�Appendix A: Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997
(Public Law 105-89)
Section 203A
SEC. 203. Performance of States in Protecting Children.
(a) ANNUAL REPORT ON STATE PERFORMANCE.—Part E of title IV of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 670 et seq.) is amended by addition at the end of the following:
SEC.479A. Annual Report.
The Secretary, in consultation with Governors, State legislatures, State and local public officials responsible for administering child welfare programs, and child welfare advocates, shall:
| (1) | develop a set of outcome measures (including length of stay in foster care, number of foster care placements, and number of adoptions) that can be used to assess the performance of States in operating child protection and child welfare programs pursuant to parts B and E to ensure the safety of children; |
| (2) | to the maximum extent possible, the outcome measures should be developed from data available from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System; |
| (3) | develop a system for rating the performance of States with respect to the outcome measures and provide to the States an explanation of the rating system and how scores are determined under the rating system; |
| (4) | prescribe such regulations as may be necessary to ensure that States provide to the Secretary the data necessary to determine State performance with respect to each outcome measure, as a condition of the State receiving funds under this part; and |
| (5) | on May 1, 1999, and annually thereafter, prepare and submit to the Congress a report on the performance of each State on each outcome measure, which shall examine the reasons for high performance and low performance and, where possible, make recommendations as to how State performance could be improved. |
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