CCAI Executive Director Kathleen Strottman

Tennis legend Arthur Ashe once said, “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” I have always loved this quote and have tried to make the sentiment behind it part of the mission and work of CCAI.  If you look at what we do, hopefully one message is clear: everyone can play a role in ensuring that all children have a family to call their own. In honor of Mother’s Day, I would like to highlight the power and conviction of three amazing adoptive mothers (all I might add Angels in Adoption) who every day use what opportunities they have to make a tremendous difference for children. I am so proud to know them all and so grateful for all that they do.

Jane Aronson

Angel in Adoption 2000

Best known as the “Orphan Doctor,” Jane Aronson is the adoptive mother of two boys, Ben and Desalegn. As the Founder of the Worldwide Orphans Foundation (WWO), Jane works to transform the lives of orphaned children. WWO examines the medical and developmental conditions of children who live in orphanages, and identifies immediate healthcare needs and advocates for their well-being through the Orphan Ranger Program.

As an adoption medicine specialist who has evaluated more than 4,000 children, Jane has been in private practice and serves at the Director of International Pediatric Health Services in New York City. As if these roles don’t keep her busy enough, Jane has just published a beautifully touching book, Carried in Our Hearts, which provides first-hand accounts from parents and children whose lives have been touched by adoption. The book’s title is taken directly from the mouth of a five-year-old girl, Bailey, who was adopted from china. “My mommy didn’t carry me in her tummy, she carried me in her heart,” explains Bailey.

Deborra-Lee Furness Jackman

Angel in Adoption 2013

Recognized by the Film Critics Circle of Australia as a best actress, Deborra-Lee Furness Jackman’s stardom didn’t make adopting from her home country any easier. After encountering insurmountable challenges when trying to adopt a child from Australia, Deb and her husband, Hugh, decided to begin the process in the US.

Despite the fact that her story had a happy ending—Deb and Hugh are now the proud parents of two children, Oscar and Ava—Deb has not stopped advocating for children in Australia who do not have a family to call their own. As the founder of National Adoption Week in Australia, Deb personally calls on individuals to become champions of children without families. She is also the Director of Worldwide Orphans Foundation Australia, a World Vision Ambassador, and the Patron of the Lighthouse Foundation, an organization in Melbourne that works with homeless children.

Deb’s passion for ensuring that every child has their basic human right to a family recognized is best summed up with a quote from a column she authored in the Australian Women’s Weekly:  I can’t think of anything more important than ensuring that every child in this world has at least one person who has their best interests at heart, someone who cares about them so they know they are loved and valued.

Nia Vardalos

Angel in Adoption 2011

Those who had the pleasure of watching Nia Vardalos star in My Big Fat Greek Wedding will be pleased to know that she is just as charming and hilarious in person as she is on screen. Nia and her husband, Ian, adopted a little girl, Ilaria, from the US foster care system. As the National Adoption Day spokesperson, Nia used her personal story to inspire thousands of other prospective adoptive parents to consider foster adoption as a wonderful way to build a family.

In her new book, Instant Mom, Nia chronicles her journey to parenthood and beyond. Perhaps the most priceless gifts that Nia bestows upon readers are honesty and humor. Nia describes the first couple of months after Ilaria became a member of her family and admits that there were many moments when the scene inside her house wasn’t picture-perfect, like when her daughter would throw her toys in frustration. But she also  describes such touching memories like when, for months, she and Ian took turns sleeping on a cot in her daughter’s bedroom so that she wouldn’t wake up afraid—they literally texted each other when the one on “cot duty” had to go the bathroom in the middle of the night! Ilaria woke up one evening to find her mom sleeping next to her and rubbed her hand against Nia’s cheek. These highs and lows are what all adoptive parents experience when they bring  a child into their family, and Nia reminds us all that this process is normal, unpredictable and, most importantly, transformative.

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On this Mother’s Day, I would like to thank all of the moms out there who started where they were, used what they had and did what they could to ensure that every child has a family to call their own. And a special thank you to my own mother who inspired me to do the same.

