Children's Bureau Express

Children's Bureau Express:

Findings From Round 2 of the CFSRs

The Children's Bureau recently released the first comprehensive findings from the second round of the Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSRs). Since 2001, the Children's Bureau has conducted two complete rounds of reviews of all the States' child welfare systems; Round 2 was conducted between 2007 and 2010.

The Children's Bureau conducts the CFSRs to monitor States for conformity to Federal child welfare requirements, determine what is actually happening to children and families involved in the child welfare system, and assist States in enhancing their capacity to help children and families achieve positive outcomes. The CFSR process includes a Statewide Assessment and an onsite evaluation of 65 foster care and in-home services cases. In Round 2, States were assessed on 45 items grouped into seven outcomes that measured safety, permanency, and well-being and seven systemic factors.

The new report presents quantitative findings from all the States, as well as aggregate data from all the cases. In addition, the report also offers some qualitative information to shed light on performance, themes, and challenges. A content analysis helped to identify States' common child welfare challenges, and statistical analyses show relationships among outcomes, systemic factors, and items.

None of the States was in substantial conformity with the seven outcomes in the CFSRs; however, 10 States achieved substantial conformity with Well-Being Outcome 2: "Children receive appropriate services to meet their educational needs." In addition, a majority of States achieved the following:

An overall rating of "Strength" for the individual items pertaining to foster care reentry and proximity of foster care placement
Substantial conformity for the systemic factors measuring Statewide Information System, Quality Assurance, Staff and Provider Training, Agency Responsiveness to the Community, and Foster and Adoptive Parent Licensing, Recruitment, and Retention
The full report, Federal Child and Family Services Reviews Aggregate Report Round 2, is available on the Children’s Bureau website:

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/cwmonitoring/results/fcfsr_report.pdf (1 MB)