New Child Welfare State Policy Guide

Today CSSP announces a new Child Welfare State Policy Guide, available online, which presents research-informed policies for improving the safety, permanence, and well-being of children and families involved in the child welfare system. This user-friendly guide allows easy identification of state policies that promote strong families, supportive communities and effective systems, which are the key ingredients for preserving child safety and well-being in permanent homes. Too often, state policy fails to use what is known from practice and research about preserving or identifying permanent families for children and youth. This guide will allow policymakers to use research-informed policies to establish a broad and robust set of supports for children and families that promote permanence.

This resource is also part of a larger, results-based public policy approach that allows policymakers select the result they want to achieve, examine trend lines for their state, and choose the strategies for policy, and financing, to effectively achieve that result. For policymakers interested in safely increasing exits from foster care to permanence, CSSP’s Policy for Results website provides information on policies and financing approaches for reunification, adoption and guardianship.

Post contributed by Judith Meltzer, Deputy Director of the Center for the Study of Social Policy, who has led child welfare system reform through her role as the court-appointed monitor for multiple state child welfare systems involved in litigation over the past 20 years.