The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (PL 96-272) provided major federal initiatives to reform the state child welfare system. The goals of the act were to keep families together by providing them with services and to find permanent adoptive homes for children who could not be reunited with their parents. This report examines the results of the act 10 years after its enactment. The report consists of 5 separate papers. The first paper (by Richard P. Barth and Marianne Berry) on the outcomes of permanency planning after 10 years, reports on service outcomes, stability of placements, children's developmental outcomes, and children's and families' satisfaction with foster care. The second paper (by Judith Anderson) studies the characteristics of children in care, the rise in the foster care population, and adoption services. The background and purposes of PL 96-272, its implementation by the courts, and barriers to its continuing implementation, are reviewed in the third paper (by Mark Hardin). The fourth paper (by Alice Bussiere) considers that part of PL 96-272 which deals with federal adoption assistance. The final paper (by Joe Kroll and Roberta Frank) cites regulatory problems that hinder effective implementation of PL 96-272. Discussion concerns audits of state expenditures, administrative costs, and the lack of an adoption information system that requires states to report adoption data. Three of the papers include reference lists. (BC)