September 24, 1999
Web posted at: 1:56 p.m. EDT (1756 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Surrounded by families who have adopted American foster children, President Bill Clinton Friday announced new financial incentives to get more families to open their homes and hearts to these children by adopting them.

President Clinton said $20 million is being awarded to 35 states that have shown the biggest increases in adoptions from foster care.

The award offers an incentive to reach the president's goal, announced in 1996, to double the number of foster care adoptions from 28,000 a year in 1996 to 56,000 a year by 2002. Clinton said the programs he initiated are well on their way to meeting that goal.

"We have new evidence that these efforts are bearing fruit," Clinton said. "The Department of Health and Human Services has just given me a report that tracks our progress in meeting our adoption goals. It shows that the number of adoptions from the foster care system increased from 28,000 in 1996 to 36,000 in 1998."

Despite the increase, the president said too many children are waiting to be placed in permanent homes. HHS estimates that more than 110,000 children in the nation's foster care system cannot return to their birth families and need families to adopt them.

The president also announced he is awarding $5.5 million in adoption opportunity grants to outstanding public and private organizations in 16 states to research new ways of increasing interstate adoptions and adoptions of minority children.

"Together these efforts will help to accelerate the remarkable progress we've seen," Clinton said.

The president also called on the Senate to follow the lead of the House and pass a measure that allows children who leave foster care to stay on Medicaid until they are 21 years old. Currently, children lose their Medicaid benefits when they turn 18 and are forced to leave foster homes.

Clinton stressed during his announcement Friday that the effort to increase adoptions has been bipartisan. In 1996, he signed Republican-backed legislation that provides a $5,000 tax credit to families adopting foster children and makes it easier for families to adopt children of a different race.

In 1998, the president directed the HHS to explore more ways the Internet can be used as a tool to find homes for children waiting to be adopted from foster care, and in 1997, he signed the Adoption and Safe Families Act, an effort to reform the nation's child welfare system.

White House Correspondent Chris Black contributed to this report.

Friday, September 24, 1999

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