Focus Areas

To achieve our mission of promoting safe and stable families, the Children's Bureau concentrates our efforts in eight distinct focus areas including adoption, child abuse and neglect, child welfare, foster care, Child and Family Services reviews, tribal programs, federal programs and state programs.

The Children’s Bureau works with states, tribes and communities to develop programs to assist America's children and their families and to collect information on child welfare for research and program improvement.

At the Children’s Bureau, we have several areas of focus that allow us to improve the overall health and well-being of our nation’s children and families.

CB supports the following initiatives:

  • Adoption
  • Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention and Intervention
  • Child Welfare
  • Foster Care
  • Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSRs)
  • Program Funding
  • Program Reporting Systems

Adoption

The Children's Bureau supports programs, research, and monitoring to help eliminate barriers to adoption and find permanent families for children. CB provides funding to states and tribes to help them support families who adopt from foster care. We provide additional funds to states that achieve a high number of adoptions of children from foster care.

Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention and Intervention

The Children’s Bureau supports programs, research, and monitoring systems that prevent child abuse and neglect while ensuring that children who are victims receive treatment and care. We provide funding to states and tribes to help them strengthen families and prevent child abuse and neglect. Our funding also provides for child abuse and neglect assessment, investigation, prosecution and treatment activities.

Child Welfare

The Children’s Bureau supports state and tribal child welfare programs through funding, research, monitoring and special initiatives to promote positive outcomes for children and families involved in child welfare.

Foster Care

The Children’s Bureau supports children and youth in foster care through funding, data collection, research, policy guidance and special initiatives.

Child and Family Services Reviews

Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSRs) monitor states’ child welfare systems.
Our primary goals are to:

  1. Ensure conformity with federal child welfare requirements
  2. Determine what is actually happening to children and families engaged in child welfare services

Program Funding

With an annual budget of almost $8 billion, CB awards funds to both states and tribes on a formula basis and to individual organizations that successfully apply for discretionary funds.

Program Reporting Systems

The Children’s Bureau funds a reporting system to collect data from states. This enables us to monitor state performance on child safety, permanency and well-being. More information can be found at The Child and Family Services Plan (CFSP) or The Annual Progress and Services Report (APSR).