Former FYI Talitha James (third from the left)

My name is Talitha James. I am a graduate of California State University of Fullerton, a former CCAI intern of the U.S Senate Committee on Finance and I am a former foster youth! I would like to share with you my life experiences while growing up in California’s foster care system in the county of Los Angeles. I am hopeful that this opportunity will help people within this forum to truly understand the struggle that many foster youth endure in their attempts to achieve “normalcy.”

I was declared a ward of the court at the age of two. Transitioning in and out of many foster homes became a way of life for me. I was placed into the homes of strangers who had every good intention of caring for me and became ticked off when they realized that the most important thing to me at the time were my friends, my biological family and my love for sports.

During my tenure while growing up in foster care I was not granted the opportunity to spend the night at my friend’s house because the county required that all persons over the age of 18 living in the home would have to complete and pass a background check, home assessment and sign documents that ensured they would not “run off” with me. I remember my friend wanted to know so badly why every time she invited me over to her house I declined the offer. I never told her back then the real reason why I couldn’t spend the night over her house.

Growing up in the foster care system, I felt like I was in captivity. Many times I was separated from the things that meant so much to me and the only reasoning that was given to me was, “ It’s the County rules” or  “ We have to get the County to approve.” This reference was towards the same County officials who skipped out on mandated monthly visits, placed me into foster homes that were unfit for any child to live in and overlooked my plea to play sports because it was more important for me to see a therapist. I remember the many different experiences that I had as a foster child where I would pray to God to take me off this earth because I wanted so badly not to be a foster child.

Another experience I would like to share was about a time when I wanted to play volleyball but couldn’t do so because of the unrelenting barriers that restrict foster children from being normal. As a foster child, I needed court approval to travel more than 100 miles outside of the county I resided in.  This barrier prevented me from playing sports. I went through most of my junior high school years yearning to play sports. It wasn’t until I was placed in the care of my aunt where I was granted the opportunity to play sports.  The same strict rules applied to me when my aunt became my caregiver, but she had seen my desire and allowed me to play sports. She knew that there would be consequences if anything were to happen to me while she was caring for me. I am thankful that she realized my desire to play sports and to be a part of a team was the best therapy that anyone could offer me at the time.

The late great Dr. King professed, “ I grew up in a family where love was central, and where lovely relationships were ever present. It is quite easy for me to think of the universe as basically friendly, mainly because of my uplifting hereditary and environmental circumstances.” The opportunity we have here today is to offer youth in foster care, regardless of their environmental circumstances, the dream that we have always hoped for, the chance to be normal again.

Talitha and Chairman Reichert

Talitha and Representative Joe Lewis

In his Opening Statement, Chairman Dave Reichert of the Subcommittee on Human Resources also mentioned another former FYI, John Paul Horn, and incoming FYI, Georgina Rodriguez. Reichert said the following:

Entering foster care is a life-changing experience for children. Foster children are faced with a dizzying array of changes that are anything but normal. They are separated from their parents. They are often sent to live with a family they have never met. They may start attending a new school, have to make new friends, and make new efforts to participate in sports and other activities they previously took for granted.

On top of all of this change, we know some child welfare policies have the unintended effect of making life even harder for these children. Rules may keep them from spending time with friends, participating in sports, and even getting a driver’s license or finding a summer job.

To read Chairman Reichert’s entire Opening Statement, click here.

CCAI Executive Director, Kathleen Strottman

I remember well how I learned that when it comes to the welfare of a child, a single committed person can make a difference.  I was in my first year at law school, having just left my Jesuit Volunteer work in some of the roughest parts of Chicago, and I had the chance to sit in the courtroom of Judge Roosevelt Dorn.  Judge Dorn was feared by just about every young teenager in Inglewood because he was known for being a no-nonsense judge who would go as far as putting a status offender in prison if it meant saving them from a life of crime. That day, I saw a grandmother weep while thanking him for saving her grandson, because his unusual judicial orders to stay in school, respect his elders and take the trash out nightly had in fact worked to keep him out of trouble.  He smiled and said to her “There’s no need to thank me ma’am, I will go as far as I can to save a child. It’s why I am a judge.”

It was this lesson above all that I hoped we might impart to the 14 child welfare leaders we invited to take part in our Pathways to Permanency project.  I hoped that each of them would leave the experience knowing that they were empowered to help kids, even if doing so required that they push the limits.  Over the now 15 years I have now spent as a child advocate, I know it is those who “think outside of the box” who make the greatest change.

