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Home > Research Areas > Child Welfare
CHILD WELFARE
Mission: The Child Welfare program seeks to improve outcomes for children who have been or who are at risk of being abused or neglected, placed in foster care, or adopted.
Vision: A child welfare system that promotes positive child development in all of its activities.
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The child welfare staff have research and direct practice experience in every area of the child welfare field, including:
- Rigorous evaluation
- Policy reform
- Developing and analyzing indicators of child well-being
Read more about the  Child Welfare Group.
Our Work
State Child Welfare Policy Database
Information on child welfare policies by topic and state
Tools and resources for states and localities to implement the
Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act
(Public Law 110-351) and improve outcomes for children in foster care
Adoption USA: A Chartbook on the 2007 National Survey of Adoptive Parents, authored by Child Trends, is the first-ever survey to provide representative information about the characteristics, adoption experiences, and well-being of adopted children and their families in the U.S. More...Child Trends has been contracted by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption to do a multi-year evaluation of Wendy's Wonderful Kids (Child Trends' evaluation), a program that awards grants to public and private adoption agencies in the U.S. and Canada to hire adoption professionals to aggressively move children from foster care into adoptive families.
Child Trends is evaluating Family Finding, a random assignment evaluation of a program that uses internet technology to find and reconnect children in the foster care system to their biological families.
Florida, Maryland, and Wisconsin, three Family Connections projects based on the Family Finding model, are being evaluated by Child Trends researchers.
The Center for the Study of Social Policy asked Child Trends to identify indicators for use in evaluating demonstration programs aimed at preventing child maltreatment among children ages 0 to 5. The report, Indicators for Child Maltreatment Prevention Programs , co-authored by Child Trends' Sharon Vandivere, was completed in September 2009.
Fathers are often not involved in child welfare cases and caseworkers may never know whether a father can help his child. What About the Dads? Child Welfare Agencies’ Efforts to Identify, Locate and Involve Nonresident Fathers (2006), authored by Karin Malm describes the steps that child welfare agencies usually take to identify, locate, and involve nonresident fathers in case planning; the barriers encountered; and the policies and practices that affect involvement.
Research Briefs
The Timing of Termination of Parental Rights: A Balancing Act for Children's Best Interest
Raquel Ellis; Karin Malm; Erin Bishop
September 2009
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Executive Summaries & Full Reports
Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act: Implementation Issues and a Look Ahead at Additional Child Welfare Reforms
Rob Geen
January 2009
Child Trends
State Kinship Care Policies for Children That Come to the Attention of Child Welfare Agencies and and the Casey Kinship Foster Care Survey
Tiffany Allen; Kerry DeVooght; Rob Geen
December 2008
Federal, State, and Local Spending to Address Child Abuse & Neglect in SFY 2006
Kerry DeVooght; Tiffany Allen;
Rob Geen
December 2008
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Speeches, Presentations & Briefings
National Survey of Adoptive Parents: Data Workshop
Sharon Vandivere; Karin Malm; Laura Radel; Matthew Bramlett
December 2009
Large, nationally representative data that measure pre- and post-adoption experiences of all U.S. adoptive families that have never been available are now available through this study.
Child Welfare: The Challenges of Collaboration
Timothy A. Ross
Child Welfare Brain Trust Panel
Congressional Black Caucus
September 25, 2009
The Well-being of America’s Foster Children: A Comparison of Estimates from Two Nationally Representative Surveys
Sharon Vandivere; Rosemary Chalk
8th International Family Violence Research Conference
Portsmouth, NH
July 16, 2003
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Other Publications
Adoption USA: A Chartbook on the 2007 National Survey of Adoptive Parents
Sharon Vandivere - Karin Malm. DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. November 18, 2009. This Chartbook presents findings from the 2007 National Survey of Adoptive Parents (NSAP), the first-ever survey to provide information about the characteristics, adoption experiences, and well-being of adopted children and their families in the United States. Read more...
The Program for Agreement and Cooperation (PAC) in Contested Custody Cases 2007-2009: Implementation and Outcomes Evaluation Report
Megan Kuhfeld - Frances Ballard -
Jacinta Bronte-Tinkew - Camille Whitney - Mary Burkhauser -
Kassim Mbwana - Emily Lilja. Washington, DC: American Psycholgical Association Practice Organization. October 15, 2009.
This report presents key findings from the evaluation of the PAC in the District of Columbia, including information on the status of families in the program, the program’s characteristics and performance, and recommendations on how to further develop and improve
the program. Read more...
Indicators for Child Maltreatment Prevention Programs
Timothy Ross - Sharon Vandivere. DC: The Center for the Study of Social Policy. October 2, 2009. This paper describes a set of indicators that could be used to assess the effectiveness of child maltreatment prevention programs. Read more...
Child Welfare: The Challenges of Collaboration
Timothy Ross. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. November 4, 2008. Included are highlights of several scenarios requiring interagency collaboration to help vulnerable youth and an evaluation of Project Confirm, a cross-agency effort to help foster children in juvenile detention.
Read more...
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Publications Archive
View all publications older than 3 years.
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