National Adoption Month, 1997

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Part V

The President

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Proclamation 7048--National Adoption Month, 1997

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Title 3--
The President

Proclamation 7048 of November 3, 1997

National Adoption Month, 1997

By the President of the United States

A Proclamation

Most American children are blessed with loving, stable
families. But, tragically, in our country today there
are too many children whose parents are unwilling or
unable to care for them. While foster care offers these
children a safe and nurturing temporary haven in their
time of greatest need, as many as 100,000 foster care
kids will need permanent homes in the next few years.
Many of these children have special needs and require
the security and stability of an adoptive family to
develop their full potential. Adoption allows these and
other children to have the permanent homes they
deserve, and it enables many dedicated adults to
experience the joys and rewards of parenting.

My Administration is working hard to find ways to help
encourage adoption. On December 14, 1996, I issued a
Memorandum to the Secretaries of Health and Human
Services, the Treasury, Labor, and Commerce and to the
Director of the Office of Personnel Management,
directing them to promote efforts to both increase the
number of children who are adopted or permanently
placed each year and to move children more rapidly from
foster care to permanent homes. I also urged them to
increase public awareness about the children waiting
for permanent families and to encourage all Americans
to consider the rewards of adoption.

I challenged the members of my Administration to work
with States, communities, and civic leaders to create a
plan for doubling the number of adoptions and permanent
placements for children to 54,000 by the year 2002. And
on February 14, 1997, the Adoption 2002 report,
outlining changes in policies and practices necessary
to reach this goal, was released. Since then, we have
been actively implementing the recommendations included
in the report, and States are reviewing data and
submitting numerical targets for adoption and
guardianships to be completed by the year 2002. The
Office of Personnel Management has published a guide
for Federal workers interested in adopting, and the
Department of Health and Human Services is preparing to
make the first annual Adoption 2002 Excellence awards
later this year. Finally, the Congress is considering
historic legislation that would provide the resources
and statutory authority for financial incentives,
technical assistance, and improved judicial decision-
making for children in foster care.

As a Nation, we have before us an opportunity to make a
real difference in the lives of our most vulnerable
children. We must continue to promote public awareness
of the need for adoptive families and to help families
make the choice to provide loving, permanent homes for
the many children who otherwise must continue to wait.
We must also strengthen our support of those families
who do choose to adopt. As we observe National Adoption
Month, we reaffirm our commitment to adoption as a new
beginning for thousands of children, and we celebrate
the many American families who have embraced these
children by accepting the rewards and responsibilities
of adoption.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, do hereby proclaim November 1997 as National
Adoption Month. I urge all Americans to observe this
month with appropriate programs and activities to honor
adoptive families and to participate in efforts to find
permanent homes for waiting children.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
third day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen
hundred and ninety-seven, and of the Independence of
the United States of America the two hundred and
twenty-second.