Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997
P.L. 105-89
Overview
H.R. 897
Enacted November 19, 1997
Purpose: To promote the adoption of children in foster care
This act amended title IV-E of the Social Security Act.
Major Provisions of the Act
- Reauthorized the Family Preservation and Support Services Program:
- Renamed it the Safe and Stable Families Program
- Extended categories of services to include time-limited reunification services and adoption promotion and support services
- Ensured safety for abused and neglected children:
- Ensured health and safety concerns are addressed when a State determines placement for abused and neglected children
- Required HHS to report on the scope of substance abuse in the child welfare population, and the outcomes of services provided to that population
- Added ''safety of the child'' to every step of the case plan and review process
- Required criminal records checks for foster/adoptive parents who receive Federal funds on behalf of a child, unless a State opted out of this requirement
- Accelerated permanent placement:
- Required States to initiate court proceedings to free a child for adoption once that child had been waiting in foster care for at least 15 of the most recent 22 months, unless there was an exception
- Allowed children to be freed for adoption more quickly in extreme cases
- Promoted adoptions:
- Rewarded States that increased adoptions with incentive funds
- Required States to use reasonable efforts to move eligible foster care children towards permanent placements
- Promoted adoptions of all special needs children and ensured health coverage for adopted special needs children
- Prohibited States from delaying/denying placements of children based on the geographic location of the prospective adoptive families
- Required States to document and report child-specific adoption efforts
- Increased accountability:
- Required HHS to establish new outcome measures to monitor and improve State performance
- Required States to document child-specific efforts to move children into adoptive homes
- Clarified ''reasonable efforts'':
- Emphasized children's health and safety
- Required States to specify situations when services to prevent foster placement and reunification of families are not required
- Required shorter time limits for making decisions about permanent placements:
- Required permanency hearings to be held no later than 12 months after entering foster care
- Required States to initiate termination of parental rights proceedings after the child has been in foster care 15 of the previous 22 months, except if not in the best interest of the child, or if the child is in the care of a relative
"safe families" act...............with results like the "affordable care" act.
ReplyDeleteits all marketing of a crisis in getting these laws passed.
once they are passed, the populace is forever screwed.
exceedingly similar to divorce, custody, and "family" law.
"best interests of the children" is a nice slogan and precipice of law to hide behind.
families, usually fathers and children, get sold down the toilet and destroyed with these laws.
look at the american family today - you wouldn't even recognize it after 3 generations of these laws designed to "help" people.
so who is it really helping?
1. lawyers......who are the very ones who enact these laws.
2. an ever expanding and growing corrupt government- with more reasons to stick their nose in our rears.
3. radical feminist groups
Deletethe nuclear family has been nuclear bombed by our corrupt government and its requisite agencies.
Delete"incentive funds" from the federal govt to the state to "help" children.
ReplyDeletei.e. selling OUR children down the toilet for cash.
....and all of us taxpayers are providing the money to screw ourselves.....with the "help" of the govt, of course.
remember hillary in the 90's?
we have to pass these laws......"its for the children".
hey look around in pocahontas county .........does anybody really think anyone,gives a good damn about these kids??????????????????what we should be worried about is getting some non-tourist based jobs that pay a living wage ,so that people can raise a family,with a future...........these people use drugs because there is nothing else to do.........this county is one big plantation ,so why not sell our kids off.............of course this problem just occured with the election of that dirty black ,godless ,lying darkie liberal,and his kind?????????????i sure hope all of you fake bible thumping self righteous republicans survive 8 years of hilliary................
ReplyDelete