Foster care was intended to be a temporary answer, not a permanent solution. We have statistics that indicate our Nation's foster care children spend far too long in these temporary settings, and under this new legislation, States will be rewarded for permanency placing children in permanent loving homes. Another important step taken in the bill is to establish a specific time period which States must begin to take concrete steps toward adoption, and over the years, it has become apparent that time limits may, in fact, benefit children in foster care. The law will ensure that every child is given the chance of moving into an adoptive home within a reasonable period of time as opposed to remaining in long-term foster care situations. Obviously, the goal of the law is to make adoption easier and more frequent.
Adoption is good for children.
The reason is simple. Nearly every adoptive child is put in the middle of the best child-rearing machine ever invented, the family. Children reared in families, especially two-parent families, grow up to do well on nearly every single measure, marriage, employment, education, avoidance of crime, and independence from welfare. Given our current system and with the long stays in foster care, our bill simply requires States to begin the Court procedures to terminate parental rights after 15 months, and that will ensure that no child languishes in foster care while the system struggles to either reunite the family or to try to find a permanent home. We have all read the reports which illustrate the importance of stability and permanence in a child's early life, and the longer the child waits to have the experience and stability of a permanent home, the more problems a child may have when growing up.