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ACF Administration for Children and Families	U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Administration for Children, Youth and Families
	1. Log No.: ACYF-PI-CB-95-23	2. Issuance Date: October 11, 1995
	3. Originating Office: Children's Bureau
	4. Key Word: Multiethnic Placement Act: Submission of Recruitment Plans

PROGRAM INSTRUCTION

TO:   State Agencies and Insular Areas Administering the Title IV-B Child and Family Services Program

SUBJECT:    The Multiethnic Placement Act; Requirement to submit recruitment plans as an amendment to title IV-B, subpart 1 plans.

LEGAL AND RELATED REFERENCES:   Public Law 103-382, the Howard M. Metzenbaum Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994; Title IV-B of the Social Security Act; Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

PURPOSE:   The Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA), enacted October 21, 1994, requires States to provide for the diligent recruitment of potential foster and adoptive families that reflect the ethnic and racial diversity of children in the State for whom foster and adoptive homes are needed. This issuance provides a background discussion of child placement and the creation of this provision; instructions to States; and technical assistance resources.

BACKGROUND:   The Multiethnic Placement Act

On October 20,1994 President Clinton signed the "Improving America's Schools Act of 1994," Public Law 103-382, which includes among other provisions, Section 551, titled "The Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994" (MEPA). Section 554 of the Act amends Section 422(b) and Part A of Title XI of the Social Security Act. By October 21, 1995 all States are required to bring their laws and written policies into compliance with MEPA and by October 31, all States are required to have in place recruitment plans responsive to this instruction. The statute and conference report is provided as attachment A.

The purposes of that Act are: to decrease the length of time that children wait to be adopted; to prevent discrimination in the placement of children on the basis of race, color, or national origin; and to facilitate the identification and recruitment of foster and adoptive parents who can meet children's needs.

To accomplish these goals the law prohibits agencies which receive Federal assistance and which are involved in foster care or adoption placement from "categorically denying to any person the opportunity to become an adoptive or foster parent solely on the basis of the race, color, or national origin of the adoptive or foster parent or the child" and "from delaying or denying the placement of a child solely on the basis of race, color, or national origin of the adoptive or foster parent or parents involved."

Under the Act, these prohibitions also apply to the failure to seek termination of parental rights or otherwise make a child legally available for adoption.

The law does permit an agency to consider, in determining whether a placement is in a child's best interests, "the child's cultural, ethnic, and racial background and the capacity of prospective foster or adoptive parents to meet the needs of a child of this background."

The Act also seeks to ensure that agencies engage in active recruitment of potential foster and adoptive parents who reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of the children needing placement.

The Multiethnic Placement Act should be viewed in conjunction with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), which prohibits recipients of Federal financial assistance from discriminating based on race, color, or national origin in their programs and activities.

In enacting MEPA, Congress was concerned that many children, in particular those from minority groups, were spending lengthy periods of time in foster care awaiting placement in adoptive homes. At present, there are over twenty thousand children who are legally free for adoption but who are not in preadoptive homes. While there is no definitive study indicating how long children who have the goal of adoption have to wait until placement, the data available at the time of this issuance indicate the average wait may be as long as two years after the time that a child is legally free for adoption, and that minority children wait, on average, twice as long as non-minority children before they are placed. Both the number of children needing placements and the length of time they await placement increase substantially when those children awaiting termination of parental rights are taken into account.

MEPA reflects Congress' judgment that children are harmed when placements are delayed for a period longer than is necessary to find qualified families. The legislation seeks to eliminate barriers that delay or prevent the placement of children into qualified homes. In particular, it focuses on the possibility that policies with respect to matching children with families of the same race, culture, or ethnicity may result in delaying, or even preventing, the placement for foster care or adoption of children by qualified families. It also is designed to ensure that every effort is made to develop a large and diverse pool of potential foster and adoptive families, so that all children can be quickly placed in homes that meet their needs.

MEPA provides that "nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the application of the Indian Child Welfare Act."

Placement

The Department recognizes that States seek to achieve a variety of goals when making foster or adoptive placements. In addition, section 422 of title IV-B of the Social Security Act affords children in care certain protections designed to emphasize and speed permanency for children including a case plan which describes, among other things, the efforts to place the child in close proximity to the parents' home; efforts to place the child in a family-like setting; and procedural safeguards for parents.

For example, in making a foster care placement, agencies generally are concerned with finding a home that the child can easily fit into, that minimizes the number of adjustments that the child, already facing a difficult situation, must make, and that is capable of meeting any special physical, psychological, or educational needs of the child. In making adoption placements, agencies seek to find homes that will maximize the current and future well-being of the child. They evaluate whether the particular prospective parents are equipped to raise the child, both in terms of their capacity and interests to meet the individual needs of the particular child, and the capacity of the child to benefit from membership in a particular family.

