Presidential Document2023-09532
National Foster Care Month, 2023
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
May 3, 2023
Signed
April 28, 2023
Issuing agencies
Executive Office of the President
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 88 Issue 85 (Wednesday, May 3, 2023)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 3, 2023)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 27663-27665]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2023-09532]
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 85 / Wednesday, May 3, 2023 /
Presidential Documents
[[Page 27663]]
Proclamation 10562 of April 28, 2023
National Foster Care Month, 2023
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
The more than 391,000 American children and youth
living in foster care deserve to grow up in safe and
loving homes devoted to their health, happiness, and
advancement. This month, we honor the absolute courage
of young people in foster care, who too often endure
challenges that no child should ever have to confront,
and we give thanks to the dedicated kinship and foster
parents who care for them during their times of
greatest need. We recognize the biological parents and
families of foster children who work hard to overcome
difficult circumstances so they can safely reunite with
their children. We also rededicate ourselves to
supporting the volunteers and professionals who help
America's foster youth find temporary and permanent
homes.
Despite the selflessness and service of loving foster
parents across the country, children in foster care
often face an uphill battle in achieving their full
potential. Many carry lasting physical and emotional
scars from trauma they experienced at a young age,
which can increase their risk of mental health issues
or lead to substance use disorders. These challenges
are magnified for children of color, who are
disproportionately represented in the child welfare
system: 1 in 9 Black children and 1 in 7 Native
American children spend part of their childhood in
foster care. Meanwhile, recent estimates suggest 30
percent of youth in foster care identify as LGBTQI+.
To fulfill our Nation's responsibility to our children,
we need to prevent the conditions that lead to kids
entering foster care in the first place. My
Administration has invested hundreds of millions of
dollars in community-based child abuse and neglect
prevention programs, and we are requesting an increase
from the Congress for these programs. We are also
proposing a $5 billion expansion of evidence-based
foster care prevention services to allow more children
to remain safely in their own homes with their own
families. Because poverty can trigger interventions
that unnecessarily remove children from their families,
we are fighting to restore the expanded Child Tax
Credit, which in 2021 helped slash child poverty to its
lowest rate ever. And as a dangerous wave of cynical
State investigations targets families with transgender
children, we will keep working to stop politicians from
weaponizing child protective services against loving
families who simply want to support their kids and help
them to be their authentic selves.
For children and youth already in the foster care
system, we must continue finding them loving temporary
homes and, ultimately, safe and supportive permanent
homes. My Administration is working to help States
place more children with relatives and other trusted
adults instead of in group homes. We are seeking to
make it easier for biological parents to safely reunite
with their children by providing these families with
legal representation to help them navigate the complex
child welfare system.
[[Page 27664]]
To make adoption and legal guardianship more manageable
for families who could otherwise create safe and
supportive homes, I have called for the adoption tax
credit to be made fully refundable and proposed
extending it to legal guardians--including
grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives. This
would provide more breathing room to the kinship
caregivers currently raising nearly one-third of all
children in the foster care system, and it would also
help reduce racial inequities in our country's child
welfare system.
To further increase the number of loving families who
can take in foster children, I issued an Executive
Order removing barriers and combating biases that make
it harder for LGBTQI+ families to foster and adopt. At
the same time, we are working with State child welfare
agencies to make sure LGBTQI+ youth are placed in
supportive environments that see and value them for who
they are.
Since coming to office, my Administration has worked
hand-in-hand with States to help youth aging out of the
foster care system to stay in school, participate in
job training programs, pay their bills, and transition
to adulthood. I have also expanded the Military
Parental Leave Program, which enables service members
to spend needed time with their families following a
child's birth, adoption, or placement in long-term
foster care. My latest Budget calls for $9 billion to
provide housing vouchers to all 20,000 youth exiting
foster care annually--a key step in helping them secure
stable housing during this difficult transition. I have
also called for an additional $1 billion to help youth
aging out of foster care find a job, enroll in and
afford higher education, obtain basic necessities, and
access preventative health care.
One of my great privileges during my career in public
service has been meeting some of the remarkable young
people in foster care and their foster parents. I have
seen what good foster care can do. Despite the
challenges that no young person should ever have to
face, loving foster families can help children become
independent, confident, successful members of society
and can be a critical resource to children and families
in times of need. Ensuring that children who are
separated from their families are placed in loving and
supportive environments, while ensuring that as many
families as possible have the resources they need to
remain safely together, is a moral duty we all share
and an investment in America's future that will pay
dividends for generations to come.
This National Foster Care Month, we express our
gratitude to every loving foster parent in America, and
we acknowledge every young person navigating the child
welfare system, unsure of what the future might hold.
You can succeed, and my Administration will do all it
can to provide you with the tools and resources you
need and the secure, respectable upbringing you deserve
to create a meaningful life.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of
the United States of America, by virtue of the
authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws
of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 2023 as
National Foster Care Month. I call upon all Americans
to observe this month by reaching out in their
neighborhoods and communities to the children and youth
in foster care and their families, to those at risk of
entering foster care, and to kin families and other
caregivers.
[[Page 27665]]
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
twenty-eighth day of April, in the year of our Lord two
thousand twenty-three, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and forty-
seventh.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
(Presidential Sig.)
[FR Doc. 2023-09532
Filed 5-2-23; 8:45 am]
Billing code 3395-F3-P
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</html>Indexed from Federal Register on May 3, 2023.
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