Adoption-Foster Care

NOV 25 '97 11:43 FR TO 94562878 P.02/03 ALLNEWSPLUS - 11/24/97 CHICAGOTR 17 document. follows Excerpt from page (Publication page references are not available for this Chicago Tribune Copyright 1997 Monday, November 24, 1997 COMMENTARY CONGRESS GIVES FOSTER KIDS A THUMBS UP E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post Writers Group. The burst of national generosity toward the McCaughey septuplets says good things about our spirit and the love so many Americans have for children. And whatever medical problems those seven kids face--one hopes there will be few-they have one big thing going for them: loving parents devoted to their welfare. There are 500,000 children in the American foster-care system who do not have that advantage. Some are there because their parents died, some because their parents couldn't cope, and too many because their parents were abusive, neglectful cr crippled by drug addiction. Hard as it is to believe in this era of such deep skepticism about Washington, Congress and President Clinton did a good deed for those kids last week. The president signed a bipartisan bill reforming the nation's adoption laws to make it a lot easier for foster kids to find permanent homes. The bill didn't get much attention for the very worst of reasons: News coverage goes to the controversial, the divisive and the confrontational. But the surface calm surrounding this bill. belies its importance. It marks a large change in the direction of adoption policy. For some years now, the vogue among child welfare professionals has been the idea of "family preservation." The idea is that before a child is put up for adoption, substantial efforts should be made to repair broken families and to counsel parents who may have been abusive or neglectful. But some families can't be repaired. At its worst; family preservation can mean sending children home to more abuse--and, in some cases, death. In many other cases, the emphasis on family preservation can delay the placement of children into safe and permanent homes. Early childhood years are precious. Delay can be destructive to a kid's development. The new bill keeps family preservation alive as a concept, but shifts the emphasis in favor of the kids. "The new legislation makes it clear that children's health and safety are the paramount concerns of our public child welfare system," Clinton said. Among other things, the law hopes to speed adoption by requiring states to hold hearings on a child's future within 12 months 18. of his or her removal from a family, instead of the current During negotiations on the bill, there was a behind-the-scenes argument over existing law requiring child