ABSTRACT
Americans are taking action against child abuse by continuing to make reports—more than 1.7 million reports on 2.7 million children in 1992. This chapter discusses child welfare trends to plan for the next decade. Special-needs and older child adoption convinced legislators and child welfare administrators that there was a way to exit the foster care system. The roles of the child welfare social worker and the public health nurse are fusing around assessments of the adequacy of postnatal care, preventive home visiting, and assessment of harm. Relative and nonrelative guardianships have become an increasingly significant outlet for children in foster care and for children cared for by kin who are not formally foster parents. Kinship care may be allowing more placements by mitigating some of the family disruption that might otherwise occur with placement. As the demand for child welfare services has grown, the demand for a range of informal mechanisms for protecting children has also increased.
