10 Apr 2015
From Gladys Carrión, Commissioner of the New York City Administration for Children's Services:
There is nothing more important to this administration than New York City's children, especially those as vulnerable as children in the foster care system waiting for permanent homes. Increasing permanent placements is a priority for New York City, and we are invested in improving the current system to make it more efficient.
In 2014, the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) extended contracts with Council on Adoptable Children (COAC) and You Gotta Believe (YGB) hoping they would be able to provide a solution to finding homes for children who are hard to place, such as older children and children with special needs. Unfortunately, the two agencies were unable to fulfill their contractual requirements, and did not significantly impact our efforts in finding homes for these children. Though they were contracted to locate a total of 130 homes in the past year, their combined recruitment efforts resulted in the placement of only 18 children into foster care and/or pre-adoptive homes.
Every child matters to us, and we appreciate the work these two agencies have done for these 18 children. But this result does not justify the $1.2 million in funding that could help many more children find the families they deserve. We care too much about our children to continue working with agencies that can't help us help these kids.
We want to be clear: the fact that these contracts ended will not disrupt or reduce ACS's capacity to serve these children. On the contrary, it allows us to reinvest resources in better models, and achieve better results. We have a network of 26 foster care agencies that placed 1,300 children in adoptive homes last year.
We are evaluating the entire adoption process, and have assembled a recruitment advisory committee consisting of adoption provider agencies, community advocates, and young people who are in foster care to make recommendations about how we as a system can do this work better. The solution will not likely be found in contracts with agencies recruiting small numbers of families. This is a large, system-level challenge, and we are working aggressively to make substantive changes that will achieve more meaningful results than either COAC or YGB were able to deliver.
We invite all New Yorkers interested in providing permanent homes for children in the foster care system to contact ACS's Parent Support and Recruitment information by calling 311 or by emailing, which directs prospective foster and adoptive parents to an agency in their community to learn more about adopting through the public child welfare system. We are looking forward to hearing from everyone.
There is nothing more important to this administration than New York City's children, especially those as vulnerable as children in the foster care system waiting for permanent homes. Increasing permanent placements is a priority for New York City, and we are invested in improving the current system to make it more efficient.
In 2014, the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) extended contracts with Council on Adoptable Children (COAC) and You Gotta Believe (YGB) hoping they would be able to provide a solution to finding homes for children who are hard to place, such as older children and children with special needs. Unfortunately, the two agencies were unable to fulfill their contractual requirements, and did not significantly impact our efforts in finding homes for these children. Though they were contracted to locate a total of 130 homes in the past year, their combined recruitment efforts resulted in the placement of only 18 children into foster care and/or pre-adoptive homes.
Every child matters to us, and we appreciate the work these two agencies have done for these 18 children. But this result does not justify the $1.2 million in funding that could help many more children find the families they deserve. We care too much about our children to continue working with agencies that can't help us help these kids.
We want to be clear: the fact that these contracts ended will not disrupt or reduce ACS's capacity to serve these children. On the contrary, it allows us to reinvest resources in better models, and achieve better results. We have a network of 26 foster care agencies that placed 1,300 children in adoptive homes last year.
We are evaluating the entire adoption process, and have assembled a recruitment advisory committee consisting of adoption provider agencies, community advocates, and young people who are in foster care to make recommendations about how we as a system can do this work better. The solution will not likely be found in contracts with agencies recruiting small numbers of families. This is a large, system-level challenge, and we are working aggressively to make substantive changes that will achieve more meaningful results than either COAC or YGB were able to deliver.
We invite all New Yorkers interested in providing permanent homes for children in the foster care system to contact ACS's Parent Support and Recruitment information by calling 311 or by emailing, which directs prospective foster and adoptive parents to an agency in their community to learn more about adopting through the public child welfare system. We are looking forward to hearing from everyone.
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