Child Welfare

Linking data across public systems is beneficial for a multitude of reasons including care coordination, improving research on populations engaged with multiple public services, and improving program integrity.

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has been working with researchers, human services agency leaders, and persons with lived experience to visualize, describe, and document models of primary prevention within human services.

Children and youth involved with the child welfare system frequently have behavioral health conditions and are high users of behavioral health services compared to children and youth in other Medicaid eligibility categories.

The Welfare Indicators Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-432) requires the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to prepare an annual report to Congress on indicators and predictors of “welfare dependence.” That Act requires the report to include three programs: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program (which replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)

Child maltreatment and involvement in child welfare systems are well-known adverse childhood experiences associated with poor health outcomes during childhood and later in life. Very little is known about the health needs of, and services used by families involved in child welfare systems, particularly those services funded by Medicaid.

Increasing availability of linked child welfare and Medicaid data can advance research on the intersections of child welfare and Medicaid. The project, Child and Caregiver Outcomes Using Linked Data (CCOULD), developed a research-use dataset combining child welfare records and Medicaid claims for children and families involved in child welfare systems in Florida and Kentucky.

This brief describes progress in the Child Welfare and Health Infrastructure for Linking and Data Analysis of Resources, Effectiveness, and Needs (CHILDREN) Initiative, which is entering its second year. At this time, four jurisdictions have been selected for participation in the CHILDREN Initiative and are engaging in feasibility studies to determine readiness for linking data.

This research brief uses claims data from the Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Programs to examine the behavioral health diagnoses and treatment services received by children and youth involved with the child welfare system in 2019.

This report provides information to state, tribal, and local child welfare and behavioral health agencies that are interested in linking their Medicaid and child welfare data.

In this brief, we highlight experiences and practices from substance use treatment providers and their human services partners when serving people of color. We selected providers that focused on serving people of color, and this study was not intended to assess outcomes or effectiveness of any of the practices highlighted.