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As the United States prepares to elect its next president, the Adoption Equality Bill continues to make its way through Congress. The little-known bill will iron out anomalies in how groups of adopted and fostered children receive federal funding. The welfare reform in 1996 gave rise to these anomalies and the new bill comes after eight years during which states have patched and mended by dipping into funds from other programmes.

The bill is a small candle in the gloom that surrounds US children's services. That reforms are few is perhaps unsurprising, even though children's services could directly affect around 73 million US citizens. But of course under-18s do not have the vote, and adults in families most in need of state and federal funds and services are less likely to vote.


Probably only half the eligible electorate will go to the polling booths on 2 November, and the turnout will be even lower among those on the lowest incomes.

Amid the campaign razzmatazz, where policies struggle for airtime, one fact sticks out: neither the Democratic nor the Republican party refers in its manifesto to children's services. At best, the Democrats want improvements in after-school and day care and increases in child credit, the criteria for which would also be expanded.

In the run-up to election day both parties are fighting on traditional grounds. On the domestic front, elections can stand or fall on matters such as health, education, tax cuts and, now, homeland security.

The Democrats have published a three-page critique of the failings of their opponents on some critical matters affecting children - from greater poverty to tax credits for working families, literacy programmes to education - but children's services don't get a mention. And when it comes to saying what they will do as opposed to what the Republicans have done (or not done), the Democrats are long on promises on health and education but short to the point of invisibility on children's services.

Jan Flory, director of services at the Children's Aid Society, one of the US's biggest child care agencies, says: "It's a common theme here that child and family issues are often seen as poor people's issues. Poor people don't vote, and they don't make large campaign contributions. Education and health affect the entire population so they are more universal societal issues. Although even here there are many class distinctions, so that universal health is not a reality and quality public education is uneven.

"Legislators are subject to immense lobbying efforts by interests which can provide vast sums of financing for campaigns. Child and family organisations can never hope to match that kind of influence. So these issues must have a kind of moral high ground or public outrage over a well publicised tragedy such as a child death before public resources shift. Even then it is not for ever."

Yet every year brings more than 2.5 million allegations of child abuse and neglect, 900,000 of which are substantiated and 30 per cent of which concern physical and sexual abuse. There are also about 1,300 deaths, although that number may be falling. Twelve million children live in poverty, five million in extreme poverty.

Wider society has a deep effect on children's well-being. In the US about half of marriages end in divorce and 60 per cent of children will spend part of their lives in a single-parent household. Two million children have a parent in jail (50 per cent more than 10 years ago).

The country is large and diverse, and its governmental system - substantial powers at state level, with severely limited possibilities for intervention by the federal government - hampers comparisons with the UK. Even more than in the UK, provision rests with the private and not-for-profit sector. The number of organisations involved is unknown but the 1,200 members of the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), which includes state agencies in its membership, are only a fraction of the total.

There is no federal inspectorate or nation-wide standard-setting system. A few states have their own inspections and a few have accreditation schemes. The federal government limits itself to an audit system to ensure that funds have been spent as they should and in recent years has begun a review - but that is of the general state of child welfare and not an assessment of individual programmes.


To return to adoption, there are 554,000 children in foster and residential care at any one time and a further 500,000 living at home under supervision, but about 800,000 go through the system each year. Forty thousand American children are adopted from care each year and 126,000 currently await adoption.

Although most US children are adopted by people they know, a $43m adoption incentive programme aims to increase the number adopted by awarding states bonuses for each child for whom a permanent home is found. A separate $50m adoption opportunities programme provides discretionary grants for demonstration projects which eliminate barriers to adoption and provide permanent homes, particularly for children with special needs.

But the kind of money devoted to children's services is small change next to other domestic and education programmes. An increase in the transport budget, for example, can be larger than what is spent on children's services in total. President Bush's tax cuts alone will transfer $1,700bn from federal coffers to the wealthiest Americans by 2014. As John Sciamanna, senior policy analyst with the CWLA, puts it: "If they give you [children's services] $100,000 they think they're giving you the moon."

Yet more money is not the only issue which the CWLA would want the successful candidate to take with him into the Oval Office. There is also the poorly stitched patchwork of eight main federal funding programmes for children's services, each with its own rules, policy interpretations and different administering agencies. Access to them and how they are administered vary from state to state. This alone makes the planning, creation and sustaining of services difficult.

Bush's big social policy initiative - announced in 2001 - has been the use of federal funds to stimulate faith-based organisations. Sciamanna says it is too early to tell how this will affect children's services, but adds: "Many of our members are leery and asking if this is a way of simply moving around costs because Bush is not willing to provide more money." At best, he says, it is a diversion from the fact that children's services need more federal funding.

The league sees much of its role at election times as not only about raising awareness among candidates but also about informing its members about voter registration and postal votes so that they can get those with whom they work to the polls.

Flory says decent paying jobs for low-income families and universal health care would be her big election wishes. She would also like a minimum income for all families and children "but I don't even see that on the horizon".

Getting politicians to talk about children's services, let alone do something, is difficult. In the primary elections, now almost lost in the mists of recent history, Democratic contender John Kerry referred to prevention and Bush spoke about child mental health. If the nation's children and families in need sit unnoticed at the bottom of the pile, it is because they are also at the bottom of the electoral agenda.