juvenile justice system. And for LGBTQ+ foster youth, foster care systems are not always equipped to safely meet their needs.
My Administration is committed to addressing these entrenched problems in our Nation’s child welfare system, advancing equity and racial justice for every child and family who is touched by the foster care and child welfare system, and focusing on policies that improve child and family well-being. This is why my Administration’s discretionary funding request for 2022 includes $100 million in competitive grants for State and local child welfare systems to advance racial equity and prevent unnecessary child removals.
National Foster Care Month is an opportunity for us to celebrate the resource and kin families who are supporting children by opening their homes and sharing their love. Crucially, it is also an opportunity to celebrate foster youth and all of their accomplishments, and to celebrate and encourage the many biological parents who are working hard to safely reunite with their children. And it provides an opportunity for us to fulfill our responsibility as a Nation to take care of each other and provide our vulnerable youth and families with the support they need.
Now, therefore, I, Joseph R. Biden Jr., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 2021 as National Foster Care Month. I call upon all Americans to observe this month by reaching out in their neighborhoods and communities to the children and youth in foster care and their families, those at risk of entering foster care, and resource and kin families and other caregivers.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.
[FR Doc. 2021–09573
Filed 5–4–21; 8:45 am]
Billing code 3295–F1–P
