Hot Topics
We are currently advocating for change on the following issues:
1. Provide statewide post adoption services – cost is offset by foster care savings!
- NYSCCC is calling for NYS to appropriate $6 million for statewide delivery of post adoption services.
- Parents with adopted children, who are experiencing problems, need help to improve family dynamics and their child’s well‐being, and sometimes so that their child can live safely at home.
- Not only is post adoption services the right thing to do for children and their families, it will save NYS money by preventing adoption disruptions and residential treatment admissions.
- It is recommended that New York State implements specific recommendations contained in the NYSCCC report: Parents and Professional Identify Post Adoption Service Needs in New York State to meet these needs.
2. Retention of custody in voluntary residential placements - cost neutral!
- Allow parents to retain custody in voluntary foster care placements so that parents aren’t faced with impossible choice of keeping family together or getting needed services.
- Families turn to the child welfare system because it may be the best placement or they have no insurance for other options, or other options are inaccessible.
- The Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) is the only NYS system that requires parents to relinquish custody in order to get out-of-home care.
- At least 13 states do not require relinquishment.
- For more information see the Bazelon Center Resources on Custody Relinquishment
3. Adult adoptee access to original birth certificates – fairness issue!
- When a NYS child, including a child in foster care, is adopted, s/he is forever cut off from legal access to their original birth certificate and any identifying information concerning their birth families, even if adopted by kin. When birth records were closed in NY in 1938, the world of adoption was dramatically different than it is today. Today we recognize the importance of connections to our biological history
- For an excellent summary of the history and arguments in support of adoptee access, see the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute’s report, For the Records: Restoring a Right to Adult Adoptees, by Madelyn Freundlich.
4. Provide liability insurance for foster parents – fairness issue!
- Insure or indemnify all NYS foster parents in order to successfully recruit, retain and protect vitally needed foster parents
- Foster parents, who receive no salary for their services, are extremely vulnerable to lawsuits
- For more information see Liability Insurance/Damage Claims for Foster Parents from the NRCPFC
5. Set minimum statewide foster care board rates – fairness issue!
- OCFS presently sets only maximum rates, resulting in great disparity across counties and exploitation of foster parents
- Actual cost of care for children in foster care exceed current board rates – forcing foster parents to make up the difference in violation of federal law
- For more information on the costs of caring for children in foster care, please see Children’s Rights’ report, Hitting the M.A.R.C.: Establishing Foster Care Minimum Adequate Rates for Children,
Last modified: February 5, 2010