And I am thrilled to tell you that we succeeded.  In our last two hours together we asked our new friends to share some of the lessons they learned from this experience.  As we began this conversation I expected their replies to be things like “I learned that the United States spends $25 billion on child welfare” or “I learned that the federal agency in the U.S. that handles child welfare is called the Administration of Children and Families.”  But what emerged was much more powerful than I had imagined.  Below are just some of the lessons our delegates reported learning:

• Institutions Harm Children:  Anyone who has ever seen Dr. Charles Zeanah, one of three lead researchers on the groundbreaking Bucharest Early Intervention Project, speak will not be surprised to learn that he had the audience in tears by the end of his presentation.  One judge said “ having seen this scientific evidence, I am clear we are hurting our children not helping them. More people in my country need to know this truth.”   CCAI has already been invited by officials in Guatemala to do a follow up training for key leaders on the harmful effects of institutions.

• The difference one can make is not limited to your profession:  Several of our delegates reported being struck by the fact that organizations such as the American Bar Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and the National Council for Juvenile and Family Court Judges were not government-appointed commissions but VOLUNTARY professional associations.  And even more struck to learn what a key role many of these organizations play in the continued improvement of policy and practice in the United States.

• There is great value to partnership: During the panel presentation by key leaders in Texas’ Child Welfare System, one of the delegates asked what percentage of the funds the state had was used to support partnerships with community-based partners.  The entire group was clearly struck by the answer that 90 percent of the state’s funds are used in this way.  The group was equally impressed by Colorado’s success in partnering with the faith-based community to reduce the number of children in need of family.  As one government official said, “When I get back to Guatemala, I will start to look for the people who can help me, because I now know I cannot do it on my own.”

• Children have a basic human right to a family:  After watching a hearing in the DC Superior Court and spending the day with judges from all over Louisiana, delegates noted that a major strength of the U.S. system is its adherence to the believe that children have a basic human right to a family and at some point that right supersedes a parent’s right to parent.  They were also struck by the lengths to which our legal system goes to protect that right.

• Real reform requires the law and leadership:  In welcoming our group to the Superior Court of D.C., Judge Zoe Bush credited the federal government’s passage of the “Family Court Act” as the catalyst that started the important work seen throughout the courthouse today.  Bryan Samuels, Commissioner of the Administration of Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, pointed out to the delegation that the federal government’s focus on safety, permanence and well-being as well as the Adoption and Safe Families Act’s clear timelines are constant guides to the work that state child welfare agencies do on behalf of children.  And without exception panelists throughout the visit said that the biggest differences come from a leader who has a vision and the passion needed to make others follow. 

Delegates said these lessons are ones that will stay with them forever.

“I strongly believe that the 14 people that had the opportunity to spend this week in United States, had an experience that changed their minds, beliefs and hearts for the good of the children.  I know many of them are already applying the information and are working hard to begin with the changes that need to be done.  We know is not overnight, but we already began. “                                  -Delegate Karla  Moldanado de Molina

 

Members of the Guatemala Delegation with CCAI Staff

Washington, D.C. • New Orleans• Dallas

 Washington, D.C.

In Washington, D.C., the delegates visited the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and received overviews on the U.S. dependency system from Presiding Judge of the D.C. Family Court Zoe Bush and the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency. Judge Bush gave the delegates an insider’s view of how moving to a “One Family, One Judge” court model has transformed the way they serve children and families.  The group  then observed a kinship guardianship hearing in which a grandmother sought guardianship of her three granddaughters under the protest of one of the children’s biological fathers.  Through this hearing, the delegates were able to get a better sense of how important it is to have all parties interest, but most especially the child’s, represented in court.

Presiding Judge of the D.C. Family Court Zoe Bush speaking to the Delegation at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

While at the court they also met with D.C. judicial child welfare resource organizations including the Children’s Law Center of D.C., the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law, and the Child Protection Division of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the U.S. Department of Justice. Discussions centered on the role of the attorney in child welfare, and the importance of giving voice to children, youth and parents in legal proceedings.  A presentation on social workforce capacity strengthening followed, with International Social Services – United States of America, the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance and CapacityPlus. The delegation discussed the vital role of the social workforce, and how judges and lawyers can play an important role in elevating and valuing this profession in Guatemala. 

