Foster care provides round-the-clock substitute care for nearly 700,000 U.S. children who are temporarily or permanently separated from their family of origin each year. Each state manages its own foster care system according to federal regulations. Despite numerous large-scale federal policy reforms over the past several decades, substantial…

The 2011 U.S. Government Evidence Summit on Protecting Children Outside of Family Care brought together leading researchers and technical experts to assess the available evidence to inform policies, strategies, and programs relevant to protecting children outside of family care in lower and middle income countries. While child vulnerabilities are…

New federal legislation requires states to develop policies to refer children younger than age 3 with substantiated cases of abuse or neglect to state Early Intervention (EI) systems. This article presents state-by-state estimates of potential referral and enrollment increases for EI. Many states could experience a significant increase in…

The nation's child protection system (CPS) has historically focused on preventing maltreatment in high-risk families, whose children have already been maltreated. But, as Jane Waldfogel explains, it has also begun developing prevention procedures for children at lower risk--those who are referred to CPS but whose cases do not meet the criteria for…

"New Jersey Kids Count 2011" again documents both advances and setbacks in key areas that affect child well-being--poverty, health, child protection, education, including early learning, and adolescent well-being. To better gauge New Jersey's progress in essential areas, a "New Jersey Kids Count Report Card" that identifies…

Despite a significant federal role in permanency planning as evidenced by Public Law 96-272, child welfare remains primarily a state responsibility and the states vary considerably in their approaches to it. In January 1986, a 50-state survey on major child welfare issues was conducted. The project was begun in 1983 as an attempt to ascertain…

Analyzes the challenges, pressures, and uncertainties facing the public child protection systems with recommendations for strengthening child protective services agencies and expanding prevention and treatment resources. Articles in this special issue place typical agency practices in a historical context as they consider dimensions of the child…

The California Research Bureau (CRB), in participation with the California Council on Youth Relations (CCYR), and with support from The California Wellness Foundation, has been conducting a major research and policy initiative to bring attention to the issues facing homeless youth in California. These include lack of shelter and educational…

The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) is the nation's oldest and largest membership-based child welfare organization committed to engaging people everywhere in promoting the well-being of children, youth, and their families and protecting every child from harm. By publishing a diverse range of views on a wide array of topics, "Children's…

Summarizes the status of public funding for child protection, contrasts expenditures for foster care versus family services, and traces the links between public assistance and child protection policies. The possibility that the 1996 federal welfare reform law may increase the need for child welfare services and drive up costs of child protection…

Title IV-B of the Social Security Act authorizes federal funding for services to help families address problems leading to child abuse and neglect and prevent unnecessary separation of children from their families. Subpart 1 of Title IV-B provides funds for almost any child welfare activity, but has statutory limits on foster care maintenance and…

In response to proposed reforms designed to replace many federal child welfare programs with block grants to states, this report describes a study of recent trends foster care, resources for foster care and child welfare services, and state responses to current foster care and child welfare service needs. The study reviewed research on foster care…

A study of the potential of using older people as aides in child welfare services involved interviews with 467 older people and 95 social work professionals in New Jersey. Focus was on relationships among individual differences such as attitudes and beliefs, potential areas of conflict between staff and the elderly volunteer, and what roles and…

This paper focuses on the challenges of helping children after abuse and neglect has occurred by strengthening the web of supports for children and families in foster care. It examines the current state of the foster care system and finds that it is really not a cohesive system but a combination of many overlapping and interacting agencies, all…

Asserting that children who are abused or neglected are at risk of becoming future violent criminals, this report argues that this cycle of violence can be prevented by investing in recently confirmed abuse prevention and intervention strategies. The report presents information on the number of deaths each year due to abuse and neglect and calls…