The federal Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 was written into law in an attempt to upgrade child welfare services and improve the lives of displaced American children in the state-run foster care program. Recognizing the need for stability in children's lives, this law required states to create programs that could help children either stay in their own homes or quickly find another permanent family-type situation rather than move through a series of foster homes throughout their lives.
History
President Jimmy Carter signed the Adoption Assistance and Welfare Act into law in 1980. The Act provided federal assistance to the state-run foster care and adoption system. According to President Carter, this legislation was designed to help reform the foster care program and provide financial subsidies for the adoption of children with special needs, including older children and children with medical and psychological problems, who are less likely to be adopted than healthy infants. Another goal of the legislation was to provide more stable environments for children in foster care with funding for services that would help stabilize family homes and get children who are in foster care back to their original families or into another type of permanent family situation as soon as possible.
Significance
The Adoption Assistance and Welfare Act followed The Child Abuse and Treatment Act of 1974, which was established to create child abuse and neglect prevention and intervention programs. The Adoption Assistance and Welfare Act further stated that in order to receive federal assistance, states must design and implement programs aimed at helping families in need before the children are at risk of abuse or neglect, to try to prevent the need to remove the child from the family. These programs included counseling and temporary child care.
Features
The types of programs initiated under the Adoption Assistance and Welfare Act to help reunite families included family counseling, parenting workshops, and substance abuse counseling. The law required states to keep records of a permanency plan developed for each child in foster care to insure that, within eighteen months, the child would be reunited with family or the child would be freed up for adoption through legal termination of parental rights.
Effects
Because the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act required states to make reasonable attempts to rehabilitate dysfunctional families, and this process was expensive and time-consuming, it was often difficult to place children in a permanent environment in a timely fashion. It became obvious that this plan was not working for children living in chronically abusive situations. As a result, the Adoption and Safe Families Act was legislated in 1997 to allow states to put more emphasis on the health and safety of the child than on reunifying the family.
Benefits
The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 paved the way for improved legislation and programs that help ensure the safety of children from abusive and dysfunctional families and promote and support the adoption of children with special needs who might otherwise languish in the foster care system.