Presentations from Children’s Law Center of D.C., the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law, and the Child Protection Division of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the U.S. Department of Justice.

On day two in Washington,   he delegates  met with Assistant Secretary George Sheldon and Commissioner Bryan Samuels at the Administration for Children, Youth and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services and were briefed on the role of the U.S. federal government in child welfare, as well as some of the major shifts in U.S. child welfare law and policy and lessons the U.S. has learned over the past several years.  This meeting was followed by a briefing by officials at the Office of Children’s Issues in the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Center for Excellence on Children in Adversity at USAID onthe role each of these U.S. agencies in intercountry adoptions and international child welfare.

While in Washington, the delegates also met with United States Congressional leaders including Senators Landrieu, Klobuchar, Menendez and Sessions, and then attended a welcome reception at the U.S. Capitol Building with local child welfare and business leaders and comments from Ambassador Francisco Villagran of the Embassy of Guatemala and Carlos Duran, Founder of Hombres de Palabra (Men of Their Word).

Meeting with United States Senators Landrieu and Klobuchar at the U.S. Capitol.

New Orleans, Louisiana

Judicial and Systems Training

Graciously hosted by the Supreme Court of Louisiana in New Orleans, the delegation met with world renowned Doctor Dr. Charles Zeanah of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Tulane University School of Medicine.  Dr. Zeanah presented the latest brain science related to the development of children in institutional care with a focus on how interventions of family care (parenting skills training, foster care and adoption) have the ability to transform a child’s development  in the window before they are 24 months old.  He drew upon examples from his research from the Bucharest Early Intervention Study as well as his work in the United States. 

Dr. Zeanah presenting the brain science related to the development of children in institutional care.

The delegation also participated in discussions with state child welfare administrators from Louisiana and Colorado, child welfare policy and subject matter experts focusing on the importance of data, technology and public-private partnerships.  Speakers included: Brent Villemarette, Deputy Secretary of Programs, Louisiana Department of Children & Family Services, Sharen Ford, Ph.D., Manager, Permanency Unit, Division of Child Welfare Services, Colorado Department of Human Services, Sue Badeau, Child Welfare Policy Expert, Dr. Mark Testa, Ph.D., Spears-Turner Distinguished Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Dr. Jean Geran, Ph.D., EACH, Inc.

Several judges also lent their expertise to the trainings: Judges Guy Bradberry, Thomas Duplantier, Ernestine Gray, Patricia Koch, Madeleine Landrieu, Sharon Marchman all left their dockets to spend time sharing and learning with their Guatemalan counterparts.  The group discussed the similarities and differences between U.S. and Guatemalan laws, the importance of making timely decisions in court, systems improvement and national and local judicial leadership.

The delegation discussing the similarities and differences between U.S. and Guatemalan laws, the importance of making timely decisions in court, systems improvement and national and local judicial leadership with Louisiana Judges and CCAI.

Dallas, Texas

Engaging in Regional Best-Practices and Implementation

In Dallas, the Guatemalan delegation first met with Texas State child welfare leaders Audrey Deckinga, Assistant Commissioner for Child Protective Services at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services; Tina Amberboy, Executive Director at the Texas Supreme Court Permanent Judicial Commission for Children, Youth and Families; and Pamela K. Parker, Special Projects Attorney at the Texas Department of Family & Protective Services.  They shared with the group about Texas’ past five years of reform efforts and how they as a state have made significant progress through collaborations, partnerships and policy changes.

State of Texas Child Welfare Leaders Audrey Deckinga, Pamela Parker, and Tina Amberboy.

A highlight of the visit to Dallas for the delegates was the opportunity to hear about models of best practices in care from their colleagues in other countries in Latin America.  Esli Moreno, Coordinator of the Honduran Family Strengthening Project at the Orphan Institute Permanency Center in Honduras, Claudia Leon, Executive Director of Buckner Peru, and Dr. Cecilia Casanueva, Ph.D., Research Psychologist at Research Triangle International with a project in Chile each shared the challenges their programs operate within in each nation and the importance of best practice models and data tracking to make the case for family care of children in these nations. 

