This report focuses on children who are entering group settings for their first child welfare placement. The study reviewed data on children – by age, gender, race and ethnicity, and urbanicity – with an initial out-of-home placement from 2012 to 2019 to determine how or if these factors played a role in their group care experience. They found a significant relationship between age, race and ethnicity, and the utilization of group placements. The study also explored how these factors are best understood within the context of the local child welfare system and its local service offerings.

This case study profiles Kentucky’s Targeted Assessment Program (TAP), which provides comprehensive assessment and intensive case management for parents in the state’s child welfare and TANF systems. The program’s goals are to support participants in overcoming barriers to self-sufficiency and family safety with a focus on mental health, substance use, intimate partner violence, and learning disabilities or deficits in 35 counties statewide. The case study also notes services provided by TAP; how the program manages staffing, communication, and funding; and how program participation and outcomes are measured. The case study also highlights TAP’s promising approaches, challenges, and future plans.

(See also Resources on "domestic violence" in the Resource Library)

This brief reviews lessons learned by family treatment courts (FTCs) in the case of parental substance use disorder. FTCs can support positive outcomes such as improved recovery, increased child welfare involvement, timelier reunification for families, and permanency. The brief outlines approaches that FTCs deploy, such as early identification and timely access to treatment, peer recovery coaches, intensive case management and case coordination, building rapport and trust through supportive engagement, and face-to-face family time and reunification services when children are placed outside of the home. The brief also includes vignettes on how FTCs have been used in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin; Fairfield County, Ohio; and Tompkins County, New York.

Supportive services are one of 14 program elements of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) youth program that enable individuals to participate in WIOA activities. This first set of resources on providing supportive services to youth includes information on: Supportive Services Guides and Locators; the TANF Program and state contacts; the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) and State CCDF contacts; the State Child Support Enforcement Program; guidance and support for individuals with disabilities; the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; the Foster Care to Success Education Training Voucher Program; and health, mental health, and substance abuse resources.

These Casey Family Services infographics illustrate statewide data on the child welfare system. Information is provided on the rate of children in foster care; the number of children who are involved in investigations for child abuse, receive services, and who enter foster care; and a breakdown of how much is invested in foster care (Title IV-E) compared to prevention and permanency services (Title IV-B). Also provided are percentages for the reasons why children enter foster care and why they encounter repeated maltreatment; the number of children under the age of 18 who live in foster care; and a breakdown of reasons why children exited the foster care system. State-specific fact sheets also summarize these data.

The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocates additional resources for housing assistance and services and provides state and local jurisdictions with flexibility for spending on supplemental housing and service resources. This brief outlines how resources for supportive housing services can be used in prevention-oriented strategies for implementing a "Housing-First" approach for families experiencing homelessness or housing instability while also receiving child welfare prevention services. The brief also includes a chart that illustrates how ARPA funds can be used for housing and support services. Other topics include short-term opportunities for prioritizing child welfare-involved families with ARPA funding and long-term strategies for interagency collaboration.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program plays a key role in promoting strength and stability for families experiencing poverty. By helping families to meet their basic needs, obtain employment, and nurture healthy family relationships, TANF programs can foster long-term family wellbeing and economic independence. States have significant flexibility to use TANF funds to address unique family needs and accomplish any of the four purposes of TANF.

The Office of Family Assistance released a series of briefs that highlight innovative and strategic ways that states are leveraging TANF funds to strengthen families and communities by building capacity for self-sufficiency and economic independence. This brief highlights kinship navigator programs (KNP) and how they respond to purpose one of TANF. The brief looks at the work of Louisiana’s KNP, including their goals, services, and funding.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program plays a key role in promoting strength and stability for families experiencing poverty. By helping families to meet their basic needs, obtain employment, and nurture healthy family relationships, TANF programs can foster long-term family wellbeing and economic independence. States have significant flexibility to use TANF funds to address unique family needs and accomplish any of the four purposes of TANF.

The Office of Family Assistance released a series of briefs that highlight innovative and strategic ways that states are leveraging TANF funds to strengthen families and communities by building capacity for self-sufficiency and economic independence. This brief highlights the work of Family Support Centers (FSCs) towards preventing child welfare involvement. FSCs serve as a single-entry point for families to access a range of free or low-cost services. Although FSC services may support all four purposes of TANF, the brief focuses specifically on their role in strengthening families and preventing CPS involvement in support of TANF’s first statutory purpose: to provide assistance to families so that children can be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives.

The American Enterprise Institute hosted a discussion on child welfare priorities, where experts examined how to reform a system facing a decline in foster homes and competing priorities between family reunification and child protection. This webinar recording highlights the panelists’ conversation on the importance of distinguishing between “complex poverty”—which involves substance abuse and mental illness—and material poverty.

Chapin Hall compiled a toolkit that promotes child and family well-being and prevents child welfare involvement. The following tools are focused on state-level policy:

• TANF & Child Welfare Innovations;
• State Policy Options to Increase Economic & Concrete Supports (ECS) as a Child Welfare Prevention Strategy;
• Flexible Funds for Concrete Supports to Families as a Child Welfare Prevention Strategy; and
• Providing ECS to Increase Effectiveness of Evidence-Based Services.

These tools are focused on federal-level policy:

• ECS Testimony from May 2024 Family First Hearing;
• ECS as Evidence-Based Service: Summary of Chapin Hall’s Submission to the 4E Clearinghouse;
• A Preventable Cost: The Economic Burden of Child Maltreatment and Child Welfare Involvement; and
• ECS: Implications for Family First and Systems Change.