Children’s Bureau Legacy

The

ENSURING THE RIGHT TO CHILDHOOD
The Children’s Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood

Published by the Children’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

This book is dedicated to the thousands of child welfare workers across the Nation who work tirelessly 

to improve the lives of children and families.

Public Domain

URL: http://cb100.acf.hhs.gov/CB_ebook

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov

Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC area (202) 512-1800

Fax: (202) 512-2104 

Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402-0001

Available in these eBook file formats:

ePub ISBN: 9780160917226

MyiLibrary ISBN: 9780160917240

PDF ISBN: 9780160917257

For more information about the Children’s Bureau, visit http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb.

For more on Children’s Bureau history, visit https://cb100.acf.hhs.gov. 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Administration for Children and Families

Administration on Children, Youth and Families

Children’s Bureau
Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1: America’s Conscience Gives Birth to the Children’s Bureau

Chapter 2: Saving Babies and Restoring Childhood (1912–1929)

Chapter 3: The Great Depression and Social Security (1930–1939)

Chapter 4: Wartime and Recovery (1940–1956)

Chapter 5: A Growing Government Shrinks the Children’s Bureau (1957–1973)

Chapter 6: Sharpening the Focus on Child Welfare (1974–1992)

Chapter 7: Partnering With Families and Working to Improve Outcomes 

(1993–2012)

Afterword

Acknowledgments
Foreword

On April 9, 1912, the U.S. Children’s Bureau became the first national government 

agency in the world to focus solely on the needs of children. During the past 100 

years, the Children’s Bureau has played a critical role in addressing vital issues 

affecting families—from reducing infant mortality and eradicating child labor, 

to preventing child maltreatment and promoting permanency for children and 

youth. 

The Bureau’s tasks were originally limited to investigation and reporting, and it 

fulfilled this responsibility valiantly. Early research and data collection efforts 

shed much-needed light on the incidence and causes of infant and maternal mortality as well as treacherous conditions for children working in mines, fields, and 

factories. However, the Bureau’s responsibilities quickly grew beyond its original 

mandate. 

In the following decades, the Bureau was called upon to administer groundbreaking public-health programs and some of the Nation’s earliest social service grant 

programs. It also developed and promoted forward-thinking standards and model 

legislation in areas such as the operation of maternity and foster homes, juvenile 

court procedures, provision of day care, and adoption. In all of these activities, 

then as now, the Bureau worked to forge strong partnerships with States and 

Tribes, advocacy groups, and nationally recognized experts to help guide and 

support its efforts. 

Bureau initiatives have laid the foundation for a multitude of today’s Federal 

programs for children and families. Some of these, having outgrown the resources 

of a single bureau, live on within other agencies across the Federal Government, 

including the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Office of Juvenile Justice and 

Delinquency Prevention, Office of Family Assistance, Administration on Developmental Disabilities, Child Care Bureau, and Family and Youth Services Bureau.

Programs focused on child abuse and neglect, foster care, and adoption are still 

administered by today’s Children’s Bureau. These carry on the Bureau’s longstanding traditions of:
Strengthening families. As early as 1919, child welfare standards recognized the 

importance of keeping children in their own homes whenever possible. Since 

then, the Children’s Bureau has worked to preserve and strengthen families—

through advocacy for “mothers’ aid” programs in the 1910s and 1920s, support for 

homemaker and day care services to bolster struggling families in the 1950s, and 

today’s in-home services grant programs and community-based child abuse and 

neglect prevention efforts.

Fostering child well-being. The Children’s Bureau’s emphasis on “the whole 

child” has ensured that our programs address multiple aspects of well-being (e.g., 

health, educational, emotional and social development). Throughout our history, 

physical-health programs have included PKU diagnosis and treatment to prevent mental retardation, vaccination initiatives, and comprehensive medical and 

dental care for urban children. Beginning as early as World War II, however, Bureau 

programs and publications recognized that children’s emotional well-being was as 

important as their physical wellness. Today, this focus on the whole child continues, evidenced by the Bureau’s support for improved health and educational 

services for children in foster care. 

