Last Friday it was announced that the Supreme Court would hear the case of Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, also known as the Baby Veronica case. This highly contested and controversial case may be a watershed moment in determining the strength of the Indian Child Welfare Act. For a detailed summary of the case from [...]
Yesterday Minnesota's 88th legislative session convened. This blog post is really more about providing information regarding new leadership and committee makeup, not child welfare-related items. Remember, we are tracking child welfare-related bills. As of right now, we are only set up to follow Minnesota-specific child welfare legislation. In the future we hope to change this [...]
Representative Karen Bass (D-CA) along with bipartisan support from fellow members of the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth Reps. Tom Marino (R-PA), Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) and Jim McDermott (D-WA) saw their bill aimed at improving educational outcomes of youth in foster care pass both the House and Senate on January 1, 3013. The members of [...]
The Adoption Tax Credit was included in the last-minute legislation passed to prevent the "fiscal cliff" but it falls short of what many had hoped for. The tax credit was initially conceived to help support foster care adoptions. Many families who adopt from foster care are relatives, foster parents or families of modest financial means [...]
To the distress and dismay of many Americans, it was announced at the end of December that Russian president Vladamir Putin signed a law banning international adoptions to the U.S. This act is being considered retaliation for the Magnitsky Act passed by U.S. Congress in response to Russia's human rights violations. [Graphic from the New [...]
On December 19 the Protect Our Kids Act of 2012 (H.R. 6655) was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and sent to the Senate for consideration. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) introduced Protect Our Kids legislation (S. 3705) in the U.S. Senate on December 21 with bipartisan support, including the 2011 version's sponsor, Sen. John [...]
On Monday, we posted about the Evan B. Donaldson report about the increase in the use of the internet and social media in adoptions. To highlight some of the personal stories about how the internet and social media have played a role in the lives of adopted individuals, adoptive parents and first/birth parents, here are [...]
This story did not make national headlines, but the story is an important one to understand for anyone working in international adoption. On December 7th, 2012, the Intercountry Adoption Universal Accreditation Act passed the senate. The bill was sponsored by Senators Mary Landrieu, John Kerry, Dick Lugar and James Inhofe in a bipartisan effort to [...]