The first-ever nationwide, state-by-state calculation of the real cost of supporting children in foster care, revealing widespread deficiencies in reimbursement rates across the nation — and major disparities among the states — and proposing a new standard rate for each state to use in fulfilling the federal requirement to provide foster parents with payments to […]

A comprehensive assessment of the performance of the New York City child welfare system, revealing that despite a decade of reforms and improvements in the system’s infrastructure and in certain aspects of case practice, safety and permanency outcomes for many children and families have not significantly improved and, in some cases, have worsened.

A major initiative of Children’s Rights and the Children’s Defense Fund comprising three reports, several proposals for changes to federal policy, and ongoing outreach to federal legislators in support of improvements to the child welfare workforce nationwide. Related publications: Components of an Effective Child Welfare Workforce to Improve Outcomes for Children and Families (2006) List […]

A study of efforts to improve the child welfare workforce in the context of class action litigation in 12 states and localities across the nation, documenting the progress made and barriers encountered and providing a set of recommendations to guide current and future reform efforts.

A comprehensive review of the literature on the needs of children with disabilities in foster care, focusing on abuse and neglect, health and medical issues, educational challenges, foster parent training and support, and aging out of the foster care system.

A study of the impact of adoption subsidies on adoption, including a survey of hundreds of adoptive and prospective adoptive parents in six states to learn firsthand about the impact of adoption subsidies on their decision to adopt.

A best-practices guide to help caseworkers match children with prospective adoptive families, developed through interviews with child welfare professionals, adoptive families, and young adults formerly in foster care and designed to increase the number of successful, long-term adoptions.

Designed for adoption professionals and foster families who will be preparing children to be photolisted, this guide includes step-by-step instruction on how to write descriptions of children and take or arrange children’s photographs, and covers best practices on sharing information about children that will be viewed through channels that everyone can access.

States and cities across the country are now implementing concurrent planning as an answer to expediting permanency for children in foster care. This report documents the implementation of the process in New York State. Featuring interviews with state and national child welfare professionals as well as focus groups with parents, foster parents, and caseworkers, this […]

A qualitative study of emergency care, designed to achieve a better understanding of the use of emergency care services throughout the country and its impact on children. Full report available for order from the Child Welfare League of America.