Child Welfare Division

The Child Welfare Division was established at the Zigler Center in 2006 and is directed by Joan Kaufman and Sandra Bishop-Josef. Abused and neglected children constitute one of the most at-risk groups in terms of compromised health and development, poor outcomes, and high cost to society. The Child Welfare Division of the Zigler Center brings knowledge from current research and best practices to bear on policy development, in order to improve outcomes for this extremely vulnerable group of children. The goal is to close the gaps among research, policy, and services, in order to reduce the barriers to helping children and their families.

The first project of the Child Welfare Division is examining what has been learned since the enactment of the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in 1997. ASFA mandated extensive changes in the way the child welfare system in each state handles the adoption and care of children in foster care. The goals of ASFA are to ensure the health and safety of abused and neglected children and to promote adoption and other permanent homes for those children who cannot safely remain with their biological parents. Prior to the enactment of ASFA, it was common for many children to spend years in foster homes after being removed from their biological parents, often moving from placement to placement. Concern over these often lengthy and multiple out-of-home placements and the growing numbers of children in foster care prompted the enactment of ASFA.

A decade has passed since the enactment of ASFA, which should be adequate time to determine its impact on state child welfare systems and evaluate resulting policy and practices in the states. Our project is examining changes in child welfare policies and practices in the wake of ASFA. We are focusing on identifying and disseminating policies and programs that have proven successful or that are likely to produce more positive outcomes for children. Specifically, we will conduct the following activities (funding permitting):

• Synthesize and assess published outcome studies of reforms and interventions implemented subsequent to the enactment of ASFA;
• Review legislation enacted in the states to increase child permanency;
• Study court reforms and collaborations between courts and child welfare systems;
• Examine innovative programs, including the Title IV-E demonstration projects;
• Interview personnel in successful programs and conduct visits to selected sites;
• Convene two meetings of experts in the field, including child welfare personnel, state legislators, and researchers to review our findings, share information, and derive consensus policy recommendations.

Initial products of the Zigler Center’s Child Welfare Division will include a series of white papers. The white papers will identify current “best practices” in the field, which can then be used to create the most effective and efficient systems for providing permanent homes to abused and neglected children in a timely manner, as mandated by ASFA. We will also develop a research and policy agenda, both short- and long-term. We will disseminate our work to policy makers, practitioners, researchers and the general public, using the Zigler Center’s web site. Future work of the Child Welfare Division will identify critical gaps in child welfare research, practice and policy.