Supporting positive youth development. Taking an interest in juvenile delinquency from its earliest days, the Bureau was quick to look beyond court procedures 

and treatment to the causes and prevention of delinquency. During the Great 

Depression, for example, Bureau staff documented difficulties facing older youth 

and advocated for special work and training opportunities. In the 1960s, the Bureau’s new Youth Development Unit created publications and further expanded 

programs for youth. Today’s Children’s Bureau promotes positive opportunities for 

youth through our National Resource Center for Youth Development and grants 

supporting independent living services for those in foster care, among others.

Promoting permanent homes for children. Under the Children’s Bureau’s leadership, the child welfare field has evolved considerably from the days of orphan 

trains, orphanages, and “black market babies.” From its earliest days, advocating 

for family foster care rather than institutions for dependent and neglected children, the Bureau has done much to advance the standard of care. More recently, 

our efforts have focused on encouraging recruitment of foster and adoptive families, increasing permanency options (including subsidized guardianship and kin-
ship care), enhancing professional training for child welfare workers, and moving 

children to permanency more quickly with adoption subsidies and incentives. 

As you will see in the following chapters, although today’s Children’s Bureau has 

a narrower scope than the Bureau of 1912, the child welfare work at our core is 

deeply informed by our earlier work in related disciplines. Everything we do today 

builds on what has come before, and we are delighted to share our history with 

you in these pages.

Of course, none of our achievements would have been possible without the involvement of countless partners, past and present, who work together in myriad ways to 

support our Nation’s children, youth, and families. Thank you for all you do.

Sincerely,

Joseph J. Bock

Acting Associate Commissioner

Children’s Bureau

/s/
Chapter 1 Early poster urging parents to register their newborn 

babies (Maternal and Child Health Library)
Chapter 1 

America’s Conscience Gives Birth to 

the Children’s Bureau

Introduction

Today, the Children’s Bureau is just one branch of a collaborative network of 

Federal agencies attending to the needs of American children. This group works 

together to support States and local communities in their efforts to safeguard the 

physical and mental health of mothers and their infants, ensure every child’s right 

to an appropriate education, shelter children and youth from unsafe and unhealthy labor practices, reduce juvenile delinquency, protect children from abuse 

and neglect, and find permanent families for those who cannot safely return to 

their own homes. 

Just 100 years earlier, when the Bureau was established, the picture for children was quite different. Children of the early 1900s were born into a world that 

threatened their very existence. High infant mortality rates, inadequate health 

care, back-breaking labor, and routine institutionalization were the norm for many 

children, particularly those in working-class, minority, and immigrant families. 

Despite these dire conditions, not a single agency of the Federal Government was 

tasked with speaking up for children’s needs and rights.

Yet turn-of-the-century children were not entirely without advocates. Women of 

the growing middle class, inspired by a new, idealized view of childhood, were 

beginning to organize the country’s first “baby saving” or “child saving” efforts. 

In keeping with the Progressive Era’s emphasis on government as a solution for 

social ills, the idea of a Federal bureau devoted to child well-being soon gained 
popularity among these women’s groups and other social reformers. After a 6-year 

legislative battle led by the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), Congress established the U.S. Children’s Bureau in 1912, the first Federal agency to “investigate 

and report ... upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children.” 

A prosperous family enjoys a quiet evening at home, ca. 

1902. (Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-99937)

Industrial Revolution: A Mixed Bag for Children

At the end of the 19th century, large numbers of families left small farms and 

family-owned businesses for urban areas, where they took work in corporations 

and factories. This Industrial Revolution led to an increasingly stark division between the upper/middle and working classes—one that was particularly poignant 

in the lives of children.

In the new middle-class families, fathers went to work, leaving mothers home to 

raise the children. For the first time, large numbers of children were freed from 

responsibility to contribute to the family’s survival through their work and chores. 

With large families no longer an economic necessity, family sizes shrunk; children, fewer in number, seemed more precious. These conditions led to a growing 

sentimentality toward family life among the middle and upper classes. Home became idealized as a shelter 

from the outside world. Families were more affectionate, 

directing more love and 

attention toward children. 

Childhood came to be seen 

as a uniquely innocent time, 

one that should be devoted 

to play and education. Children’s literature, toys, and 

published information about 

child-rearing all became 

more prevalent.

