The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997 is a comprehensive federal law that seeks to promote the safety and well-being of children in the child welfare system. The AFSA was intended to protect the safety of children, reduce the number of children living in foster care and reduce the time children whose parents have had their parental rights terminated spend in foster care. Despite these intentions, the implementation of ASFA has had a number of negative effects.
The ASFA assumes that most child abuse that does occur can be prevented. To this end, the AFSA focuses on states making sure they address safety conditions as quickly as possible (up to and occasionally including removal), but it fails to address the underlying issues, such as poverty, family conflict and more that can lead to abuse and neglect. In addition, most removals are due to allegations of neglect- not abuse.
The ASFA requires states to review the cases of foster children and move them into more permanent arrangements as quickly as possible. If child(ren) have been in foster care for 15 of the past 22 months, states are required to pursue a termination of parental rights. States may do so earlier, but this is the minimum federal requirement states must comply with. While 15 months seems like a long period of time, the remedial courts (family or juvenile court, depending on the state) tend to be overwhelmed with various types of cases and therefore, there can be months between hearings and in that time, a case may only come before a judge five times during that time- sometimes less. This means there’s very little room for error in meeting service plan requirements toward reunification. The reason the AFSA requires such a tight timeline is to reduce the amount of time that child(ren) spend in foster care. While we shouldn’t want child(ren) to spend more time in foster care than absolutely necessary, there are children who, if not for the AFSA and the overwhelmed remedial courts, would be successfully reunified with their parents. Instead, they are either adopted or linger in the foster care system until they age out.
Once a child is removed and parental rights are terminated, the AFSA’s focus on permanency shifts to adoption. Through Title IV-E of the Social Security Act, adoptive families may be provided with financial assistance to ensure the child can be adopted as quickly as possible. However, many children age out of the foster care system and therefore, the AFSA continues to fall short in its own mission as designed. This rush to place a child, when successful, can also have negative long-term consequences- especially if the adoptive family is not properly screened. This creates a situation in which the process was biased towards adoption, rather than a parent and child being able to eventually reunite, if that was the best option.
The states also have an incentive to adopt child(ren) out quickly once parental rights are terminated. Another way the AFSA tries to limit the time children spend in foster care is by giving states a financial incentive to adopt those children out as quickly as possible. When states limit the time a child whose parents have had their rights terminated spends in foster care, they receive a financial reward. The amount of the reward varies by state.
Since the passage of ASFA, there has not been enough follow-up action to make sure that there are adequate resources in place for families who have had their child(ren) removed from their homes by Child Protective Services (CPS), such as therapeutic services, parenting classes, and recovery programs to address the safety concerns that warranted the removal in the eyes of CPS in the first place. This can create a situation where a family is separated and then left to fend for themselves with no help to get back on track. While the Family First Prevention Services Act and other community services have tried to provide options, the issue falls on the overwhelmed remedial courts and their failure to address these issues in a timely manner. A limited time frame before terminating parental rights only works if the services toward addressing safety concerns start immediately and the courts are more easily accessible as soon as a family is ready to start the reunification process. Otherwise, it might be too late by the time the next scheduled hearing comes around.
Overall, the Adoption & Safe Families act is an example of yet another law with well-meaning intentions that, while good in theory, has failed to address the issues inherent to lingering in foster care it was designed to resolve. Instead, the unintended consequences have changed the course of the lives of many children and families- sometimes for the better and often times, for the worse. While the purpose of the law was to protect children and reduce the time they spend in unstable placement, the lack of focus on families and resources has created a situation in which families are separated without sufficient help to be reunified, a timeline parents are often powerless to meet and children placed in permanent adoptive homes without proper assessment. This can ultimately lead to more harm than good.