Amanda Spake

In 1997, Congress enacted the Adoption and Safe Families Act in an attempt to move more children into adoptive families and out of foster care and abusive homes. The ASFA implemented a number of changes to encourage adoption among foster children instead of reuniting them with their families. In the following viewpoint, Amanda Spake asserts that policies must create more adoption opportunities for children in foster care. Spake asserts that child welfare agencies must not give precedence to factors such as race and kinship when placing foster children in adoptive homes. In addition, she argues that efforts to reunify families must not be required when there is an immediate threat to the child’s safety. Spake is a senior writer at the Washington Post and a former editor of Mother Jones.

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