The advent of modern 

psychology contributed to 
a view of childhood as a special period of life, suggesting that children were not 

merely “little adults,” but people with distinct needs. As early as 1880, the American Medical Association formed a pediatric division, acknowledging the significant 

difference between the needs of children and adults. (In 1889, this division became the independent American Pediatric Society.) The recognition that juvenile 

delinquents should not be 

treated as and incarcerated 

with adult criminals led to 

the development of juvenile 

courts, the first of which was 

established in 1899 in Cook 

County, IL.1

A mother and her children—ages 13, 8, and 6—make flowers late into the evening in their New York apartment, earning roughly $.40–.50 per day, ca. 1911. (Library of Congress, 

LC-DIG-nclc-04100)

Two young boys in Macon, GA, work in a textile mill, ca. 

1909. Some children were so small they had to climb onto 

the spinning frame to mend broken threads and replace 

empty bobbins. (Library of Congress, LC-DIG-nclc-01581)

The growing idealization of 

home life and childhood, 

however, belied the effects 

of industrialization on “the 

other half” of America: the 

large numbers of poor, working-class families who came 

to cities seeking a better 

life. These families included an influx of immigrants 

from Southern, Central, and 

Eastern Europe: between 

1892 and 1900 alone, nearly 

3 million came to the United 

States in search of factory work. Most gathered in 

large, urban areas in the 

north, such as New York 

City and Chicago.2

 For these 

less-privileged families, 

the move to cities simply 

meant that children worked 

alongside their parents in 
factories or at home, rather than in the fields. These children had little time for 

school or opportunity for play. In fact, the 1900 census showed that more than 2 

million children between the ages of 10 and 15, or one in five, were employed;3

many researchers believe the actual number of child laborers, including children 

younger than 10, was much higher.

Most Southern and rural children fared no better. Textile mills, which cropped 

up after the Civil War with funds from Northern investors, were seen as a lifeline for poor Whites and the devastated Southern economy. Sharecroppers and 

tenant farmers flocked to the mills for what they hoped would be a better life, and 

parents (who had nowhere to leave their children and needed any extra income, 

no matter how meager) brought their children to work alongside them. These 

families were overwhelmingly White and native born; very few immigrants settled 

in the South, and African-American adults and children were seldom hired. A few 

African-American adults worked in canneries or peeling shrimp at the docks, but 

their children were rarely welcome; most African-American families stayed to 

farm the wornout land White families had left behind. Whether working in the 

mills, at canneries, or on farms, poor Southern families needed and used every 

available hand to help make ends meet.4

In both the North and South, crowded conditions, widespread poverty, and a lack 

of affordable medical care led to other difficulties. School attendance was very 

low. At the turn of the century only 8 percent of high school-age children were in 

school.5 Although no national statistics were yet available, it was widely known 

that infant mortality rates were high: estimates suggested that one in four children in 1900 died by the age of 5. In Massachusetts, where such statistics had been 

collected since the middle of the 19th century, infant mortality rates for the period 

1895–1899 were nearly 17 percent higher than they had been 40 years earlier.6 The 

number of orphaned, neglected, or abandoned children institutionalized in large 

almshouses and orphanages was perhaps higher than ever. It was becoming clear 

that many of the so-called advances of industrial society were achieved at the 

expense of children’s health and well-being.
Who Were the Children?M

The population of the United States at the time of the 1900 census was 76.3 

million people, of which nearly 10.5 million, or more than 13 percent, were 

foreign born.7

 Immigrants represented a larger percentage of the population 

in the North Atlantic, North Central, and Western regions of the United States 

(22.6, 15.8, and 20.7 percent, respectively), and a much smaller percentage in 

the South Atlantic and South Central regions (2.1 and 2.5 percent). Youth ages 

5 to 20 made up roughly one-third of the total population: 81.5 percent of youth 

were classified “Native White,” 4.5 percent “Foreign White,” and 14 percent 

“Colored,” which included “persons of Negro descent, Chinese, Japanese, and 

Indians,” apparently irrespective of birthplace.

In 1899, 1.75 million children between the ages of 10 and 15 were found to 

be “gainfully employed” (youth 16 years and older were considered adults). 

