ASFA Failure - Only 71 Interstate Adoptions Last Year

This just in from blogger Jeff Katz of the Huffington Post:

The simple fact is that it is virtually impossible to adopt a foster child across state lines in the United States.

In the most recent year for which we have data, states reported that only 71 children in the entire country were adopted from foster care across state lines by non-relatives.

Why is interstate adoption so rare? The primary reason is that we do not have a national adoption system. Instead, we have 50 different child welfare systems, each with its own process for adoption eligibility, recruitment, approval, and training.

Even worse, our current system has created profound disincentives for states to facilitate and support adoptions across state lines.

It is a national scandal that 25,000 children age out of foster care each year while willing adoptive parents are ignored because they are in the wrong state or even the wrong county. It shouldn't be harder for a New Jersey family to adopt a child from Manhattan than Moscow. We must change the incentives in our adoption system so that everyone wins when a hurt child finds a forever family.

Check out the complete post here.