Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 124.djvu/3537

 124 STAT. 3511 PUBLIC LAW 111–320—DEC. 20, 2010 ‘‘(C)(i) the average age of children adopted with public child welfare agency involvement during fiscal year 2009 was a little more than 6 years; and ‘‘(ii) the average age of children waiting for adoption on the last day of that fiscal year was a little more than 8 years of age and more than 30,000 of those children were 12 years of age or older; and ‘‘(D)(i) 25 percent of the children adopted with public child welfare agency involvement during fiscal year 2009 were Afri- can-American; and ‘‘(ii) 30 percent of the children waiting for adoption on the last day of fiscal year 2009 were African-American; ‘‘(7) adoption may be the best alternative for assuring the healthy development of children placed in foster care; ‘‘(8) there are qualified persons seeking to adopt such chil- dren who are unable to do so because of barriers to their placement and adoption; and ‘‘(9) in order both to enhance the stability of and love in the home environments of such children and to avoid waste- ful expenditures of public funds, such children— ‘‘(A) should not have medically indicated treatment withheld from them; or ‘‘(B) be maintained in foster care or institutions when adoption is appropriate and families can be found for such children.’’; and (2) in subsection (b)— (A) in the matter preceding paragraph (1), by inserting ‘‘older children, minority children, and’’ after ‘‘particularly’’; and (B) by striking paragraph (2) and inserting the fol- lowing: ‘‘(2) maintain an Internet-based national adoption informa- tion exchange system to— ‘‘(A) bring together children who would benefit from adoption and qualified prospective adoptive parents who are seeking such children; ‘‘(B) conduct national recruitment efforts in order to reach prospective parents for children awaiting adoption; and ‘‘(C) connect placement agencies, prospective adoptive parents, and adoptive parents to resources designed to reduce barriers to adoption, support adoptive families, and ensure permanency; and’’. (b) INFORMATION AND SERVICES.—Section 203 of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment and Adoption Reform Act of 1978 (42 U.S.C. 5113) is amended— (1) in subsection (a), by striking all that follows ‘‘facilitate the adoption of’’ and inserting ‘‘older children, minority children, and children with special needs, particularly infants and tod- dlers with disabilities who have life-threatening conditions, and services to families considering adoption of children with special needs.’’; (2) in subsection (b)— (A) in paragraph (1)— (i) by striking ‘‘and’’ after ‘‘regarding adoption’’ and inserting a comma; and