Ratios of working children to all workers (adult and child) were much higher in 

the South (around 11 percent) than in the North (3–4 percent). A 1900 survey 

provides a snapshot of the differences among White, non-White (defined as 

“Negro, Indian, and Mongolian”), and immigrant workers. Among boys ages 

10–15, approximately one-quarter of Whites born in the United States were 

employed, compared to nearly half (48.6 percent) of non-White boys the 

same age. Both native-born White and non-White boys were far more likely 

(three and four times, respectively) to perform agricultural work than other 

types of work, while foreign-born White boys were more likely to work in 

nonagricultural occupations.

Like their brothers, non-White girls were far more likely than other girls to be 

employed: 30 percent of non-White girls ages 10–15 worked, compared to 20 

percent of immigrant girls and 6 percent of White, native-born girls the same 

age. Non-White girls also were three times more likely to perform agricultural 

work than other forms of labor; White and immigrant girls were more likely to 

work in other occupations.
The Progressive Era and the Advent of Professional Social Work

Since the early 19th century, women’s primary influence outside the home had 

been through participation in women’s clubs. Thus, it was natural that early responses to conditions resulting from the Industrial Revolution arose within these 

groups, which engaged in loosely organized “baby saving” or “child saving” movements. These efforts were not always clearly defined, but in general the groups 

aimed to fight problems stemming from poverty, including poor child health, child 

labor, delinquency, and institutionalization. 

Nurses at a Cincinnati, OH, milk station weigh a baby, ca. 

1908. Poor milk quality was thought to have contributed 

to the high infant mortality rate in U.S. cities. (Library of 

Congress, LC-USZ62-43678)

Progressivism, a social and political movement that sought to reform corruption 

and injustice through government and apply scientific methods to address social 

problems, lent momentum to such efforts. Progressives, largely composed of the 

men and women of the new middle class, saw family as a cornerstone of society 

that must be protected and strengthened at all costs. As a result, child welfare 

came to be seen not only as an “appropriate” sphere for women’s interest and concern, but as one that was central to Progressive ideals. 

Through the Progressive 

“maternal reform movement,” women gradually 

took a more active part in 

politics and social activism. This occurred both 

within women’s clubs such 

as the National Congress 

of Mothers (founded in 

1897, later becoming the 

National Parent Teacher 

Association) and within 

groups formed by men and 

women working together 

on specific issues, such as 

the Massachusetts Society 

for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (1878) and the NCLC (1904). Attempts to address infant mortality led 

to an emphasis on increasing access to medical care and educating mothers in the 
latest child care methods. (The New York City Health Department led the Nation 

in this area, establishing the country’s first division of child hygiene in 1908.)8 Journalists, politicians, and medical doctors also worried about the “milk problem”—

appalling conditions in the Nation’s dairies were widely believed to contribute to 

the high annual death rate of infants in U.S. cities, where much of the available 

milk was of poor quality. During this period, protocols were adopted to ensure the 

safety of the Nation’s milk supply through certification and/or pasteurization.9

The people undertaking these early forms of social work were largely volunteers 

at first—clergy, women’s clubs, and philanthropists. Beginning around 1890, child 

welfare work became increasingly professionalized and secularized. The first higher education school of social work, the New York School of Applied Philanthropy, 

was established in 1904.10 By 1920, the field of social work was filled largely with 

college-educated professional women.

M

A view of Hull House facing South along Halsted St., 

Chicago, ca. 1910. (Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, [JAMC_0000_0001_0154], University of 

Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections)

The Settlement Movement 

The Settlement Movement emerged in the 

United States beginning 

in the 1880s, with the 

goal of establishing “settlement houses” in poor 

urban areas. In these 

houses, middle-class volunteers would live among 

and provide services to 

their low-income neighbors. By 1913, there 

were 413 settlement 

houses in 32 States.11

Settlement houses 

provided social services 

that were not offered by 
government at the time, including health care, education, and temporary foster 

care. Some also included kindergartens, libraries, or gymnasiums. Many of the 

women volunteers became influential advocates for social reforms, including 

child labor laws, protections for abused and neglected children, and others.

