Child Welfare
Child welfare is a public system in the U.S. designed to keep children safe, strengthen families, and support child well-being. It is a continuum of services that includes prevention, child protective services (CPS), foster care, and permanency services such as reunification, kinship care, and adoption.
The primary goals of child welfare are:
- Safety: Protecting children from abuse and neglect, and ensuring they are in a safe, stable environment.
- Permanency: Helping children achieve long-term family stability through reunification, adoption, or kinship.
- Well-being: Providing services and support so that children thrive physically, emotionally, and developmentally and parents are supported to care for their children safely.
The resources in this section are curated for child welfare professionals seeking to better understand refugee and newcomer youth and families, as well as for non-child welfare professionals seeking to better understand the child welfare system. Providers outside the child welfare sector who work with refugee and newcomer youth and families play an important role in preventing child abuse, fulfilling mandatory reporting responsibilities, and supporting families in understanding and navigating the child welfare system when concerns of abuse or neglect arise.