Poverty

Reflecting a growing movement to tease out poverty from the many reasons U.S. children are taken into foster care, a new bill before Congress requires states to avoid maltreatment investigations that center solely on a family’s homelessness or lack of financial resources.

Programs to decrease child poverty could lead to far fewer families investigated by child welfare systems, a new study has concluded. 

New University of Minnesota research examines the mental health toll on children with an incarcerated parent who have been in foster care.

As he retires from the New York University School of Law's Family Defense Clinic, Martin Guggenheim says the nation's "child welfare" system doesn't deserve that name.

We use taxpayers dollars to fund a system that is morally bankrupt, where children and social workers suffer, writes Kenyon Lee Whitman.

Despite promising headwinds in "upstream" investments, New York’s safety net remains difficult and time-consuming to access and full of holes, writes Nora McCarthy.

Congress could drastically reduce the child poverty rate by making permanent the Child Tax Credit. The benefits far outweigh the costs, write Ian Berlin and William G. Gale.

In Rochester, child psychiatrist Michael Scharf is part of a team addressing the trauma of youth violence, and how to prevent it.

In California and other states, many parents must pay for their children’s stay in foster care. Based on evidence, the law should be abandoned, writes Jill Duerr Berrick for CalMatters.