Improving Foster Care Outcomes
Floor Speech
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Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, let me commend the chairwoman and the Congressional Black Caucus for hosting this discussion this evening on what I consider to be one of the most important issues in our country and in our society, and that is taking a hard look at what is happening with our children, especially those who are in need of care.
I will focus on the adage that I have always believed in, that an ounce of prevention is worth much more than a pound of cure. It just reminds me of some of the many things that we have championed in trying to make sure that not only do our children receive the care and attention that they need once they are in care but also trying to prevent them from having to have that experience.
I was thinking of 2023 when Illinois and the Nation benefited from the reauthorization of the MIECHV program, which I was fortunate to lead. The MIECHV program funds evidence-based education and services proven to improve mother and child health, family safety, and child development. I helped create this program in 2010, and it has brought over $119 million to Illinois and $5.2 billion to the country to help make families stronger and try to help them to be able to retain their children.
I am also reminded that Illinois and the Nation benefited from the Family First Prevention Services Act, which I helped enact. It made historic improvements to child welfare, fundamentally shifting policy from separating families to strengthening them by addressing the key reasons that families struggle. Illinois has received over $66 million from the law in prevention funding to strengthen families since it was enacted almost 6 years ago.
National Family Reunification Month, what does that really mean? I think it means trying to keep families as connected as we possibly can.
I thank the Illinois Department of Corrections for allowing our fatherhood initiative every year to take children to correctional institutions to visit with their fathers. As a matter of fact, we have done that now for about 10 years. The results are startling in terms of how fathers and children and the children's mothers, significant others, or grandparents relate to this experience of, even though their fathers are away, letting the children know that their fathers still have meaning and a great deal of meaning to their lives.
As we meander our way through trying to figure out how we really make our world a better place in which to live and how we provide for those young people, I think of the laws that we have tried to enact and made some progress on, such as helping foster youth get driver's licenses so that they can have transportation services and get from one place to another.
The thing that I am very proud of is that we are close to providing opportunity for foster youth who have benefits due to them from Social Security. Rather than having these benefits go to their payees or go to States for operational expenses, we are getting close to having these benefits come to the foster youth themselves and put into a trust fund or something for them, so when they age out, it helps the older foster youth.
Think of how meaningful it would be for a young person who is aging out, reaching adulthood, who has never had any real access to resources of their own, having a few thousand dollars in a trust fund to help them transition to adulthood, so that they now can act like an adult, have their own resources to go to college, have their own resources to help get an apartment, have their own resources before they get a job and not struggle during that period.
I commend and thank my colleagues and the Congressional Black Caucus for raising this issue, providing direction, and giving us an opportunity to recognize that the needs are great and that we want to make society a better world.
I end by thinking of one of my favorite expressions that a poet and blues singer said. That is that: I believe the children are our future Teach them well and let them lead the way Show them all the beauty they possess inside Give them a sense of pride
If we can do that, then I am confident that America, our Nation, will become a better place in which to live.
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