US: States are reimagining child welfare policy, funding to address what some national experts view as a ‘design flaw’ in the traditional system
Council of State Governments – April 05, 2006
In 2022, the last year of available federal data, state child protection services (CPS) received an estimated 4.3 million referrals alleging child maltreatment. The number of children involved in those referrals: about 7.5 million. Ultimately, though, most of these young people and their families did not receive any CPS-related supports or services. “Families who come to the attention of child welfare have one set of needs, and they come to a system that is designed to do something else,” says Katie Rollins, a policy fellow at the University of Chicago’s Chapin Hall. According to Rollins, that “something else” has been to investigate and, when deemed necessary, place abused or neglected children in foster care. David Sanders, another leading expert on state child welfare policy, says this traditional model is akin to a health system exclusively offering emergency care, with little or no capacity to deliver preventative services.