Child Welfare

Children and families deserve high-quality research and program evaluations to meet their needs and support children’s safety, permanency, and well-being. Currently, over 3.6 million children live in families that are referred to child welfare agencies for neglect or abuse each year, and approximately 407,500 children are in foster care on any given day. Additionally, over 2.5 million children reside in kinship care, or the living arrangement of children with relatives or persons with a strong kin bond (e.g., grandparents raising grandchildren, godparent care arrangements, etc.). In recent years, the child welfare field has focused on prevention, understanding that separating children from families tends to be harmful for children’s overall well-being. For example, despite the noble intentions of most child welfare agencies, many children who are exposed to foster care experience challenges such as mental health problems, academic deficits, and criminal justice involvement; many transition-age youth are not sufficiently prepared when they leave custody.

Additionally, racial and economic injustices must be addressed to ensure that families of color and those from families with low socioeconomic status have culturally competent services, and to reduce the number of these children in care. Furthermore, an increase in practices and policies such as The Family First Act encourages the usage and support of kinship care. Research indicates that children who reside in kinship care have more favorable outcomes than those in traditional, non-relative foster care, but these families need additional support and resources.

Child Trends is committed to sharing information and lessons learned to improve the lives of all children and families involved in the child welfare system. Our researchers use a variety of means to support these children and families, including rigorous research, program evaluation, and technical assistance in the child welfare field. We work with child welfare jurisdictions in all 50 states, and our findings lead to meaningful opportunities for intervention and system development at the national level. However, our work is also deeply informed by the varied, unique complexities of state and local child welfare jurisdictions. We partner with various interested groups—including foundations, research organizations, and public and private organizations—and work more directly with families and communities.

Our work has been featured in prominent media outlets, including The Guardian, NPR, and ProPublica. Additionally, Child Trend’s Child Welfare Financing Survey is the only source of comprehensive national child welfare expenditure data and is regularly used by federal policymakers, including the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees, and by state policymakers and practitioners to better understand how their states finance child welfare. Child Trends researchers have been featured in rigorous peer-reviewed journals such as Child Development and Children and Youth Services Review.