Political Quotes

“I offer an amendment to the Adoption Promotion Act of 1997. This amendment would encourage kinship care families, which are families in which adult relatives are the preferred placement options for children separated from their parents. My amendment would give all States the flexibility to create a new type of foster care, kinship care, as a demonstration project whereby they could examine and test how their child protection system could incorporate safe, cost-effective kinship care placements. States would have increased flexibility to waive portions of the IV-E foster care program in order to provide services and payments to kinship care placements. Without these payments, many grandparents simply cannot afford to care for their grandchildren. We clearly need this legislation. Increasingly grandparents are being called upon to raise grandchildren of all ages. Between 1986 and 1990, the number of foster care children under the care of relatives jumped from 18 percent to 31 percent. Between 1985 and 1990, the number of children in foster care increased by 47 percent while the number of foster families decreased by 27 percent. Furthermore, when a child must be removed from his or her parents, placing the child with a caring relative helps keep the family together and limits disruption to the child's life. The overwhelming majority of grandparents raising children must do so on limited incomes.”