Child Welfare Financing State Factsheets 2010

Release Date: January 19, 2010
File Format: pdf

State fact sheets on child welfare and financing statistics for each state. Provides information on child abuse and neglect, foster care and sources of child welfare spending.

Factsheets are from January 2010 and all are .pdfs.

News accounts from across the country report the challenges faced by agencies responsible for protecting abused and neglected children. Many believe the child welfare system must do more to prevent child abuse and neglect; to provide specialized treatment to families struggling with problems of mental health, substance abuse or domestic violence; to support grandparents and other relatives who have stepped in to raise children when their parents cannot; and to provide adequate numbers of child welfare workers who are trained to deal with the complex needs of families in crisis. At the heart of the debate lie questions about how to best increase capacity in each of these areas to improve the outcomes children and families experience and how to hold federal, state and local governments more accountable for these outcomes.

As Congress debates various reform proposals, these fact sheets— one for each state and one for the nation— will provide useful background on the current structure of child welfare financing and how different financing reform proposals will affect children across the country. Each state fact sheet, as well as the national fact sheet, contains sections that:

1. Describe the context for child welfare spending by providing data on abused and neglected children, children in foster care, children who have left foster care and children living with kin;
2. Identify the proportion of child welfare funding that comes from federal, state and local sources;
3. Describe the major federal funding streams that are used to support child welfare and what proportion of child welfare funding comes from each of these sources;
4. Highlight expenditures and trends within the Title IV-E Foster Care Program, including expenditures for foster care maintenance payments, administrative and child placement costs and training.

Data used in the fact sheets are the most recent available that are systemically collected for all states.  Generally, this means the most recent data reported by the federal government, although additional data sources are used as well, as indicated in the footnotes on the charts.  We recognize that more recent data may be available from individual states.

We hope that these state fact sheets will help advocates and the public better understand the complex financing structure of child welfare services in their states and allow them to effectively advocate for national and local reforms that will help ensure our nation's child welfare system protects children, accurately identifies and addresses their needs, including the needs of their families, and helps all children grow up in safe and loving families.

Click here to view the 2006 Child Welfare Financing Factsheets.