Child Welfare Information Gateway published "Online Resources for State Child Welfare Law and Policy" to provide web addresses for State statutes that are accessible online. These addresses list part of the code for each State and territory that contains the laws addressing child protection, adoption, child welfare, legal guardianship, and services for youth. It also provides web addresses for States' regulation and policy sites, State court rules, Tribal codes, and judicial resources. Information for each State and territory can be accessed on the State Statutes Search page.

The "Annual Statistical Report on Children in Foster Homes and Children in Families Receiving Payments in Excess of the Poverty Income Level from a State Program (Funded Under Part A of Title IV of the Social Security Act)" is now available for fiscal year 2012 through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families' Office of Family Assistance. This information can be identified by State and/or territory. This report is required annually of all State agencies administering or supervising administration of TANF and child welfare programs.

States and jurisdictions work with Tribes on child welfare issues in many different ways. In some cases, Tribes run their own child welfare systems; in other instances, Tribes receive different degrees of funding and services from the State or counties. In all cases, workers from non-Tribal cultural backgrounds will benefit from learning about Indian history, relevant Federal laws, and cultural considerations. This resource page from the Child Welfare Information Gateway is designed to help non-Indian child welfare workers and agencies find resources on issues relevant to working with American Indian and Alaska Native children and families.

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) released a research brief from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) entitled "Instability and Early Life Changes among Children in the Child Welfare System." This is one in a series of briefs based on data from NSCAW, a nationally representative, longitudinal survey focusing on children who come to the attention of the child welfare system through investigation by child protective services. The survey is being conducted through a contract to RTI. The brief describes the placement histories and changes in living situations of infants who come to the attention of Child Protective Services.

The Welfare Peer Technical Assistance (TA) Network is a federally funded initiative through the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance.  The objective of the Welfare Peer TA Network is to facilitate the sharing of information between and among states and to establish linkages between organizations serving the needs of welfare recipients. 

The U.S. Administration for Children and Families (ACF), with support from the Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network, sponsored the Addressing the Needs of Non-Custodial Parents in TANF Families Workshop on January 18-19, 2001, in Tallahassee, Florida.  Participants included representatives from State Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Child Support Enforcement, local fatherhood providers, and Federal participants from the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services.  The purpose of the workshop was to promote collaboration between State TANF and OCSE agencies, and to encourage the sharing of information about initiatives to address the needs of non-custodial parents.

This resource guide was authored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children’s Bureau, Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, its Child Welfare Information Gateway, the FRIENDS National Resource Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention, and the Center for the Study of Social Policy—Strengthening Families. The guide was designed to help community-based service providers better work with parents and children to prevent child abuse and neglect, and authors provide information on protective factors, how to engage the community, why child abuse and neglect occurs, and tips on strength-based approaches for working with parents and caregivers.

In 2004, Casey Family Services underwent an organizational change to help establish permanency for children and youth with special needs in foster care called “Move to Greater Permanence” (MGP). This report details the planning, implementation, agency processes, and outcomes as a result of the organizational change. Authors provide lessons learned to help child welfare providers and human service organizations utilize when conducting similar organizational change.

The National Resource Center for Tribes (NRC4Tribes), a member of the Children’s Bureau, Child Welfare Training and Technical Assistance Network, recently conducted a needs assessment of practices within Tribal child welfare among federally recognized American Indian and Alaskan Native Tribes. The report summarizes the need for specific technical assistance in five main areas within Tribal child welfare programs: (1) Tribal child welfare practice, (2) foster care and adoption, (3) the Indian Child Welfare Act, (4) legal and judicial, and (5) Tribal child welfare operations. Overall, the report recognized the need for a strengthened culturally-based Tribal Child Welfare infrastructure that provided increased communication between Tribes in order to share practices and knowledge as well as effective staff recruitment and training. The report also provides an overview of Tribal child welfare programs and a summary of the methods exercised in conducting the needs assessment.

The 2011 Annual Region X Tribal TANF Conference was held in Tulalip, Washington at the Tulalip Resort from September 27-29, 2011. The Conference provided Tribal TANF programs from Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington an opportunity to discuss and strategize methods for improving their programs and services to better serve their families and communities. Best practices and lessons learned were shared throughout the conference on a wide range of topics, including asset building, child care, child welfare, economic development, program evaluation as a method for program enhancement, and subsidized employment.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, created in 1996, is one of the key federal funding streams provided to states to assist low-income families. A critical aspect of TANF has been its focus on employment and self-sufficiency, and the primary means to measure State efforts in this area has been TANF's work participation requirements. When the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA) reauthorized TANF, it also made changes that were generally expected to strengthen these work requirements. Given the impending extension or reauthorization of TANF, this testimony primarily draws on previous GAO work to focus on (1) how the welfare caseload and related spending have changed since TANF was created and (2) how States have met work participation rates since DRA. To address these issues, in work conducted from August 2009 to May 2010, GAO analyzed State data reported to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); surveyed State TANF administrators in 50 States and the District of Columbia; conducted site visits to Florida, Ohio, and Oregon, selected to provide geographic diversity and variation in TANF program characteristics; and reviewed relevant federal laws, regulations, and research. In July 2011, GAO updated this work by analyzing State data reported to HHS since that time. In addition, GAO gathered information on caseload changes through its forthcoming work on TANF child-only cases.