A healthy family life is crucial to healthy child development. Children from stable families grow up to be healthier, better educated, and more likely to be employed then children who grow up in unstable environments. Sometimes birth parents, knowing they are ill-equipped to provide the emotional and financial security a child needs, place their children in foster or adoptive families that provide enriching relationships and a stable home environment children would otherwise lack.

We can and should do more for these children and the adoptive parents who sacrifice so much to care for them. That is why the Joint Economic Committee’s Social Capital Project released a report this Wednesday identifying five issue areas where state and federal governments can enact better policies that could improve the lives of foster children.

Please do read the full report here.