On September 30, President Obama signed into law the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act. The provisions of the law are expected to reduce the deficit by $19 million over the next 10 years.
Protecting Children At Risk of Sex Trafficking
The law establishes a national advisory committee to provide guidance, over the course of four years, on best practices in responding to sex trafficking of children. The law increases the obligations of state child welfare agencies to identify children who are victims of child sex trafficking, or at risk of becoming such victims, and to provide services to these children. States must implement plans to rapidly locate children missing from foster care, and to report to Congress about children who run away from foster care. States must also report on their efforts to provide services to child victims of sex trafficking and efforts to ensure that children in foster care maintain long-term connections with caring adults.
Changes in Policies and Services Directed Toward Older Children in Foster Care
Foster parents will have more authority to make day to day decisions for children in their care, such as whether to participate in school activities or spend time with friends. Further, youth in foster care aged 14 or older will have a greater opportunity to participate in case planning. Service plans for children under age 16 may no longer have a goal of “another planned permanent living arrangement” which is essentially a plan for long term foster placement. If the goal for a child over age 16 is long term care, states must document ongoing efforts to find a permanent home or explain why other options are not in the best interest of the child. In addition, states must ensure that youth aged 18 or older who have spent six months or more in foster care have important records when they leave care, such as a birth certificate, social security card, health insurance information, and a driver’s license or state identification card.
Additional Adoption Incentives
The law increases incentives for state agencies to facilitate adoption and permanent guardianship of children in foster care. In addition, states have new directives on how to spend savings on adoption assistance payments to adoptive families derived from the Fostering Connections Act. At least 30 percent of these funds must now be spent on post-adoption and post-guardianship services, and services to prevent children from entering foster care.
Improving Child Support Enforcement
The law effectively implements the Hague convention, which facilitates shared information and enforcement of child support cases for participating countries, thereby enabling states to collect child support from parents living abroad. States must now enact laws consistent with this legislation, or risk losing federal administrative funding. In addition, all states must now implement the electronic income withholding order process to facilitate uniform and efficient transmission of child support funds.
heARTbeat is a publication of the KingSpry Adoption/ART Law Practice Group. It is meant to be informational and does not constitute legal advice.