Establishing standards for making foster care and adoption placement decisions, and determining the factors that are relevant in deciding whether a particular placement meets the standards, generally are matters of state law and policy. Agencies which receive Federal assistance, however, may use race, culture, or ethnicity as factors in making placement decisions only insofar as the Constitution, MEPA, and Title VI permit. Agencies may consider, on an individualized basis, "the child's cultural, ethnic, and racial background and the capacity of prospective foster or adoptive parents to meet the needs of a child of this background" among the factors in determining whether a particular placement is in a child's best interests.

Recruitment

As recognized in the Multiethnic Placement Act, in order to achieve timely and appropriate placement of all children, placement agencies need an adequate pool of families capable of promoting each child's development and case goals. This requires that each agency's recruitment process focuses on developing a pool of potential foster and adoptive parents willing and able to foster or adopt the children needing placement. The failure to conduct recruitment in a manner that seeks to provide all children with the opportunity for placement, and all qualified members of the community an opportunity to adopt or foster, is inconsistent with the goals of MEPA and could create circumstances which would constitute a violation of Title VI.

An adequate recruitment process has a number of features. Recruitment efforts should be designed to provide to potential foster and adoptive parents throughout the community information about the characteristics and needs of the available children, the nature of the foster care and adoption processes, and the supports available to foster and adoptive families.

Both general and targeted recruitment should be used. When using targeted recruitment a State must insure that the children being recruited for are also included in the State's general recruitment activities. Additionally, if families apply that are not being targeted, they must be given full consideration to become adoptive or foster parents under the State's program.

INSTRUCTION:   By October 31, 1995 all States and Insular areas must submit to the appropriate Regional Administrator for Children and Families (see attachment B) an amendment to their title IV-B plan for child and family services outlining their recruitment plan which provides for the diligent recruitment of potential foster and adoptive families that reflect the ethnic and racial diversity of children in the State for whom foster and adoptive homes are needed.

In subsequent State title IV-B plan annual updates, States must describe how their recruitment plans are in compliance with MEPA.

To meet MEPA's diligent efforts requirements, an agency should have a comprehensive recruitment plan that includes, among other things:

• specific strategies to reach all parts of the community;

• diverse methods of disseminating both general and child specific information;

• strategies for assuring that all prospective parents have access to the home study process, including location and hours of services that facilitate access by all members of the community; and

• procedures for a timely search for prospective parents for a waiting child, including the use of exchanges and other interagency efforts, provided that such procedures must insure that placement of a child in an appropriate family is not delayed by the search for a same race or ethnic placement.

The plans should also provide, among other things, for the following features:

• accurate and complete descriptions of children waiting for adoption;

• strategies for training staff to work with diverse cultural, racial, and economic communities;

• strategies for dealing with linguistic barriers; and

• non-discriminatory fee structures.

To comply with the "diligent recruitment" provision, MEPA allows for targeted recruitment to increase the number of minority families in the pool of families available to provide adoptive or foster care. A State agency may conduct targeted recruitment activities for a special population itself and/or it may utilize the services of a private recruitment agency based on that agency's understanding of the needs of a specific community. However, targeted recruitment activities cannot be the only vehicle used by a State for identifying families for minority children. The overall recruitment program of the State must be open to all qualified families regardless of race, color, or national origin.

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE RESOURCES:    While all States have extensive experience with recruitment activities, we recognize that some States may be interested in learning more about how MEPA affects recruitment. A number of resources are available to provide technical assistance to States. Attached we have provided a short reference of suggestions for designing a comprehensive recruitment plan; a paper on effective recruitment prepared by the National Resource Center on Special Needs Adoption and the National Resource Center on Permanency Planning; and a monograph on MEPA prepared by the ABA National Resource Center on Legal and Court Issues.

In addition, States may request assistance from the following Resource Centers through the ACF Regional Offices (attachment B).

National Resource Center on Special Needs Adoption
National Resource Center on Permanency Planning
National Resource Center on Legal and Court Issues

INQUIRIES:	Regional Administrators, ACF Regions I-X
	Olivia A. Golden Commissioner

Attachments:

Attachment A:   Statute and Conference Report
Attachment B:   List of Regional Administrators, ACF
Attachment C:   Exemplary IV-B Recruitment Plan Elements
Attachment D:   Necessary Components of Effective Foster Care and Adoption Recruitment
Attachment E:   ABA Monograph on the Multiethnic Placement Act

Some of the attachments to the Monograph are also available, they are named Attachment F and Attachment G