Nationwide Campaign Working to Expand Foster Care Options

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning. Well, with us today is Assistant Secretary of the Administration of Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Alex Adams. And, well, Secretary Adams, you have described to me that you are responsible for 400,000 foster kids. That is a lot of kids. Tell us a little bit more about it. Yeah.

0:31 Speaker 2 Well, first, Administration for Children and Families, when you think of health and human services, we are the and human services side of the agency. So we oversee child welfare, which includes foster care, adoption, guardianship. We oversee child care subsidy and a lot of programs like that.

0:49 Speaker 1 And you report to Secretary Kennedy.

0:52 Speaker 2 That’s correct. Secretary Kennedy has been a great ally to work with on these issues. But really where our direction has come is from President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump. About a year ago in November, they signed an executive order called Fostering the Future, which set up a whole-of-government approach to improving foster care. This is an issue the

1:11 First Lady cares about deeply and personally. At any given point in time, we have 300,000 to 400,000 kids in foster care. These are children who have been removed from their families and brought into the custody of the state.

1:27 One of the biggest challenges that we have nationally is we have too few foster homes to take care of them. For every 100 kids coming into the system, we only have 57 homes to care for them. And it’s not just a bad math problem. When we don’t have enough homes for these kids, they get placed in government offices, hotels, Airbnbs,

1:47 places that don’t have stable, loving caregivers that hopefully many of your listeners were able to.

1:51 Speaker 1 Say that number again.

1:53 Speaker 2 57 homes for every 100 kids.

1:56 Speaker 1 So what happens? The other 43?

1:59 Speaker 2 If the state doesn’t have a home for them, they get placed in Airbnbs, hotels, or government offices.

2:05 Speaker 1 And how is the selection made? I mean, do the foster parents get to pick who they want?

2:13 Speaker 2 Well, the state ultimately determines who they’re placed with, but the foster parent can set the criteria. I want a boy between the ages of 0 and 5, or I want a girl between the ages of 0 and 10, you know, something like that. So we need to roll out the red carpet and recruit more foster homes. The

2:31 most likely families to step up and raise their hands statistically are families with sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions. And in too many states, states have been sending messages to foster families of faith that they need not apply.

2:46 Some states will put in blue state policies that say unless you commit to transitioning these kids, unless you commit to using certain gender pronouns, we’re not going to license you. So we’ve been working with states to change those policies.

3:00 And believably Massachusetts and Oregon recently changed their laws to get some of the woke ideology out of their licensing. Yet we launched a campaign that we called a home for every child where we’re trying to get the ratio of foster homes to kids above one to ones that you have homes waiting on kids, not kids waiting on homes.

3:21 I’m proud to say all 50 states have joined. We couldn’t even get all 50 states to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. So to get all 50 states to join that effort really is a testament to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump’s bipartisan collaboration on this important issue.

3:38 Speaker 1 Let me ask you a question. Has it always been that many kids available, or is it because of what happened under President Biden’s And all those migrants came in.

3:54 Speaker 2 So nationwide, the number of foster kids has been declining. It really peaked in the late 90s. You know, you had the crack epidemic in the 80s, and then you had the opioid epidemic in the 90s into the thousands.

4:07 That’s really what drove the foster care crisis. The two most common reasons for entry into foster care, parental drug addiction, parental mental health issues. So it swings on that issue. I will say, in addition to foster care, my agency oversees what’s called the unaccompanied alien children. These are children who come to our border, cross the border with no caregivers,

4:34 and they come into the custody of my agency. Biden’s open border policies meant we had 25,000 kids in our custody because of the leadership of President Trump and his strong border policies. We only have 1,700 unaccompanied alien children in our custody today. When the Biden administration had 25,000, they were bursting at the seams. They didn’t have enough

4:57 facilities for those children. They were fast-tracking them to sponsors that, in many cases, were traffickers. So kudos to President Trump for a strong border policy for shrinking the number of unaccompanied aliens coming into our country and our custody.

5:16 Speaker 1 And what is the age of these kids? What’s the variance?

5:24 Speaker 2 Foster youth under the age of 18, disproportionate impact on infants. About one in five kids that come into foster care is under the age of one. If you look at the unaccompanied alien children program, it’s disproportionate male. It’s disproportionately teenage males, like 14 to just under 18.

5:47 Speaker 1 Those are tough ages.

5:48 Speaker 2 Yes, sir. And tough to place.

5:53 Speaker 1 Understood. And you got, Mr. Secretary, you have a big job on your hands.

6:02 Speaker 2 Well, with the leadership of President Trump and First Lady Bonnie Trump, we’re making significant progress. We, as I said, all 50 states have joined the Home for Every Child campaign. And states are committing to take actions. that will increase the number of foster homes they have. And most importantly, shrink the number of foster kids coming into the system.

6:20 Speaker 1 Now, if I’m listening to this broadcast and we got millions of listeners, uh, who did they call if they want to volunteer and, and, uh, uh, did they call the state or did he call the federal government?

6:34 Speaker 2 So licensing a foster homes is at the state level. So you would call your state child welfare agency. So here in New York, it’d be the New York state agency. Uh, Most important thing we need, frankly, is more foster families willing to open their heart and their home to a child, raise their hand and volunteer and get licensed. But there’s

6:52 lots of other ways to help. Tell us.

6:56 Speaker 2 Respite care, you know, taking care of a foster child on a weekend so that the foster parents can have a break is really important. One of the most important and most exciting things is the first lady said these Trump accounts... can be really important investment vehicles long-term for youth, but who is going to create them for foster youth?

7:20 If the children are in the custody of the state, who is going to open the Trump account for the child? So we’ve been trying to get states to create Trump accounts for children called Fostering the Future accounts. Only 26 states have committed to doing so, but in those 26 states, folks that might not be able to foster, folks that

7:41 might not be able to provide respite care could look at donating to children.

7:47 Speaker 1 So the federal government you don’t have an 800 number or anything like that maybe you should consider having one so somebody calls the federal government and you can find the right state for them to go.

8:00 Speaker 2 To happy to take a look at it we do have a website acf.gov on there we do have a map that allows you to select your state and it will get you to your state’s child welfare agency but happy to look into an 800 number.

8:13 Speaker 1 That’s an acf.gov, and you go there and learn more about foster care. Yes, sir. Mr. Secretary Alex Adams, thank you so much for what you do. You do God’s work, and thank you for coming on this Sunday morning.

8:32 Speaker 2 Thank you. I appreciate it.