Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) have reintroduced a pair of bills that would fund pre- and post-adoption services and help states avoid the rehoming of adopted children.
The Adopted Children and Families Act and the Safe Home Act, neither of which moved during the previous Congress, were both dropped into the hopper this week.
“Giving a child a stable home through adoption is one of the greatest joys for a parent, and I can attest to it,” said Cramer, in a release announcing the legislation. “Our bills ensure children are not neglected and families have the support services they need throughout the adoption process.”
There are two segments of the Social Security Act through which most federal child welfare funding flows. Title IV-E is an entitlement that provides a reimbursement to states for the cost of some prevention services, for foster care payments, and for adoption subsidies.
Title IV-B is a block of money sent out to states each year with more flexible rules for its use, ranging from upstream family preservation to post-adoption services. But there is not an actual requirement that any of that money be spent on supporting adoptive parents and children.
The Adoption Children and Families Act would address this by increasing the amount for Title IV-B by $20 million, and earmarking that new money for adoption support. Among the allowable uses for states and tribes that sought to use it: mental health services, data collection and analysis, adoption competency and training, and respite care.
The Safe Home Act weighs in somewhat on the subject of unregulated custody transfers, which is more commonly referred to as rehoming. The U.S. Children’s Bureau defines this as occurring when parents transfer the physical custody of their child to a person other than family, friends, or a member of the child’s tribe.
This can occur with biological children as well, but rehoming of adopted children became a major issue in the early 2010s after a Reuters exposé on the practice, especially among children adopted from other countries who arrive with no indication of any behavioral challenges or trauma-related needs they might have.
This legislation instructs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to help increase awareness of these transfers and on how adoptive parents can get help. It also instructs the department to conduct a “report on unregulated custody transfers of children, including of adopted children” within the next two years.
HHS did make two recent investments in supporting adoptions and preventing their dissolution. In 2023, the Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.), a Maryland-based nonprofit that worked with the feds to develop a free online training for adoptive and foster care caseworkers, was awarded a grant to launch the National Center for Adoption Competent Mental Health Services. And Spaulding for Children, a Michigan-based nonprofit, won a grant to establish the National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support.