Child Welfare

New analysis of data from HUD's Family Options Study of adolescents’ experiences in shelter with their families and 20 months later shows that most adolescents continued to live with their families, and some continued to experience housing instability or live in overcrowded situations.

Differential response (DR) is an increasingly common model for how child protective services agencies address reports of child maltreatment. Differential response systems seek to be less adversarial than traditional child protective services by separating incoming referrals into two (or more) tracks.

This paper highlights the characteristics and experiences of the approximately 2.3 million U.S. children who live with neither biological nor adoptive parents, but instead live with relatives or non-relatives in foster care or less formal arrangements outside the foster care system.

This research brief examines pathways to the child SSI program, drawing upon analysis of administrative data and site visits to Kentucky, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Texas. It finds that informal referrals appear to be most common, though schools, health care providers, and legal services staff also play a role.

This research brief examines program coordination between the child SSI and TANF programs, drawing upon analysis of administrative data and site visits to Kentucky, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

This research brief highlights the gains the foster care system has made in safely discharging youth from foster care in a timely manner, particularly those entering foster care for the first time. For nearly two decades federal policies have emphasized the importance of reducing the lengths of stay in

This paper presents a comparative framework of rapid evaluation methods for projects of three levels of complexity: quality improvement methods for simple process improvement projects; rapid cycle evaluations for complicated organizational change programs, and systems-based rapid feedback methods for large-scale systems change or population change initiatives.

The paper addresses four areas of work-family policy with particular relevance for the wellbeing of low-income working parents and their families: (1) unpaid family and medical leave, (2) paid parental or family leave (extended leave), (3) paid sick leave (short-term leave), and (4) workplace flexibility or initiatives to expand employees’ control over work shifts, hours, and other circumstance