Bipartisan Parent Recruitment Bill Introduced in the Senate
On August 2, Sens. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) introduced bipartisan legislation that would improve foster and adoptive parent recruitment and retention. The bill (S. 4725), called the Data-Driven Foster Parent Recruitment and Retention Act of 2022, could be enacted later this year.
"The proposal comes as most states, including Iowa, face a shortage of qualified foster parents – an issue that is only expected to worsen as child welfare agencies look to rely less on congregate care and more on family settings," Grassley's office said in a statement.
The bill includes some provisions that VFA endorsed in July (see the next article). VFA backed the legislation after senior staff for Grassley and Hassan attended the August 1 policy committee meeting to answer questions. VFA has joined over two dozen other organizations in a sign-on letter expressing support for the bill.
The bill would do the following:
State Plan Requirements: The bill updates current Title IV-B state diligent recruitment plan requirements by requiring states to create a new “family partnership plan” that describes how they will identify, recruit, screen, license, support, and retain foster and adoptive families that reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of children in the state for whom foster and adoptive homes are needed. The bill also requires states to develop their plans in consultation with birth, kinship, foster and adoptive families, community-based service providers, technical assistance providers, and youth with lived experience with foster care and adoption.
Family Finding: State plans must identify, notify, engage, and support relatives as potential placement resources for children.
Advisory Boards: The bill requires states to stand up or support foster family advisory boards for the purpose of improving the recruitment and retention of foster and adoptive families.
Data Requirements: The bill directs states to collect and report data for a wide variety of purposes, including establishing goals, assessing needs, measuring progress, reducing unnecessary placements in congregate care, improving placement stability, increasing rates of kinship placements, improving recruitment and retention of families for teens, sibling groups, and other special populations, and aligning the racial and ethnic composition of foster and adoptive families with that of children in need of homes.
Report Requirements: The bill requires HHS to include new information in its annual child welfare outcomes report to Congress, including state-by-state data on the number, demographics, and characteristics of foster families in the state, and the number of potential foster families not being utilized in the state and the reasons why. It also must include a summary of the challenges of, and barriers to, being a foster parent, including with respect to recruitment, licensure, engagement, retention, and why parents stop fostering, as reported by states based on surveys of foster parents.
VFA’s policy committee expressed support for the bill’s family finding, family involvement, and data collection requirements. However, it also expressed concern about language that deleted the words “diligent recruitment” from Title IV-B, the lack of dedicated funding, and the lack of enforcement provisions. Although VFA has endorsed the bill, we will continue to seek productive changes in the final version before it is enacted.
No companion legislation has been introduced in the House, but congressional staff have indicated that bipartisan legislation like this stands a good chance of being included in a broader bill reauthorizing Title IV-B later in the year. That larger bill, which has not yet been introduced, has perhaps a 50-50 chance of being enacted this year.
This is an article from Voice for Adoption’s free monthly public policy newsletter.
