John Shaw: “the Camp-Kennelly bill that we bring to the floor today is of vital importance to many thousands of the Nation's most…”

“the Camp-Kennelly bill that we bring to the floor today is of vital importance to many thousands of the Nation's most unfortunate children. These children are the abused, the neglected, the abandoned. To take these children out of harm's way, State government removes these children from their families and places them in foster care. Five hundred thousand. That is right, one-half of 1 million. That is how many children are languishing in foster care as we debate this bill today. The major goal of Federal and State policy must remain what it has been since the passage of the vital Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, and that is to move these children to permanent placements as quickly as possible. But today there is a new consensus throughout the Nation: Too many children are in foster care because too few children are adopted. The bill we debate today will change that. I have no doubt that if we pass this bill, within 5 years the number of adoptions in the United States will increase substantially and the number of children languishing in foster care will at last decline.”