After visiting the very first settlement house in England, Toynbee Hall, a young 

American woman named Jane Addams was inspired to establish what would 

become one of the largest and most famous U.S. settlements: Hull House in 

Chicago. Co-founded with her friend Ellen Gates Starr in 1889, Hull House 

served the community on Chicago’s West Side, primarily recent European 

immigrants. Volunteers, called “residents,” held classes in literature, history, 

art, domestic activities (such as sewing), and other subjects. Hull House also 

offered a kindergarten, free concerts, lectures, and social clubs for children and 

adults. The first Children’s Bureau Chief, Julia Lathrop, was a resident at Hull 

House for many years, as was Grace Abbott, the Bureau’s second Chief.12

Envisioning the Children’s Bureau

Credit for conceiving the idea for the Children’s Bureau goes to two women, Lillian 

D. Wald and Florence Kelley, who were active in the Settlement Movement. Kelley 

appears to have proposed such an idea as early as 1900 in a series of lectures 

eventually published in Some Ethical Gains Through Legislation. She envisioned a 

government commission of social workers and health care providers who would 

review data and make information available to the public in 10 areas of concern: 

infant mortality, birth registration, orphaned children, desertion, illegitimacy, 

degeneracy, juvenile delinquency, offenses against children, illiteracy, and child 

labor.13 Most accounts of the Children’s Bureau’s origins, however, point to a 

conversation between the two women over morning coffee in 1903, when Wald 

suggested a Federal bureau was needed to collect and disseminate information 

concerning all children, not just those considered needy or vulnerable.

Later that year, Kelley presented the idea to Columbia University sociologist and 

child labor advocate Edward T. Devine. A longtime political associate of President 

Theodore Roosevelt, Devine wired the President introducing Wald’s proposal. 

Roosevelt famously replied, “Bully, come down and tell me about it.” Wald, Devine, 
Jane Addams, and Mary 

McDowell (another former 

Hull House resident) met 

with the President on 

March 31, 1905, to discuss 

the proposal and secure his 

approval. (The President 

privately endorsed the 

idea, although he declined 

to speak publicly in the 

bill’s favor until many years 

later.) The group then took 

the proposal to the recently 

formed NCLC, which agreed 

to make the establishment 

of a Federal children’s bureau its primary legislative 

goal. NCLC board members 

Wald, Kelley, Addams, and 

Samuel McCune Lindsay 

drafted legislation that 

would be passed years later, with few changes.14

At the NCLC’s urging, Senator Winthrop Murray Crane (R-MA) and Representative 

John J. Gardner (R-NJ) both introduced bills to establish a children’s bureau in 1906. 

The bills encountered little opposition but equally little interest; both died in committee. Thus began what would become a frustrating 6-year legislative process. 

The NCLC was joined in the effort by women’s groups such as the National Consumers’ League, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the National Congress 

of Mothers, and the Daughters of the American Revolution, which helped attract 

more national and popular attention to the cause.

American social reformer Lillian Wald. She and Florence 

Kelley conceived the idea of a Federal bureau charged with 

protecting children. (Wald, LILLIAN D. WALD by William Valentine Schevill. Oil on cardboard, 1919, National Portrait Gallery, 

Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Visiting Nurse Service of New 

York NPG.76.37)
Origins of Foster Care: The Orphan Train MovementM

Rapid migration to America’s cities created difficult living conditions for families, 

including overcrowding, disease, and poverty. Large numbers of children were 

among the victims. By the middle of the 19th century, an estimated 30,000 

orphaned, neglected, or abandoned children were living on the streets of New 

York City. Other urban areas faced similar problems.15

In 1853, Charles Loring 

Brace established the 

Children’s Aid Society 

(CAS) to provide a better 

life for vulnerable children. In cooperation with 

the New York Foundling 

Hospital, Brace’s CAS 

arranged to transport 

orphaned or abandoned 

children from Eastern 

cities by train to new 

families in other parts of 

the country. The hope 

was that these children 

would be given a new life 

in a foster family home, where they could benefit from wholesome work and a 

good education, growing to become productive citizens. 

During the next 75 years, an estimated 200,000 urban children of all ages, from 

infants to teens, took part in these journeys arranged by CAS and other similar 

organizations. Some of these children were truly orphans; others had single 

parents or parents who were simply unable to care for them. They boarded the 

trains in groups, with an agent responsible for their placement. At each stop, prospective parents would meet the trains to select children who suited their needs. 

