Introduction

The Child Welfare Outcomes 2001: Annual Report to Congress is the fourth in a series of annual reports from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (the Department).¹ The annual reports are prepared in accordance with section 479(A) (provided in appendix A) of the Social Security Act (added by the Adoption and Safe Families Act [ASFA] of 1997). The reports depict the performance of States on seven national child welfare outcomes developed by the Department's Administration for Children and Families in consultation with State and local child welfare agency administrators and other experts in the child welfare field. The measures developed to assess attainment of the outcomes are provided in appendix B. The outcomes, presented below, reflect widely accepted performance objectives for child welfare practice.

Outcome 1: Reduce recurrence of child abuse and/or neglect.
Outcome 2: Reduce the incidence of child abuse and/or neglect in foster care.
Outcome 3: Increase permanency for children in foster care.
Outcome 4: Reduce time in foster care to reunification without increasing re-entry.
Outcome 5: Reduce time in foster care to adoption.
Outcome 6: Increase placement stability.
Outcome 7: Reduce placements of young children in group homes or institutions.

In addition to data on the seven national outcomes, the Child Welfare Outcomes Annual Reports to Congress (Outcomes Reports) present general context information relevant to each State's² child welfare system. The context information includes the following:

The State's child population statistics;
The number and characteristics of child maltreatment victims (defined as children who are the subject of a substantiated or indicated maltreatment report);
The number and characteristics of children in foster care at the start and end of the fiscal year and of children who entered and exited foster care during the fiscal year (FY);
The number and characteristics of children "waiting for adoption" (defined as children who are legally free for adoption and/or for whom a goal of adoption has been established but the adoption has not yet been finalized) during the fiscal year; and
The number and characteristics of children for whom an adoption was finalized during the fiscal year.

With the exception of the child population statistics, which are obtained from the U. S. Census Bureau, the State data come from two Federal national reporting systems —the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) and the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS). Through AFCARS and NCANDS, the Department collects and analyzes data and generates reports on children who come into contact with State child welfare systems. The highlights of findings from the most recent Department report based on NCANDS data —Child Maltreatment 2001 —are presented in Appendix C. The annual AFCARS Report for FY 2001 is presented in appendix D.

Before publishing the Outcomes Reports, the Department disseminates each State's data pages to the State child welfare agency director and data managers for their review and comment. At this time, a State may resubmit data if it believes that the data presented reflect reporting errors. If States choose to comment on their data, these comments are included with the State's data pages in the Outcomes Reports.

The first Outcomes Report —Child Welfare Outcomes 1998 —presented State data pages and provided a discussion of the development of the national child welfare outcomes and measures, including the principles that guided that process. The Department established these guiding principles (presented in appendix E) in conjunction with a consultant work group comprising representatives from a wide range of State and local organizations and agencies.

In addition to State data, the second Outcomes Report —Child Welfare Outcomes 1999 —identified issues related to the quality and quantity of State data, and presented key findings regarding State performance in 1999 on the national outcomes. That Outcomes Report also described the various components of the Department's approach to assisting States in achieving safety, permanency, and well-being for children who come into contact with public child welfare systems. As noted in the 1999 report, the key component of this approach is the Child and Family Services Review (CFSR). The CFSR is the Department's results-oriented, comprehensive monitoring system implemented in FY 2001. It was developed in response to the mandate in the Social Security Amendments of 1994 to promulgate regulations for reviews of State programs for child and family services under titles IV-B and IV-E of the Social Security Act.

The third report —Child Welfare Outcomes 2000 —was similar to earlier reports in that it presented State data pages, State comments, a discussion of data issues, and key findings of the data analyses. A new feature of that report was the "Federal Comment" page. The Federal Comment page was included with each State's data pages and provided a discussion of: (1) the State's performance on the national child welfare outcomes; and (2) possible reasons for high or low performance based on information obtained from the CFSR.³

For Child Welfare Outcomes 2000, Federal Comment pages were provided for the 32 States that participated in a CFSR in fiscal year (FY) 2001 and FY 2002.⁴

This fourth report —Child Welfare Outcomes 2001 —incorporates all features of the 2000 report and is organized as follows:

Chapter I. Assisting States in Attaining Positive Outcomes for Children and Families. This chapter focuses on how the Department can and does use information from the Outcomes Reports and the CFSR to assist States in improving their efforts to achieve positive outcomes for children and families.
Chapter II. Key Findings: State Performances on the Child Welfare Outcomes for 2001 and Changes in Performance from 1999 to 2001. This chapter presents the findings of the analyses of State data with regard to the seven outcome measures. The analyses focus on performance in 2001 and changes in performance from 1999 to 2001.
Chapter III: Assessment of State Performance on the Seven Child Welfare Outcomes. This chapter provides a discussion of the key findings and the implications of the findings for assessing State performance. The discussion incorporates relevant information from the analysis of CFSR findings for the 32 States that participated in a CFSR during FYs 2001 and 2002.
Chapter IV. State Data Pages. The data pages for each State are provided in this Chapter. For each State, the data pages are followed by a State Comment page (for those States providing comments) and a Federal Comment page.

¹ Throughout this report, references will be made to the Department (meaning the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). The unit of the Department that produces this report, and that has primary responsibility for the report and all of the work described here, is the Children's Bureau with the Administration for Children, Youth and Families (ACYF), in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). Back
² In the Outcomes Reports, the designation of "State" includes the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Therefore, up to 52 "States" may be noted as having reported data for individual outcome measures. back
³ The FY 2000 and FY 2001 data are used for CFSRs occurring in FY 2002 and FY 2003, respectively. There is a time lag between the data provided in the State data pages and the CFSR. For example, the data presented in this Outcomes Report pertain to the years 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001. However, the CFSR final reports cover reviews completed in either FY 2001, 2002, or 2003. This time lag is the result of the time required for State data submission/resubmissions and Federal analyses. back
⁴ With each new Outcomes Report, CFSR Final Report information will be incorporated into the Federal Comment page for States that participate in a CFSR during the year that the Outcomes Report is prepared. For States that did not participate in a review during that year, the Federal Comment page will focus primarily on changes in performance on the national outcomes over time. back

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