President Bush Signs Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (HR 6893) into Law

President George W. Bush signed the bipartisan Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (HR 6893) into law on Tuesday, October 7. This bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Representative Jerry Weller (R-IL). Senator Baucus (D-MT), Senator Grassley (R-IA) and Senator Rockefeller (D-WV) championed the bill in the Senate.

The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 is the most significant legislation relating to adoption and foster care since the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. It provides for a wide array of reforms to benefit children and their interest in adoption. These reforms include: - Reauthorizing the Adoption Incentives Program, whereby the federal government allocates financial rewards to states that have increased the number of children adopted from their foster care system, through 2013;

- Increasing the award amounts states stand to receive through the Adoption Incentives Program by establishing 2007 as the new “base year” against which future performance will be measured, and increasing the bonuses for special needs and older child adoptions;

- Ensuring all children with special needs adopted out of foster care are eligible for federal adoption assistance regardless of family income by 2018;

- Mandating that states inform prospective adoptive parents regarding eligibility for the adoption tax credit;

- Requiring states to make reasonable efforts to place siblings together;

- Establishing relative guardianship assistance payments in a way that does not create incentives for relative guardianship over adoption; and

- Allowing states the option of extending adoption assistance, foster care maintenance and relative guardianship assistance payments to children aged 18, 19 or 20.

NCFA thanks Representatives McDermott and Weller, and Senators Baucus, Grassley, and Rockefeller for spearheading this much-needed effort to reform the child welfare system.