Supreme Court Magistrate, Gustavo Mendizabal, asks a question.

Finally, the group had the unique opportunity to learn from Buckner International’s country and program directors about lessons Buckner has learned in its over 100 years of caring for children and families.  Dr. Albert Reyes, President and CEO stressed how important it was for Buckner to move from its original orphanage based model to its current community based approach which is now caring for children in 14 countries. They highlighted their Community Transformation Center and Family Pathways models, as well as shared from the non-governmental organization’s perspective on public-private partnerships. Discussions focused on how to adapt and apply best-practice models the delegation had learned about to succeed in Guatemala’s judicial and child welfare systems. 

Group shot of the Delegation, CCAI and Buckner in front of the Maris Alumni Center.

CCAI would like to acknowledge the generous support of the GHR Foundation for the Pathways to Permanency Project.

We are meeting today for a common cause. This common cause is the future of the children in our communities, and therefore the future of our nations. Because when it comes to children we are talking about the largest and most important natural resource and wealth in a nation; a richness that has to be cultivated, cared for, protected and educated so that it can reach its potential and write history.

…Our children, and the goal of providing them the environment that helps them reach their potential, should be the motivation that calls us to do the work that we have been assigned to. This week, as we look to develop programs or safety nets to protect our nation’s unprotected children, we must try to develop programs that deal with the roots of these problems. We must have a holistic approach to these problems, one that addresses the roots and the symptoms of it. 

…Programs such as adoption and foster homes are safety net programs. What exactly is a safety net? It is a net that catches a person walking on a tight-rope, or on a trapeze, and grabs them when they fall. But a safety net has special features: first of all it is full of holes; second it is very difficult to walk or stand on; third it is very easy to get caught in, or tangled in, and is often it seem to be a trap; and fourth, it doesn’t help you achieve your goal, it only catches you when you fall.

 …If you want to succeed, you have to get back on the trapeze and learn to swing, and this is only achieved through training and practice. Every child who falls into those programs is already in a disadvantaged position and has to overcome many challenges in order to reach their potential.

I want to emphasize three things that are important as we do our work:

First, to understand that we have been given the moral responsibility of caring for future generations, that being here today is not an accident but a call to transform the lives of thousands of children and hence generations. We have been given the public trust that we will not look out for our own interests but the interests of the children and our nation. That perhaps we will never see the fruit of our work completely because this is a work that transcends generations.

Second, we must be clear that seeing a hungry child, helpless, without education, in poverty, ill, should not be norm, it is not right and for that reason we need to create solutions that work. Do not let your heart be hardened. Let us not, the ones called to fix the problem, be insensitive to the suffering of our children. 

Third, be creative and be innovative. Do not settle to repeat what others do. Guatemala, Washington D.C. requires specific solutions for each city. Find allies where you have not looked before. I believe that faith-based organizations are a tool that we have not fully utilized. The basis of organizations of faith, you can call it a church, mosque or synagogue, is to serve and love your neighbor.

…Why not put some effort to equip them, train them and give them the necessary funds so they can serve the community?

…A. Dickerson said “Home is where the story begins”. I charge you to lead by example, to go home and love your family, strive for being the role model that they are waiting for and will be eager to follow. I encourage you to fill your heart with compassion and love for your community, to be innovative, not to conform to the past. I encourage you to take upon your shoulders the trust and responsibility that has been given to you by your government, by your community and by destiny, the trust and responsibility to write history one child, one man, and one family at a time.  

CCAI Executive Director, Kathleen Strottman, on a delegation to Guatemala.

Three months after I became CCAI’s Executive Director I received a call from a frantic mother whose son’s orphanage, Casa Quivera, had been raided by the Guatemalan authorities the night before.   The raid, she was told, was a part of the Guatemalan government’s effort to investigate the orphanage director whom they believed engaged in corrupt practices. Over the next year, I met hundreds of other parents whose adoptions had become immersed in a sea of similar investigations while their children languished in orphanages.

It was under this lens that our focus on the child welfare system in Guatemala began. We would soon learn that the passage of the 2007 Adoption law, although a necessary step, has presented two very real challenges for the Guatemalan government.  First, it left hundreds of children whose international adoptions were not complete in legal limbo.  Without a clear path forward, these cases underwent investigation after investigation. Six years later, approximately one hundred of these adoptions remain incomplete today.  Secondly, it required that the Guatemalan government invest time, money and resources in developing domestic alternatives for children in need of family care.

