Too many children experience abuse and neglect with negative lifelong consequences. Too few children get the services and supports they need to heal. Yet, proven and promising practices can reduce maltreatment and ameliorate harm. Taking these practices to scale will require federal investment and leadership in five strategic areas. We must: (1) increase prevention and early intervention services that help keep children and families out of crisis; (2) increase specialized treatment services for those children and families that do experience crisis; (3) increase services to support families after a crisis has stabilized (including birth families, as well as kinship and adoptive families created when parents are unable to care for their children); (4) enhance the quality of the workforce providing services to children and families; and (5) improve accountability both for dollars spent and outcomes achieved. Together these efforts will improve the lives of millions of children across the nation

Children’s Express reports on this toolkit that helps child welfare courts define goals, collect data and measure their performance to improve child and family outcomes of safety, permanence, and well-being.

Children's Rights reports that Wisconsin officials have agreed to an aggressive new plan aimed at fixing persistent problems in the state-run system responsible for providing care and protection to abused and neglected children in Milwaukee.

October 2008, President Bush signed into law two bills aimed at keeping children safer and healthier: the Protect Our Children Act and the Reconnecting Homeless Youth Act. The latter provides a funding increase for programs serving homeless youth and "mandates a study on runaway and homeless youth every five years in order know how to serve this group properly," Youth Today reports.

By examining foster youth in Illinois -- one of the few states that extends care up to
age 21 -- this new Chapin Hall study finds that a higher degree of advocacy by juvenile
courts is linked with more services for older foster youth, greater involvement by
caseworkers and adults, more positive attitudes about remaining in care beyond 18 and
a greater awareness that by law youth may remain in care beyond 18.

The nonpartisan Every Child Matters Education Fund surveyed 800 registered voters and
found that regardless of party, strong majorities are concerned about a recent UNICEF
report ranking U.S. child well-being near the bottom of the industrialized world. The
majority of those surveyed agree that "we need bold leadership to address poverty,
child abuse, health, and education." A quarter of registered voters could not give any
response when asked about the two candidates' strengths on children's issues.

Child Abuse and Neglect: General Information Packet and El abuso y la negligencia de
menores: paquete de información general provide information on child abuse and
neglect for anyone interested in the topic. The packets cover a number of topics,
including the definition of child maltreatment, keys to successful prevention
services, leaving children home alone, signs associated with child abuse and
neglect, the purposes and functions of the child welfare system, the consequences of
child abuse and neglect, and includes toll-free phone numbers for organizations that
deal with different types of child abuse, victims of crime, family violence, mental
illness, missing or abducted children, rape and incest, substance abuse, suicide
prevention, and youth in trouble or runaways. The English packet includes Child
Maltreatment 2005: Summary of Key Findings, which presents excerpts from Child
Maltreatment 2005 regarding child abuse statistics.

Packet in Spanish

The Spring 2008 issue of Evaluation Exchange from the Harvard Family Research Project looks at promising practices in family involvement. In particular, it highlights the importance of partnerships within communities for better child outcomes, and how family involvement fits into a broader approach to children's success in education and in life.

Children who have been abused or neglected often have a range of unique physical and mental health needs and developmental delays, far greater than other high-risk populations. In fact, studies suggest that nearly sixty percent of children in foster care experience a chronic medical condition, and one-quarter suffer from three or more chronic health conditions. This First Focus policy brief analyzes some of the key health care issues facing foster care children.

At least one-third of children in foster care have physical or mental disabilities and are at higher risk for poor educational, employment and well-being outcomes. This report from the National Council on Disability finds that federal investments are undercut by lack of coordination across programs and agencies. It offers recommendations for policymakers.