Mitch Landrieu: “This particular measure is called the Foster Mentoring Act of 2003. I have spoken many times on the floor about the…”

“This particular measure is called the Foster Mentoring Act of 2003. I have spoken many times on the floor about the issue of foster care and adoption, and our efforts as a Congress to try to keep our families intact and to provide the economic systems in the country, as well as the social systems from the Federal, State, and local level, to try to help support our families in a way that will get them through crises that all families experience. It would be our goal as a nation to see that every child born in a family gets to stay within that family and is loved and nurtured within that family unit, either the immediate family or extended family. But when family ties break down beyond the ability to repair them even with the best efforts made by the churches and synagogues and mosques and faith-based organizations as well as the Government, then we have to create a system out-of-home care, or foster care. We have done that. We have created a system, but we have to fix a system that is now broken and in great need of repair. Many of us have been working diligently over the past few years to do that. Some great progress has been made. Until the system can be reformed in its entirety, there are some things we can do now, we can do immediately. Passing this Foster Mentoring Act is one of these things.”