Our first step was to raise awareness among Members of Congress about these challenges and to enlist their support in advocating for change. We are proud to have partnered with the Joint Council for International Children’s Services (JCICS), the National Council for Adoption (NCFA) and Guatemala 900 to host several briefings on the status of pending cases.  Once we had the support we needed from the US Department of State, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and nearly 100 Members of Congress, we began to bring this support to bear in Guatemala.

Over the past two years, CCAI has been part of five high-level delegations to Guatemala.  Through these visits we have not only had the chance to advocate for the rights of the children unnecessarily trapped in orphanages, but we have also had the chance to learn more about the Guatemalan government’s efforts to build a Hague-compliant system of child welfare. There is undoubtedly a lot that still needs to be done in this regard.  Yet at the same time, the Guatemalans have been aggressive in their efforts to put in place a new system, one that is less reliant on institutional care.

Late last night, CCAI welcomed 14 delegates from Guatemala’s courts, governmental agencies and universities to Washington, DC. We have invited these individuals to participate in our Pathways to Permanency project because of their direct involvement in the welfare of children in Guatemala.  Our hope is that this exchange will inspire these individuals to become agents of change in their own communities.  The week ahead will be filled with presentations by US experts in child welfare; conversations among judicial colleagues; meetings with Members of Congress and the Administration and lessons in best practice from other regional models.

I have many hopes for the week ahead, but chief among them is this: that everyone who participates in this week comes away with a deep desire to see every child in Guatemala have a safe, loving and permanent family to call their own.  I hope that they will see that achieving this goal requires the use of all options for permanency.  And most importantly, I hope that like those of us at CCAI, they will be willing to work to remove every barrier that stands in the way of this hope becoming reality.

Dustin Haley

Today’s guest blog post is written by Dustin Haley, a CCAI 2013 intern, University of Texas undergraduate student, and former foster youth.

As the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is rolled out, many former foster youth will have increased availability for medical coverage.  Starting in 2014, youth who aged out of foster care will be eligible to remain on Medicaid until age 26, a huge win for child welfare advocates and former foster youth.

Youth in college will now have the peace of mind of always having their health insurance covered, and will not have to choose between books and medical care.  Former foster youth who are working part time will also be able to support themselves without having the unnecessary burden of healthcare costs. However, limitations to the ACA will negatively impact many of the former foster youth. As a former foster youth myself, I am all too familiar with these restrictions but it wasn’t until I started interning with CCAI that I learned I could advocate to change this policy.

First Focus, a bipartisan advocacy organization, recently took a look at this regulation, in addition to the rest of the ACA as it applies to foster youth.  They found that as it stands now, coverage will only be guaranteed to those who remain in the state where they resided when they were 18.  This is a huge issue for foster youth around the nation, as they often travel to different states for extended periods for school, jobs, or internships.  Many also move to be closer to support systems, whether they are close friends or extended family.  First Focus points out that restrictions on residency only apply to foster youth, not to adopted children nor to youth raised in a traditional family.

During CCAI’s summer Foster Youth Internship (FYI) Program, foster youth from around the nation come to DC work on Capitol Hill.  Most all of them come from different states and thus are not eligible to receive Medicaid in DC.  Since I’ve started interning at CCAI, I’ve learned about one of last summer’s interns, who ended up needing medical treatment, but experienced difficulties because he was not in his “home” state.

I contacted Josh to learn more about his experience and he explained how he had just returned from a trip to Ecuador when he started as an FYI participant last summer.  Soon thereafter, Josh started to experience serious stomach issues stemming from possible parasites contracted while abroad.  He went to a quick-service clinic in DC and had to pay full cost for treatment.  Unfortunately, the practitioners in the clinics are not specialists and could not figure out what he had contracted.  Seeing a specialist in DC would have cost Josh too much money out of pocket and was thus forced to fly back to Tennessee.  He was able to get the proper treatment from a specialist there and he soon recovered.

