Child Welfare Forward: Exploring a Blueprint for Child Welfare Financing and Accountability Reform

Join this conversation to explore how federal child welfare financing and accountability can better support states, communities, and providers in improving outcomes for children and families. The Bipartisan Policy Center’s Child Welfare Initiative brought together 15 national experts to examine longstanding challenges in child welfare financing and accountability and develop recommendations for federal reform. The resulting Blueprint proposes changes to the way federal financing supports the core functions of agencies and courts, evidence-based services, permanency, innovation, workforce, and accountability. 

This interactive webinar will provide an overview of the Blueprint and introduce Child Welfare Forward, a national engagement initiative hosted by the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) to build on the Bipartisan Policy Center’s work. Presenters will provide an overview of the recommendations and invite participants to share their perspectives on how proposed reforms could affect providers, communities, and the children and families they serve. Participant feedback will help test and strengthen the reform ideas as Child Welfare Forward continues engaging stakeholders across the field.

Takeaways

• Key reform principles that guided the development of recommendations  
• How the proposed reforms could affect agencies, providers, and their ability to meet the needs of children and families 
• The opportunity to share implementation considerations, opportunities, concerns, and additional ideas that should inform future development of the recommendations

Who Should Attend

• Executives of child- and family- serving organizations 
• Program leaders 
• Policy leaders 
• Staff with experience implementing child welfare and family-serving programs