VFA News: Policy Call with Angelique G. Day

Mar 11

2017-08-31_angelique day_web sized-1.jpg — This past Monday, March 5, 2021, Voice For Adoption hosted our monthly; member’s only virtual policy call with special guest speaker Angelique Day Ph.D., an associate professor at the University of Washington, Seattle School of Social Work. Angelique is one of the leading minds for child welfare advocacy and reform. Her research has given the community invaluable insights on foster care, kinship care, youth aging out of foster care, and many other crucial areas. She spoke with VFA members about Biden-Harris Administration’s transition team’s progress on foster care, adoption, housing, immigration, and child welfare legislation and concluded with an active Q&A session.

Areas covered during the call included:

Education reform to reduce inequalities for foster youth retention rates and access to higher education.
Support for 2016 AFCAR data reporting requirements on LGTBQ+ data elements and numerous data elements involving ICWA and the tribes.
The Administration’s goal of overturning the policies, rules, executive orders, and practices created room for discrimination in the child welfare sector. The Trump Administration’s regulations, orders, and procedures would block children from finding their permanent place to call home based solely on marital status, minority faith, gender expression, or sexual orientation—overall, mending and expanding the rights of LGBTQ+ two-spirited youths in the US foster care system.
Biden-Harris's proposal to make housing a right for all, addressing the 1 in 10 children placed in foster care due to housing instability.
Biden-Harris's child care proposal would make pre-kindergarten free for three and 4-year-olds and increase the child care tax credit to $8,000. This change would lift over four million children out of poverty.

To view a recording of the event, please reach out to Tobias at Tobias@voice-for-adoption.org.This was a special event opened up to VFA’s general contact list. However, our monthly policy calls and access to the recording archives is paid member benefit. If you attended and we, not a member, you got a freebie! However, we would urge you to join our membership today if you would like to view the recording. If you are not a member, join to watch.