I too have run into the same struggles as Josh since being out of my home state—Texas—and completing my internship in DC this semester.  I recently injured my knee, but due to the limitations on Medicaid, I was not able to seek out treatment.  Had I seen a doctor, they would have surely ordered X-Rays and possibly an MRI.   Without insurance, these bills quickly add up.  My struggles, along with the struggles of all foster youth, should not be lost on child welfare advocates.

The Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services recently opened up to debate the section of the Affordable Care Act regarding former foster youth.   Organizations have been able to submit comments, many of which proposed medical coverage for former foster youth irrespective of the state they resided in when they were 18.   I, for one, hope to see change that eventually leads to greater benefits to the youth.

Image Courtesy of The Next Generation

Yesterday, the Washington Post, The Next Generation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation hosted the “Children and Families Summit 2013,” a convening of parents, policymakers, and experts unified in their belief that our nation not only can, but must, do better at investing – personally, privately and publicly – in the future of our children. The day’s agenda focused on a relatively simple and yet profound question: How can we as a nation strengthen support systems for those young people and parents who desperately need them?

As this important conversation continues,  we must remember that hidden within the millions of children who live in poverty, lack access to a high quality education, or suffer unnecessarily from chronic health conditions are our nation’s  half a million foster children. In taking these children into our governments’ care, do we not also make an implied promise to provide them the attention and support they need to become successful, stable adults?  Most would say the answer to this question is unabashedly yes, and yet what research shows is that foster children are chief among those falling through the gaps in our current system.

Here are just a few sobering facts: according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, compared with children from the same socioeconomic background, children in care have much higher rates of serious emotional and behavioral problems, chronic physical disabilities, birth defects, and developmental delays. Educational attainment studies reveal that less than 50% of youth in care graduate from high school and only 3% go on to get a college degree. As if those statistics are not compelling enough, studies also show that as many as one in four foster youth will end up homeless, in jail or die within a year of leaving care.

There are many reasons why children in foster care are not achieving their potential; I would like to focus on just two. First, as Paul Tough explains in great detail in his new book, How Children Succeed, “what matters most in a child’s development… is not how much information we can stuff into [a child’s] brain in the first few years. What matters instead is whether we are able to help [them] develop a very different set of qualities; a list that includes persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence.”  According to Tough, it is these skills, and not the accumulation of book knowledge, that are what allows students to maintain focus during a difficult exam or get noticed for having a “good work ethic” in the workplace.

And who is it whom most often helps cultivate such skills in children? Good parents.  In fact, one of the most compelling parts of yesterday’s events for me came during the remarks of sixteen year old Alfa Lopez who introduced the Secretary of Education to the audience. Lopez said what an “only in America” moment it was for her—a  Los Angeles teen who hails from a low income neighborhood with a school dropout rate over 50%—to be in Washington, D.C. and introducing such an important government official. She opened with “Thanks to my parents, who sacrificed everything to give me what they never had.”

Not only do foster children not have the benefit of being raised by the type of parents who lead to success stories like Alfa, we are also failing to provide too many youth that type of parenting while in care.   We currently have one foster family for every four children who need care and a high number of those who are fostering are doing so for all the wrong reasons.  Foster children move from home to home almost as often as the seasons change and the vast majority of teens in foster care are growing up in group homes, many of which resemble prisons, not families.  One way to bring about change for children  would be to invest in systems that allow children to go from broken homes into supportive settings with caring adults who are willing and able to build the skills celebrated by Tough.

The second reason foster youth continue to struggle is that major federal programs designed to meet the needs of disadvantaged children in general too often miss the mark in meeting the needs of children in care.  Here are just some examples: one third of all children in foster care are under five years old when removed because of abuse and neglect.  Because they are in care they are categorically eligible for Head Start Services, and yet according to the National Study on Child and Adolescent Well Being, only 6% of children in foster care are enrolled in this important program. Similarly, although foster youth are three times as likely as the general population to be identified as being in need of special education services, they are half as likely to receive them.  Foster youth are less likely than their counterparts to be enrolled in federally-supported, school-based enrichment programs such as after-school activities or mentoring initiatives.

