Financing

• Investing in Children
  This 2007 report from the Urban Institute charts U.S. federal spending on investment in total and for children from 1965 to 2017. Five major categories can be considered-some more so than others-to be investment or to have investment components: education and research, work supports, social supports, physical capital, and defense investment.

• Investing in Prevention: Keeping Children Safe at Home
  This report from the Kids are Waiting campaign examines the role that child welfare programs play in keeping children safe and helping families remain together whenever possible.

• State Innovations in Child Welfare Financing
  This 2002 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services described how states were implementing fiscal reforms to contain costs or improve the performance of their child welfare systems, identified implementation issues, and described how well fiscal reforms were working.

• Successes for Children and Families: It's Time to Build on What Works in Child Welfare
  This publication from the North American Council on Adoptable Children highlights nine key programs that are successfully using financing innovations to improve outcomes for children and youth. The programs include efforts that help children remain or return to their birth families, or exit foster care through adoption or guardianship.

• How Do States Use Federal Funding for Child Welfare?: Understanding Federal Funding Sources for Child Welfare
  States and communities use a variety of financing strategies to support comprehensive services and supports for children and families in the child welfare system with behavioral disorders and their families. Federal funding resources for child welfare services and supports are a critical component in supporting and sustaining a system of care to meet their mental health needs, keep families together, and reunify children with families or support new families formed through adoption or guardianship. This chart from the Technical Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental Healthidentifies Federal funding sources dedicated to child welfare through Title IV-B and Title IV-E of the Social Security Act, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), and Community Based Grants for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (CBCAP). Federal sources of non-dedicated child welfare funding are Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Children (TANF), and the Social Service Block Grant.

• Who Controls Foster-Care Programs and Purse Strings?
  Federal foster-care dollars come from many funding streams under many jurisdictions. This chart from the Journalism Center on Children and Families identifies which entities in Congress and the executive branch control spending – and through which programs.

• State Fact Sheets on Child Welfare Funding
  These 2006 state fact sheets from Children’s Defense Fund and the Center for Law and Social Policy 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; identify the proportion of child welfare funding that comes from federal, state and local sources; 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; and 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.

• Parent Recruitment and Training: A Crucial, Neglected Child Welfare Strategy
  This report from the National Council for Adoption discusses state allocation of available federal child welfare funds to parent recruitment and training.

• The Changing Landscape of Federal Child Welfare Financing
  Recent federal legislation will have the effect of shifting more of the cost of child welfare to the states and imposing additional limits on state flexibility to spend federal funds. This 2006 paper from the National Conference of State Legislatures examines some of these changes in federal policy and their likely effect on states.

• Effective Financing Strategies for Systems of Care: Examples From the Field: A Resource Compendium for Developing a Comprehensive Financing plan
  This document from the The Research and Training Center for Children’s Mental Health presents examples of effective financing strategies for seven key areas related to the development of comprehensive and strategic financing plans for systems of care. it is intended as a companion to the Self-Assessment and Planning Guide: Developing a Comprehensive Financing Plan.
  

• Creative Strategies for Funding Post-Adoption Services
  The Casey Center for Effective Child Welfare Practice published this Strengthening Families and Communities white paper in 2003.

• Medicaid Access for Youth Aging out of Foster Care
  This 2007 report from the American Public Human Services Association finds that providing health care coverage to former foster youth is affordable. The study provides state policymakers with a "how to" guide on covering youth after leaving state custody.

• Public Financing of Home and Community Services for Children and Youth with Serious Emotional Disturbances: Selected State Strategies
  Strengthening the financing of intensive home and community services for youth with serious emotional disorders (SEDs) brings into play a complex set of policy issues, payment mechanisms, and service system reforms. This 2006 report presents background information, provides examples of effective partnerships between agencies that serve youth with SED, describes the background and policy context for innovative programs in selected states, and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of four major financing mechanisms: HCBS waivers, the Medicaid rehabilitation option, case rates for high-risk populations, and provisions in the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA), also known as the Katie Beckett provision.

