Safe Childhoods and Successful Futures: Policy Analysis and Recommendations for State and Federal Legislation Surrounding the United States'Child Welfare and Foster Services System

An American system dedicated to the welfare of children has existed more or less since the creation of the country, but was only given federal foundations beginning in the late 1800s. Throughout the century that followed, the nse of social worfc as a profession and media coverage and child maltreatment paralleled the expansion of state and federal policies in child welfare. The history of that expansion is covered in the first half of this paper It is followed by a policy analysis of the continuing problems within the implementation of the welfare system and concludes with recommendations on how to temper those issues