Child Welfare

woman hugging childEvery year more than 700,000 children are abused or neglected, and each day 1,200 children are removed from their families to enter foster care. The consequences of child maltreatment can be profound and may endure long after the abuse or neglect occurs, affecting various aspects of an individual's development. Yet, fewer than four in ten abused or neglected children and families receive necessary services  and supports to overcome challenges.

Related Topics

Trauma-Informed Care

Latest Work

Project

Children and Society: A Global Scan of Child Well-Being

All children deserve to live healthy lives and experience positive well-being. The aim for this work is to understand the context that includes the norms, values, and conditions that underpin child well-being in various countries, with the intention of transferring and applying that knowledge to the United States.
Project

Transitional Housing for Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence: A 2014-15 Snapshot

The Snapshot explores challenges facing transitional housing programs serving survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and examines underlying issues, contributing factors, and diverse approaches taken to address those challenges.
8 Dec 2016
Blog Post

Transitions to Adulthood: Succeeding in College

At 21, many foster youth “age out” of financial benefits and supports from the child welfare system—before they even finish college. Given the challenges they face, it’s not surprising that only 3 to 10 percent of them earn undergraduate degrees compared with 34 percent of young adults who weren’t in foster care. What can states do to ensure foster youth have the support they need to graduate from college? In this blog post, Patricia Campie provides an overview of the educational challenges foster students face in the transition to college.
Topic: 
Education, College and Career Readiness, Child Welfare, Youth-Serving Systems, Families, Communities, and Social Systems
5 Dec 2016
Spotlight

Spotlight on Native Nations

Contributing and working alongside Native Nations, AIR has a deep commitment to engaging communities, fostering shared vision and values, building capacity, and developing strategic alliances to achieve sustainable systems change in Indian Country.
Topic: 
Education, Families, Communities, and Social Systems, Child Welfare, Juvenile Justice, Violence Prevention
Project

National Poverty Study

In the U.S. and many other countries, there’s a well-developed infrastructure for counting the number of people in poverty. The National Poverty Study seeks to move beyond that to answer questions regarding the changing conditions of poverty, how those conditions differ across places and “poverty types,” and how those in poverty respond to these differing conditions.
1 Aug 2016
Blog Post

Latest Child Numbers Offer Good News for Parents

This long, hot summer could use some good news. And we have it. Teen pregnancy, alcohol and tobacco use by students, children’s exposure to second-hand smoke, motor vehicle-related child deaths, and the rate at which young people are victimized by serious crimes have reached 20-year lows. In this blog post, Frank Rider shares uplifting findings from America’s Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2016.
Topic: 
Education, Families, Communities, and Social Systems, Child Welfare
29 Jun 2016
Blog Post

Growing Up in Foster Care: Elementary and Middle School

In this second blog post in a series examining educational challenges facing youth in foster care, from early childhood into college, Trish Campie offers some promising solutions to creating pathways to college and career success.
Topic: 
Education, Families, Communities, and Social Systems, Child Welfare, Early Childhood and Child Development
23 Jun 2016
Blog Post

Growing Up in Foster Care: Our Littlest Ones

One-third of the 400,000 children in foster care enter the system before age five, just as they should be making the transition from preschool to kindergarten. Seventy-five percent of kids in foster care must change schools, often multiple times, which means they tend to fall behind their classmates, miss more days in school, and experience lower high school graduation rates and less success in college. In this blog post, Patricia Campie offers five research-based ways to bolster school readiness and reduce risks when early entry into foster care disrupts children’s educational opportunities.
Topic: 
Education, Early Childhood and Child Development, Child Welfare, Youth-Serving Systems, Families, Communities, and Social Systems
22 Jun 2016
Report

What Do Transitional Kindergarten Classrooms Look Like in the Third Year of the Program’s Implementation?

California’s Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010 established transitional kindergarten (TK), the first year of a two-year kindergarten program for students affected by the change in the birthdate cutoff. This fifth short report in a series highlighting findings from the Study of California’s Transitional Kindergarten Program focuses on what we have learned about the structure, teachers, and instruction in TK classrooms in the 2014–15 school year.
Topic: 
Education, Families, Communities, and Social Systems, Child Welfare, Early Childhood and Child Development
26 May 2016
The Ten Series

Ten Questions Local Policymakers Should Ask About Expanding Access to Preschool

High-quality preschool programs can have far reaching benefits for kids, parents, and communities—and they can provide a high return on initial investments. This 10 Series report summarizes our key findings about local preschool initiatives in 10 U.S. communities.
Topic: 
Education, Early Childhood and Child Development, Child Welfare, Families, Communities, and Social Systems
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