Child welfare systems seek to ensure that children who have experienced or are at risk of experiencing child maltreatment achieve safety, permanency, and well-being. Child welfare services provided by state, tribal, local, and private social service agencies are intended to:
- Prevent child abuse and neglect;
- Protect children by strengthening their families while they remain home, or when necessary, providing foster care; and
- Promote permanency for children through reunification with their families or facilitating adoption, guardianship, and post-permanency services for those who cannot be safely reunited with their families.
ASPE conducts work on policy and cross-cutting topics related to child welfare, such as identifying system drivers of foster care; improving outcomes for youth aging out of foster care; building state capacity to prevent involvement with the child welfare system, including reducing the disproportionate contact with Black and American Indian families; parental substance use; understanding variations in performance and outcomes across states; and, linking child welfare data systems with other health and human services data.
Related Products:
- Child Welfare and Substance Use
- Planning Title IV-E Prevention Toolkit
- Treatment Foster Care: Family-Based Care for Children with Severe Needs
- Freeing Children for Adoption within the Adoption and Safe Families Act Timeline
- The Multiethnic Placement Act and Transracial Adoption 25 Years Later
- Analytic Framework on Economic Risk in Child Welfare