President's EO on Strengthening Child Welfare in America

“All children deserve a stable, supportive, and loving home in which to grow, thrive, and realize their full potential”

President Trump signed an Executive Order on Wednesday, aimed at strengthening child-welfare programs nationwide and to promote permanency in finding children a home. His aim is to improve better outcomes for children and families, protect vulnerable youth through deliberate action, and uplift America’s children to ensure that children and their families thrive. The Executive Order comes as child-welfare organizations nationwide struggle with the effects of the coronavirus. The goals are ambitious and will take deliberate steps to ensure a follow through.

The call discussed that there are 20,000 children who have aged out of the system this year. Through efforts to increase and expand partnerships between public, private, faith-based, and community organizations, Trump's administrative team suggest that churches help with providing resources to older youth.

There are three main focus areas that this Executive Order calls on:
Creating “robust partnerships” between state agencies and public, private, faith-based and community organizations
Improve resources available to both caregivers and children, including by increasing the accessibility of trauma-informed training
Improve federal oversight on key statutory child welfare requirements that states must follow

The Executive Order supports essential data sharing that will enable partnering in meaningful ways across communities for the good of children and families.

The Executive Order will “remove the barriers for eligible individuals to access these resources”.

The Executive Order promotes the handling of child welfare cases by encouraging the assignment of legal representation supporting the federal guards for children and parents in court proceedings.

The Executive Order will also improve the processes to prevent the unnecessary removal of children and the timely placement of children into permanent homes because “government is not the solution. The solution is in and always will be family and the government doesn’t create families.”

The Executive Order will support data driven strategies to find permanent families for children.

“More than 400,000 in the current system, almost 60% of those 400,000 coming into the foster care system because of neglect. African American children are about 1 and a half times more likely to be placed in care, than white children. African American children are less likely to be adopted. I think something like fewer than 20% of our black children in this country are actually adopted. There is so much room to grow and to do good and to bring real productive change to the foster system”

“We will never give up on these forgotten communities”

“America’s adoptive parents are heroes, and we are grateful for what you do to make the future bright for America’s children and for our country”