Adoption & Foster Care

This brief analyzes what is statutorily required through the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) and how the Clearinghouse is currently evaluating programs and services under the handbook with the goal of identifying potential opportunities to improve Title IV-E prevention services availability at the federal level to ultimately reduce the number of children entering foster care at the

KEY POINTS

This brief provides an overview of child welfare ombudsman offices, describes the landscape of state child welfare ombudsman programs and their common functions, reviews the effectiveness of their oversight, and identifies successes in improving child welfare processes and procedures. Key findings include:

Children, youth, and families have unique health needs, which set the foundation for health across the life course; chronic conditions now affect nearly one in three U.S. children, with disproportionate prevalence in those enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP.

This brief explores how states are approaching kinship care by examining states’ definitions of kinship caregivers, the prevalence of children in foster care living with relatives or kin, states’ adoption of separate licensing standards for kinship homes, and states’ participation in kinship navigator programs through the Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse. Key findings include:

This brief analyzes Title IV-E foster care program reported expenditures and reimbursements using the most recent years of publicly available claims data (from fiscal years 2019 to 2023). The content explores administrative costs, identifies how average monthly costs per child have changed over time, and provides a snapshot of the variation seen across states in FY2023.

This brief synthesizes experiences over the past 25 years of the Child and Family Services Review (CFSR), providing an overview of the process, analyzing collective state performance across rounds, and highlighting costs and challenges. During that time, zero states have passed the CFSR process. Although the process does not seem to be driving program improvement, it is costly and burdensome.

Custody relinquishment occurs when children enter foster care primarily to receive behavioral health or disability services, not because of maltreatment. Parents may relinquish custody for a variety of reasons. Entering foster care could provide children with access to services that are otherwise unavailable due to limited capacity.

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has been working with researchers, human services agency leaders, and persons with lived experience to visualize, describe, and document models of prevention within human services.

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has been working with researchers, human services agency leaders, and persons with lived experience to visualize, describe, and document models of prevention within human services.