Ensure each child can grow up in a home where they are safe and protected from abuse and neglect. For children who are victims of trauma, the system should ensure that services heal and preserve the family. If out-of-home care is necessary, ensure placement is in a family-based setting, preferably with kin. Community-based interventions can prevent unnecessary out-of-home removal, expedite reunification and ensure permanency for every child and youth.
Child Welfare Policy Goals
- Strengthen the response to child abuse and neglect by building a robust community prevention model.
- Improve policies that increase the identification and utilization of kin resources.
- Reduce the use of group care unless it is necessary to meet the time-limited treatment needs of youth.
- Improve outcomes for transition age youth in foster care or exiting to adulthood.
- Ensure that biological parents, caregivers, and children and youth receive adequate mental and behavioral health services to avoid the need for formal child welfare intervention and foster care placement.
- Monitor policy reform to ensure the child welfare system’s ongoing financial and staffing support at the federal, state, and county levels.
- Monitor policy reform to ensure the child welfare system is adequately supported from financial and staffing perspectives at the federal, state and county levels.
- Continue to partner with the Office of Children, Youth, and Families (OCYF) on the federal and local needs for system improvement.
Child Welfare Publications
Be a Voice for Kids
Stay up-to-date about our public policy work in this and other areas by signing up to receive our biweekly e-newsletter, “A Voice for Kids.”
Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page!