Report Claiming Doubling of Adoptions is Statistics Abuse, Child Advocacy Group Says

10/10/2003

From: Richard Wexler of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, 703-212-1006; Web site: http://www.nccpr.org

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 10 -- A report released yesterday claiming that foster-child adoptions have doubled since 1997 is "statistics abuse" according to a national child advocacy organization.

"If one could be charged for torturing logic, the authors of this study would be hauled before a war crimes tribunal," said Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. "The data really show that foster child adoptions nationwide are declining, and America will never adopt its way out of the foster care crisis. The data are one more indication that the so-called Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) has backfired, trapping more children in foster care now than before the law was passed."

In 1996, then-President Clinton set a goal of doubling the number of foster child adoptions by 2002. ASFA was the means to that goal. At the time, the Department of Health and Human Services declared that "This goal translates into an increase in adoptions and permanent placements from 27,000 in 1996 to 54,000 in 2002."

But the report from the University of Illinois Children and Family Research Center actually shows that after early increases, foster child adoptions peaked at under 51,000 in 2000 and 2001 and declined to under 49,000 in 2002.

Since ASFA was passed, foster child adoptions have increased by an average of fewer than 3,500 a year over the previous year. That's less than one percent of the total number of children in foster care on any given day. "Meanwhile the 'take-the-child-and-run' mentality fostered by ASFA encourages more and more removal of children - so the number of children in foster care since ASFA passed actually has increased by more than 20,000," Wexler said.

"The Illinois study gets around these dismal figures by taking each state's 'best year' and arbitrarily adding them all together. The 'logic' behind this approach is that the authors' home state saw a large reduction in foster care, so in later years fewer children were available for adoption. But that is not true nationwide. And this is certainly not what former President Clinton meant when he set his goal, clearly explaining what the definition of 'doubled' is," Wexler said.