We are calling for an end to the 15-month timeline that can lead to the permanent termination of a birth parent’s rights, and for major reform of the foster care and CPS adoption system.

Children deserve safety, stability, and protection—but they also deserve to have their biological families preserved whenever it is safely possible. A child being removed from their home should not automatically mean that the relationship between that child and their birth parents must eventually be erased forever.

15 months is not enough time to rebuild a family

The current system can place an enormous amount of pressure on parents to accomplish life-changing goals within an extremely limited period of time. Parents may be expected to overcome homelessness, poverty, domestic violence, addiction, mental-health struggles, transportation problems, lack of childcare, unemployment, or other circumstances while simultaneously completing services, attending appointments, maintaining visitation, and proving they can safely parent.

Fifteen months may sound like a long time on paper—but it can be an incredibly short amount of time when someone is trying to rebuild an entire life.

A parent who needs more time should not automatically be treated as a parent who does not love their child or does not want to change.

We believe the focus should be on safe reunification and meaningful family preservation, not on racing against a deadline.

Adoption permanently changes a child’s legal identity and family ties

Once an adoption is finalized, the legal relationship between the child and their birth parents can be permanently terminated. In many jurisdictions, the child’s original birth record is amended so that the adoptive parents are listed as the parents, while the birth parents’ names are removed from that certificate.

Think about what that means.

A child can be born to one family, removed from that family, and eventually have their legal records changed to identify another family as their parents.

That is not simply a change in where a child lives. It is a permanent legal change to the child’s family relationships and identity.

We believe children should not have their biological family ties permanently severed unless every reasonable and safe alternative has been exhausted.

Is permanent separation really always in a child’s “best interest”?

The system frequently uses the phrase “best interests of the child.” But we must honestly ask:

What happens when permanently cutting a child off from their birth family causes emotional and psychological harm?

Children can experience grief, confusion, abandonment, identity struggles, anxiety, depression, anger, guilt, and a sense of losing an important part of themselves when they are permanently separated from their biological parents and relatives.

They may wonder:

“Why didn’t my mom or dad come back for me?”
“Did my parents stop loving me?”
“Why was I given away?”
“Who am I?”
“Where do I come from?”
“Why can’t I know my brothers and sisters?”
“Why can’t I have a relationship with my biological family?”
“Was this my fault?”
These questions can follow a person for years.

A child can love their foster or adoptive family and still grieve the loss of their birth family. Those two things can exist at the same time.

Children should not be forced to choose between loving the family raising them and loving the family they were born into.

The child should not lose their family simply because their parent needed more time

Imagine a parent who is working toward reunification and genuinely trying to change their circumstances—but they are not able to complete everything within 15 months.

Should that automatically mean their child can become legally separated from them forever?

Should a temporary crisis become a permanent family separation?

Should poverty, homelessness, lack of resources, or a parent’s struggles automatically become a reason that a child loses their biological family?

We say no.

There should be a difference between a parent who is unwilling to safely parent and a parent who is actively trying but needs additional time and meaningful support.

The goal of the child-welfare system should be to help families become healthy and safe—not to make permanent separation the easiest solution when reunification takes longer than expected.

Foster care should not be a pipeline to adoption

Foster care was created to protect children when they cannot safely remain with their parents—not to turn temporary family crises into permanent termination of parental rights.

There are situations where adoption may truly be necessary to protect a child. We recognize that.

But termination of parental rights should be an absolute last resort—not a predictable outcome of a deadline.

Whenever safely possible, children should be able to maintain meaningful relationships with their birth parents, siblings, grandparents, and other biological relatives.

Family preservation should be prioritized.

Kinship care should be prioritized.

Reunification should be prioritized.

And when reunification cannot happen immediately, the system should consider whether safe, ongoing relationships with birth family can be preserved rather than permanently erased.

Children deserve more than a permanent solution to a temporary crisis

A child is not a case number.

A birth parent is not simply a collection of missed appointments, failed services, or court dates.

Families are complicated. People struggle. People recover. Circumstances change.

A parent who was unable to safely care for their child at one point in their life may become capable of doing so later.

The passage of time does not automatically erase a biological relationship.

We are asking lawmakers, courts, child-welfare agencies, and the public to reconsider whether our current approach truly serves children—or whether, in some cases, it creates another form of trauma by permanently severing families that could have been safely preserved.

We are calling for:

• An end to the rigid 15-month timeline as a pathway to automatic or near-automatic termination of parental rights.

• More individualized timelines based on the actual circumstances and progress of each family.

• Greater investment in family preservation, reunification services, housing assistance, mental-health treatment, substance-use treatment, transportation, childcare, and other resources parents need to succeed.

• Stronger protections for meaningful relationships between children and their birth parents and extended biological families whenever those relationships can be maintained safely.

• Greater use of kinship care and family-based alternatives to permanent adoption when reunification cannot immediately occur.

• Greater consideration of the long-term emotional, psychological, cultural, and identity-related consequences of permanently severing a child’s biological family relationships.

• A requirement that “best interests of the child” truly include the child’s need for identity, family connections, continuity, and meaningful relationships—not simply physical placement and permanency.

A child deserves safety.

A child deserves stability.

A child deserves love.

But a child also deserves their family whenever it is safe and possible to preserve that family.

We cannot continue treating permanent separation as the only definition of permanency.

End the 15-month rule. Reform CPS and foster-care adoptions. Put family preservation and the true long-term best interests of children first.