adoption assistance and child welfare act
Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act. A 1980 federal statute whose purpose was to force states to use reasonable efforts (1) to avoid removing children from their homes, (2) to reunite families when children had been removed because of abuse or neglect, and (3) when reunification failed, to terminate parental rights and place the children in permanent homes.42 USCA §§ 620 et seq.; §§ 670 et seq. • The Act provided funds for foster-care placement, Child Protective Services, family preservation and reunification, and foster-care reform to states complying with the Act. Its aim was to prevent the unnecessary removal of children from homes and to hasten the return of children in foster care to their families. It has now been essentially overruled in philosophy by the 1997 enactment of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. See ADOPTION AND SAFE FAMILIES ACT.
