Responding to the Trump Administration’s new Executive Order on Strengthening the Child Welfare System, Rabbi Pesach Lerner, President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, issued the following statement:

This is a welcome and critical effort from the Administration to improve outcomes for children in foster care. We appreciate in particular the effort to deepen the partnership between state and local welfare agencies and faith-based providers.

Recent efforts to force religious foster care providers to discard religious principle have broken this important partnership in many locations, causing tremendous harm to children who are unable to be placed with foster families as a result. Pursuit of an ideological agenda on the backs of America’s most vulnerable children is deplorable, and we are glad to see the Administration taking a strong stance on behalf of these children.

The Coalition for Jewish Values has advocated in all of the Federal Government, the media and the Supreme Court for recognition of the rights of religious organizations and maximal service to children in foster care.