New Federal Licensing Rules May Spur More Relative Adoptions

Each year, roughly a third of children adopted from foster care are adopted by relatives. Such adoption may become more common under new rules being proposed by the Biden administration.

The proposed rules, which are currently open to public comment through April 17, would allow states to establish separate licensing standards for relatives and fictive kin that would remove administrative barriers and fast-track them for eligibility for foster care maintenance payments. As more foster children and youth are placed with relatives, more are likely to be adopted by relatives when they cannot be reunited with their birth parents.

Under current rules, states may waive non-safety-related requirements such as the size and location of bedrooms, minimum income standards, and training requirements.  Forty-two states and the District of Columbia currently issue such waivers. The proposed rules would eliminate the administrative burden and the uncertainty associated with obtaining waivers in states that choose to establish separate licensing rules.

These separate standards could be adopted quickly. Generations United and the ABA Center on Children and the Law have conducted extensive research on state licensing standards and have proposed model language that states could implement rapidly.

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