New challenges and opportunities in child welfare outcomes and information technologies

In spite of longstanding concern on the part of child welfare policymakers, researchers, and practitioners, we still lack basic information about the outcomes of child welfare services. This article describes the limitations of current efforts to generate data on child welfare outcomes, presents certain principles for the development of child welfare management information systems for the 21st century, and suggests steps to be taken to get from here to there. Particular attention is given to recent federal initiatives that provide an immediate opportunity to make a fundamental leap in our ability to understand the outcomes of child welfare services.