In 1980, the U.S. Congress passed the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act (AACWA), — Public Law 96-272. This new law required “permanency planning” for all children in foster care and, if at all possible, reunification with their biological families. The law instructed the courts to avoid unnecessary separation of children and families, to reunify families, and when reunification was not possible, to move toward finding adoptive homes for children.