Why is this?  Again, there are many reasons but one of the main problems is that most of these programs rely on a parent—or at least an adult acting like a parent—to enroll these youth in these programs.  Youth in care are most often represented by social workers who have a long list of things they are supposed to be doing for the children in their caseload and often lack the time, expertise and resources needed to accomplish these goals. Foster parents, as discussed before, are also not ably fulfilling this role.  So the programs exist to help youth in care, they are just not currently doing so.

These are the types of questions CCAI strives to provide answers to everyday.  We look forward to working with Next Generation, the Washington Post and all of the committed partners who attended the event yesterday.   As my former boss Senator Landrieu used to say, “Children might only constitute thirty percent of America’s population, but they are undeniably 100% of America’s future.”

Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means Adoption Incentives Hearing.

Since the inception of the Adoption Incentives Program, more than half a million children found their forever homes. Despite this success, however, over 100,000 foster children are still waiting to be adopted.  If trends continue, approximately 50% of these children will succeed in finding homes through adoption and 50% will continue to wait.  Statistics reveal that those who remain waiting are most often older children, members of larger sibling groups or those children who have special physical or mental health needs.  In fact, according to a the most recent AFCARS report, the average age of a child adopted out of foster care is 6, while the average age of a child waiting to be adopted out of care is 8.

So the question before Congress is this: how can the federal government incentivize states to find a home for every child? The programs highlighted in today’s committee hearing prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no such thing as an unadoptable child, just an unfound family.   There are at least three lessons to learn from these programs’ experiences.

• States cannot employ “a one-size-fit-all” strategy for finding a permanent home for a child.  Efforts to recruit an adoptive family for a child must be as diverse as the children themselves.
• States that have succeeded in finding homes for older and special needs children have done so in close partnership with community and faith-based partners.  Such partnerships allow state child welfare agencies to be more innovative in their approach; address critical workforce gaps; increase their reach into communities where perspective adoptive parents are likely to be found; and provide post- adoption support.
• Finally, success in finding an adoptive family for every child who needs one is premised on the belief that all children need and deserve a family

If Congress hopes to replicate the successes of the types of programs highlighted today it must learn from these lessons and better incorporate them into the current Adoption Incentives Program.  Congress might also want to consider whether the current model of providing an individual bonus per adoption is the best way to incentivize adoption for older and special needs children. Perhaps this group would be better served by a model similar to the Department of Education’s “Race to the Top,” a federally-funded contest which provides funds to states that successfully put forward groundbreaking, thoughtful plans to address four key educational reform areas.  While the full effects of “Race to the Top” remain to be seen, preliminary findings indicate that it has been successful in spurring innovation and improving in educational outcomes. A similar approach might better incentivize states to be more innovative by providing more concentrated support for their efforts to find homes for harder to place children.

Another idea might be to use the adoption bonuses as a way to incentivize certain policies and practices that have been proven effective in finding homes for children. For instance, provide rewards to states that use adoption recruiters as opposed to making finding an adoptive family one of the many tasks assigned to an overloaded caseworker.  Or grant bonuses to states that severely limit the use of an alternative planned permanent living arrangement (APPLA) for older youth.  Under this approach, the federal government might use the “carrot approach” to reward states that provide robust post adoption services, reduce the amount of time between termination of parental rights and the completion of adoption and engage in interstate adoptions.

We would like to thank Chairman Reichert for his leadership in dedicating the first subcommittee hearing of the 113 congress to such an important and impactful topic. We look forward to working with Members of Congress to explore these and other ways this important program might better serve its stated goal: to find families for waiting children.

We are proud to announce that STUCK—an award winning documentary about international adoption—features CCAI’s Executive Director, Kathleen Strottman. As Kathleen explains in the documentary, which uncovers the personal, real life stories of adopted children and their parents, “the right to a family is a basic human right and our policies have to start recognizing that.”   The film also features CCA Co-Chair Senator Mary Landrieu, Senator Richard Lugar and Charles Nelson, Co-Principal Investigator of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project.

On March 1^st, Both Ends Burning Founder Craig Juntenen will be launching a 60 city bus tour to promote the film and issue a call to action for the United States Government to promote international adoption as a worthy and effective way to find homes for children without families.

To view the trailer for STUCK, follow this link: http://vimeo.com/bebcampaign/stuckthemovie

To learn about how you can help spread the word about STUCK, click here: http://bothendsburning.org/involved/