This article discusses the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 and how it relates to the rules created by constitutional law and federal legislation about shifting children between foster care and adoption. The article focuses on the 15/22 months rule, which provides that a state should pursue adoption for a child who has remained in foster care for fifteen of the preceding 22 months and encourages states to take action to implement the 15/22 months rule to comply with the Constitution and federal law, noting that many children in foster care will need pre-adoptive and adoptive homes.

Foster Children Awaiting Adoption Under the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997

This article considers the independent liberty interests of children in foster care and their mothers in parental termination proceedings. Federal reforms enacted in 1997 impose a mandatory deadline for the state to terminate parental rights. That policy erroneously presumes that the passage of time suffices to establish parental fault and satisfies a parent's due process rights to her child. The policy also fails to protect the minority of children in foster care who assert an interest in preserving a safe relationship with mothers who are unlikely to regain custody within the state's time frame - including many substance abusers, incarcerated parents and victims of domestic violence.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID894622_code283370.pdf?abstractid=894622&mirid=1

A Delicate Task: Balancing the Rights of Children and Mothers in Parental Termination Proceedings

Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) is the primary assistance program for low-income families. A number of these families are also involved with the child welfare (child protective) system. For a conference on TANF this article was prepared as a response to another conference article, Ward Doran & Roberts, Welfare Reform and Families in the Child Welfare System, 61 Md. L. Rev. 386 (2002), which focuses on the impact of TANF and child welfare on mothers. This article takes a more child-centered view and elaborates on the overlapping issues of the child welfare system and TANF, identifying both positive and negative aspects of these two systems. The article concludes that parental responsibility should not be used as a justification for depriving children of basic needs and proposes that child welfare be considered more as a joint parent-community responsibility.

/pdf/children-in-poverty-reconciling-children-s-interests-with-51fh23n54k.pdf

Sarah H. Ramsey

Papers

Children in Poverty: Reconciling Children's Interests with Child Protective and Welfare Policies