Modernization Comes to Interstate Adoptions & Interstate Compact in North Carolina

This article by Bobby D Mills was originally posted at our partner website, Herring & Mills Family Law Firm

Adoptive families used to dread the waiting associated with satisfying the requirements of the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC). 

As the Act states: “the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) was established in 1960 to provide a uniform legal framework for the placement of children across State lines in foster and adoptive homes;”

The ICPC applies to adoptions which involve a child to crossing state lines. If a child is born in State A (the Sending State) and is to be adopted by parents in State B (the Receiving State), then the ICPC applies to the adoption. In those cases in which the Compact applies, the laws of both states must be satisfied before the child can leave State A and travel into State B.  

Prospective adoptive parents often found themselves waiting in a hotel with an infant while administrative agencies in two states reviewed their paperwork before deciding whether to grant the family approval to travel back home. Unfortunately, the system has not been uniform and many states continued to process the paperwork much the same way that it was done in the 1960s.  

The National Electronic Interstate Compact Enterprise (NEICE) was launched in August 2014 in Indiana, Nevada, Florida, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia “to improve the administrative process by which children are placed with families across State lines;”

On February 3, 2016, Representative Young of Indiana introduced the a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives which would “require States to adopt a centralized electronic system to help expedite the placement of children in foster care or guardianship, or for adoption, across State lines, and to provide grants to aid States in developing such a system, and for other purposes.”

The Act is called ‘‘Modernizing the Interstate Placement of Children in Foster Care Act.’’ Beginning in 2017, it allocates $5,000,000 for grants to states to develop processes “to facilitate the development of a centralized electronic system for the exchange of data and documents to expedite the placements of children in foster, guardianship, or adoptive homes across State lines.”