A letter report from the U.S. General Accounting Office analyzes the impact of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997. The report discusses provisions like 'fast track' and '15 of 22' aimed at moving an estimated 800,000 children in foster care annually to permanent homes. It notes a 57 percent increase in adoptions post-ASFA but highlights data limitations for assessing other outcomes.
Use Cases
- Analyzing the impact of 'fast track' provisions on family reunification based on state survey data mentioned in the description
- Studying trends in adoption rates based on the reported 57 percent increase since the 1997 legislation
- Identifying systemic barriers to permanency for foster children based on described obstacles like court delays and recruitment difficulties
- Evaluating state-level use of adoption-related funds for recruitment and post-adoption services as described in the report
Strengths
- Report cites a specific 57 percent increase in adoptions since the 1997 act.
- Analysis is based on a U.S. General Accounting Office letter report, a government source.
- Discusses concrete legislative provisions ('fast track', '15 of 22') and their intended outcomes.
Limitations
- Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count and file format are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
Provenance
- Source
- United States. General Accounting Office.
- Collection Method
- Likely contains analysis of survey data and legislative review, as described in the abstract.
- Time Range
- Post-1997, following the Adoption and Safe Families Act.
- Geography
- United States, with a focus on state-level implementation.