Celebrate adoption

In recognition of National Adoption Awareness Month, families will gather throughout Florida to celebrate the joy of adoption through special court ceremonies, heart-warming group adoptions, community picnics and festivals.

Florida has gained national recognition for its success in finding families for foster children and for keeping children safely at home, thanks in part to a five-year federal funding program that allows child welfare professionals to focus services on at-risk children and families.

Florida's Title IV-E pilot program reduced the number of children living in foster homes and group care by 32 percent and, in its first year, cut re-abuse of children by half within six months of their cases being closed. With more manageable caseloads, workers focused on adoption for children in foster care and finalized record numbers over the past two years.

Florida is the only state allowed options in spending Title IV-E federal child protection funds, directing money where it helps children most. Yes, some children are only kept safe if removed from dangerous homes, a precaution long covered by federal funds. However, many other children now remain safely with loved ones, thanks to this unique program granting Florida the latitude to spend child protection funds on the delivery of in-home services such as parenting, counseling, mentoring, emergency cash assistance and support for relative adoptions.

Every other state is restricted to spending federal child welfare funds exclusively on children who've been removed from their homes and families. Such limitations practically force child protection officials to take children from poor or dysfunctional families.

If children are left in risky home situations with no support services in place, bad things can happen. Nearly 500,000 foster children in the United States live in residential group homes, with foster parents or with relatives. Each year, approximately 25,000 "age out" of their foster placements because they've technically become adults. Most are behind in their education, have no place to live and are at risk of unplanned pregnancy. Had in-home supportive services been funded, they might never have been torn from their homes only to be placed within systems that are ill-equipped to heal families and unable to guarantee adoption.

Florida faces two threats to its continued success: State legislators again threaten across-the-board budget cuts. Cuts would result in Florida's failure to meet the minimum state funding required to qualify for the federal pilot. Further, while Florida's program is working extremely well, it tragically is set to expire in two years.

Now is the time for our state and federal representatives to begin securing a permanent extension of the IV-E program to ensure brighter futures for Florida's most vulnerable children. We must leverage our progress, not backslide to a system that is a disservice to hundreds of thousands of children.