Hhs Awards $14.9 Million In Bonuses To States For Increasing The Number Of Adoptions Of Foster Children
Approximately $14.9 million in bonuses has been paid to 25 states and Puerto Ricoby the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for increasing the number of children adopted from state-supervised foster care in fiscal year 2002. In states that qualify for bonuses, 3,703 more children were adopted in fiscal year 2002 than in the previous year.
HHS’ Administration on Children and Families (ACF) provides a bonus payment to each state that completed more adoptions in 2002 than in each of the five previous years. Each qualifying state receives a bonus of $4,000 per child adopted beyond its next best year’s total. States may also receive a bonus of $2,000 for each child with special needs adopted beyond the largest number of special needs children adopted in any of the previous five years.
“It is gratifying to realize that behind the adoption statistics there are real children and real families who have found each other,” said Wade F. Horn, Ph.D., assistant secretary for children and families. “States are to be commended for working hard to match waiting foster children with families who will love them forever.”
Each year about 51,000 children nationwide are adopted from foster care. The bonuses awarded today are authorized under a provision of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. ACF is the agency within HHS that oversees federal foster care and adoption programs, as well as other programs to promote the economic and social well-being of children and families.
Adoption incentives have been highly successful in encouraging states to increase the annual number of adoptions performed. President Bush’s fiscal year 2004 budget includes a proposal to extend the program, including a new focus on successful state efforts to find adoptive families for children age nine and older, who continue to wait in foster care despite overall improvements in adoption performance.
Other efforts to promote adoption include a Web site, www.adoptuskids.org, that links children in foster care with potential adoptive families across the country. Launched in July 2002, the AdoptUSKids site features photographs and biographies of some 3,700 children in foster care and steers interested families to the appropriate state agency for information about specific children.
HHS is working with the Ad Council on a national advertising campaign whose planned launch date is spring 2004, to publicize the site and encourage adoption from foster care.
The list of states and the amount of each bonus follows.
Alabama $96,000
Colorado $496,000
Connecticut $547,000
Delaware $64,000
Florida $3,520,000
Georgia $374,000
Hawaii $208,000
Iowa $524,000
Kentucky $204,000
Maryland $712,000
Minnesota $82,000
Missouri $366,000
Nebraska $20,000
Nevada $28,000
New Hampshire $158,000
New Jersey $1,932,000
North Carolina $320,000
Ohio $1,100,000
Oregon $224,000
Pennsylvania $1,172,000
South Dakota $322,000
Tennessee $1,148,000
Texas $68,000
West Virginia $18,000
Wisconsin $1,158,000
Puerto Rico $66,000
