Grassley with former Iowa foster youth.
Download photos HERE.
Good afternoon. It’s a privilege to be here with you to celebrate milestones in child welfare policy and the 25th anniversary of the Chafee program.
For nearly 30 years, I’ve championed policies at the federal level to improve outcomes for children.
My motivation to begin this work came after speaking with individuals who have experience in the foster care system or have been adopted themselves, including a former staff member of mine.
Today, I continue to be inspired by those, like many of you here, who have lived experience and share that with me.
The Senate Caucus on Foster Youth that I co-founded with former Senator Mary Landrieu in 2008, and still co-chair, has provided an avenue for this youth advocacy and bipartisan collaboration among those of us in Congress.
I’d like to take just a moment to highlight some of my legislation as we’re here to recognize the impact of youth advocacy that has led to policy changes and implementation over the years.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 was one of my first adoption bills, and has increased the numbers of adoptions from foster care.
Another bill, the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoption Act included my legislation to make it easier for foster children to be permanently cared for by their own relatives and to stay in their home communities.
This is just some of my work.
In this Congress, I’m working with Senator Hassan to make our Recruiting Families Using Data Act law.
Our bill would improve data collection to help states understand the current recruitment and retention challenges we’re seeing among foster parents.
Given we’re celebrating 25 years of the Chafee program, I thought you may be interested to know about a report that I’ve asked the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, to produce.
It was brought to my attention that states have been returning Chafee dollars.
To understand how states are using the program to assist youth transitioning into adulthood, I asked that GAO examine state’s use of this program.
GAO has the draft report, and the agency gets the chance to review and comment before it can be published.
This report may help guide us on future policy. I look forward to sharing it with you early in 2025.
Thank you for having me.
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