TWO Stories from the enemies of the family

New post on The Children's Monitor CWLA Joins New Adoption Advocacy Collaboration by Children's Monitor CWLA has joined the Adoption Tax Credit Working Group, a national collaboration of organizations and individuals promoting adoption by advocating for the adoption tax credit. This single issue group is focused on the credit, because it is an important resource for helping children find forever families and make adoption affordable for all. This new collaboration is joining together around four principles for reauthorizing a strong adoption tax credit. It should be inclusive of all forms of adoptions, including adoptions from foster care, inter-country adoptions, and private domestic adoptions. It should also be a permanent part of the tax code. It should be refundable so that low-income families can benefit. Finally, the credit should be “flat” for special needs adoptions, so that families adopting children with special are not required to document adoption expenses, recognizing expenses that occur over time. Recently, Representative Bruce Bradley of Iowa introduced legislation extending the tax credit which fulfills each of these principles. Anyone can support the effort by “liking” the coalitions’ Facebook page, which is promoting awareness and building support for the tax credit. Children's Monitor | April 27, 2012 at 3:12 PM | Categories: General, House legislation, Permanency | URL: http://wp.me/p1zQ14-jt Comment    See all comment Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://childrensmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/cwla-joins-new-adoption-advocacy-collaboration/

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New post on The Children's Monitor Senate Finance Committee Focuses on Child Well-Being by timbricelandbetts In a forum on Capitol Hill earlier today Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), a member of the Committee, heard from child welfare experts about moving the child welfare system towards a greater emphasis on child well-being. This forum follows closely on the release last week of an Information Memorandum on well-being from the Administration on Children and Families at the Department of Health and Human Services. Both events are significant steps towards making well-being on a par with safety and permanence as primary goals for children who come to the attention of child welfare. At the forum Baucus expressed the hope that legislation could be enacted to make the next step on reforming child welfare focused on improving well-being outcomes and he compared the effort to the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act which the Senate approved earlier this week. Wyden agreed with the need to go further and to build on recent steps such as the Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act (P.L. 112-34) which was enacted into law last September. Wyden has introduced the Promoting Accountability and Excellence in Child Welfare Act (S. 1509) which creates a grant program to provide eligible entities resources to improve the well-being of all children in the child welfare system and incorporate higher standards of accountability for state and local agencies and organizations that provide child welfare services. Today's forum is the first in a series of roundtables that the Finance Committee will hold to discuss the challenges and opportunities in federal child welfare policy. timbricelandbetts | April 27, 2012 at 4:08 PM | Tags: Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act, child well-being, Senate Finance Committee, Senator Max Baucus, Senator Ron Wyden | Categories: Child Welfare Workforce, Grants, Permanency, Prevention, Senate legislation | URL: http://wp.me/p1zQ14-jy Comment    See all comments http://childrensmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/senate-finance-committee-focuses-on-child-well-being/