• Towards Better Behavioral Health for Children, Youth and Their Families: Financing that Supports Knowledge
  This working paper from the National Center for Children in Poverty provides a broad overview of sources of funding (and their policy roots) that underwrite children’s behavioral health services illuminating the flaws and prospects of various policy choices. It aims to stimulate debate that will bring about changes that put financing in the service of better mental health, social functioning and educational well-being for children and youth with behavioral health problems and those at-risk and their families.

• Foundations: How States Can Plan and Fund Programs for Babies and Toddlers
  This publication from the Build Initiative explores what babies and toddlers need to thrive and take advantage of preschool, and offers strategies for states to plan and structure funding for programs for babies and toddlers.

Benefits and Costs

• Benefits and Costs of Prevention and Early Intervention Programs for Youth
  The Washington State Institute for Public Policy published a cost/benefit analysis of the state's programs for youth in 2004. The report finds that some prevention and early intervention programs for youth give taxpayers a good return on the dollar. The report recommendations to the state include: invest in research-proven prevention and early intervention programs; avoid spending money on programs where there is little evidence of program effectiveness; keep abreast of the latest research-based findings from around the United States to determine where there are opportunities to use taxpayer dollars wisely; and consider a strategy to encourage local government investment in research-proven programs.Includes a Summary of Benefits and Costs in 2003 dollars.

• Cost Benefit Analysis of Interventions with Parents
  This literature review from the London School of Economics focuses on interventions targeted directly at parents, with the objective of directly or indirectly affecting child outcomes. Many of the studies considered were U.S.-based. The review identifies the recent and relevant research in the area and also identifies some of the evidence gaps that continue to be faced by policymakers.

• The Costs of Child Abuse vs. Child Abuse Prevention: Alabama's Experience
  This study from the Center for Business and Economic Research of the University of Alabama finds that child abuse and neglect costs more than $520 million per year in direct and indirect expenses.

• Developing and Supporting a Continuum of Child Welfare Services
  Policymakers and researchers have begun to emphasize the importance of developing a continuum of services to reach all the children and families in need of support in the child welfare system. This continuum of care would focus not only on the immediate needs of the families, but long-term services as well. The benefits and components involved in providing a continuum of care are the subject of this Issue Note from the Finance Project. The author notes that the benefits of such services include more than just cost savings. By providing a continuum of care to at-risk children and families, States can help prevent child abuse and neglect, shorten foster care placements, and meet Federal child welfare standards.

• Making the Case for Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect
  FRIENDS, the National Resource Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention Programs (CBCAP) has published this technical assistance report, an overview of cost effective child abuse and neglect prevention strategies. This document demonstrates the critical importance of prevention in comparison to more costly intervention or treatment strategies. It is a helpful tool for state and local programs, legislators and other policy makers, program planners, community volunteers working with prevention programs, parents who want to advocate for prevention policies and programs, funders and the media.

• Social Costs: The Effects of Child Maltreatment
  This Resource Sheet from the Australian Institute of Family Studies provides and overview of research on the connection between child maltreatment and a wide range of immediate and long-term negative outcomes.

• Strengthening and Preserving Adoptive Families: A Study of TANF funded Post-Adoption Services in New York State
  The 2004 study reports on the 1,053 families who received services from 13 NYS agencies and includes results from a parent satisfaction survey. Survey findings indicated that among the families that had a child at risk of out of home placement when they called for services, 73% reported that the child was able to remain in the home as a result of the help and support they received from the agencies. The cost of providing the services is a fraction of the cost of out of home care, especially group or institutional care.

• Total Estimated Cost of Child Abuse and Neglect in the United States
  This report from Prevent Child Abuse America documents pervasive and long-lasting effects of child abuse on children, their families, and society as a whole. The $103.8 billion cost of child abuse and neglect includes more than $33 billion in direct costs for foster care services, hospitalization, mental health treatment, and law enforcement. Indirect costs of over $70 billion include loss of productivity, as well as expenditures related to chronic health problems, special education, and the criminal justice system.