Foster Care: States Focusing on Finding Permanent Homes for Children, but Long-Standing Barriers Remain: Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources, Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives

April 8, 2003 This report was written by Cornelia Ashby and presented to the Government Accountability Office on April 8, 2003. In response to concerns that some children were languishing in temporary foster care, Congress enacted the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA) to help states move children in foster care more quickly to safe and permanent homes. ASFA contained two key provisions: (1) the "fast track" provision allows states to bypass efforts to reunify families in certain egregious situations and (2) the "15 of 22" provision requires states, with a few exceptions, to file a petition to . . .