradual process whereby this frightened little boy learned to love and to trust,'' observed a family friend. ``Andrew has blossomed under the Gales' loving care.'' Watching Andrew interact with peers at high school events or serving as a counselor for other children at summer riding camp, one would never guess this likeable and polite young man had spent his early years as an abused and neglected child. The Gales truly are a testament to the healing power of a loving family.

The Federal Adoption Incentive Program, which was first enacted in 1997 as part of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, encourages States to find foster children permanent homes through adoption. The Adoption Incentive Program is due to expire on September 30. Congress must reauthorize this act so that it can continue to serve as a vitally important incentive to States for finalizing adoptions for children in foster care, with an emphasis on finding adoptive homes for special-needs children and foster children over age 9. I am proud of Oregon's success in finalizing more than 12,700 adoptions of children from foster care between 2000 and 2006. This has resulted in Oregon receiving $3.1 million in Federal adoption incentive payments, which are invested back into the child welfare program.

In 2005, roughly 2,065 children from Oregon's foster care system were adopted--but nearly 3,500 foster children in Oregon were still waiting for adoptive families, and they waited an average of about 2 1/2 years to join a new family. These vulnerable children have waited long enough.

Again, it is important that we thank foster care and adoptive families in our Nation, as well as frontline workers who protect our children, for the wonderful work that they do and love that they share.