In the process, siblings often were separated. Children not chosen at one station 

would board the train again and ride to the next stop. 

Young boys aboard an Orphan Train in Texas lean out 

the window, ca. 1904. (The Children’s Aid Society)
Many of the families who agreed to care for the children were kind and 

well-intentioned. Others, however, saw the children as a convenient and inexpensive source of labor. As social reform movements gained popularity, orphan 

trains began to be viewed less favorably. With the help of the new Federal 

Children’s Bureau, the trains eventually were replaced by foster family care that 

promised greater safety and permanency for children.

American social reformer Florence Kelley. She and Lillian 

Wald conceived the idea of a Federal bureau charged with 

protecting children. (Manuscripts and Archives Division, The 

New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)

1909 White House 

Conference on the Care 

of Dependent Children

In late 1908, a young lawyer 

named James West wrote to 

President Roosevelt regarding the negative impact of 

routine institutionalization 

on abandoned, neglected, 

and destitute children. In 

October, West, who had been 

raised in a Washington, DC, 

orphanage, and Theodore 

Dreiser, editor of the Delineator, met with the President 

to discuss Dreiser’s child 

rescue campaign and West’s 

concerns. At that meeting, 

West proposed that the 

President sponsor a national 

conference on the subject of 

dependent children.

West followed up with 

a formal proposal to the 

President in December, 
signed by eight other men influential in the child welfare field, including Devine, 

Dreiser, and prominent social welfare advocate Homer Folks. On Christmas Day, 

1908, President Roosevelt issued a call to approximately 200 people known to be 

concerned with child well-being. On January 25–26, 1909, conference delegates 

(including Wald, Addams, Lathrop, Booker T. Washington, Devine, and Folks) met 

in the White House to hear the President’s opening address. He said, “There can 

be no more important subject from the standpoint of the Nation than that with 

which you are to deal, because when you take care of the children you are taking 

care of the Nation of tomorrow; and it is incumbent upon every one of us to do 

all in his or her power to provide for the interests of those children whom cruel 

misfortune has handicapped at the very outset of their lives.”16

The final session and banquet of the 1909 White House Conference on the Care of Dependent 

Children. (The Dwight D. Eisenhower Library)

For 2 days, attendees discussed, debated, and drafted a list of proposals to the 

President. Conferees affirmed the importance of keeping children in their own 

homes whenever possible, emphasizing in particular that poverty alone was not

a compelling reason to remove children from their families. Other recommendations included the establishment and expansion of foster family care, adoption 

agencies, and mothers’ pensions; State oversight of foster homes; and provision 

of education and medical care for foster children. On the other hand, little or no 

discussion took place concerning the needs of minority children. Even Washington downplayed the issue, noting that “the number of dependents among my own 
race in America is relatively small as compared with the number of dependents 

among the White population,” while declining to point out that few services or 

institutions at the time served African-American children and families. 

Among the conferees’ proposals was a unanimous call for the creation of a Federal 

children’s bureau. On February 15, 1909, President Roosevelt wrote to Congress 

urging it, among other things, to pass legislation creating the bureau.17

“Each of these children represents either a potential addition to the productive 

capacity and the enlightened citizenship of the nation, or, if allowed to suffer 

from neglect, a potential addition to the destructive forces of the community ... 

The interests of the nation are involved in the welfare of this army of children 

no less than in our great material affairs.” 

—Congressional Record, 60th Congress, 2nd session, February 15, 1909

National Child Labor Committee M

One of the Progressive Era’s most visible child-welfare advocacy groups was 

the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC). The NCLC was organized on April 

25, 1904, during a meeting of men and women at Carnegie Hall in New York 

City.

18 Founding members included Lillian Wald, Florence Kelley, Homer Folks, 

and Edward Devine, among others. Early NCLC meetings were devoted to 

determining an agenda for the group, and Kelley and Devine were instrumental 

in selecting the organization’s first legislative goal: establishment of a Federal 

children’s bureau. Once this was accomplished, the U.S. Children’s Bureau and 

NCLC would remain close allies for the next several decades.

In 1908, the NCLC hired Lewis Wickes Hine, an anthropologist and photographer from Fond du Lac, WI. Hine’s now-famous photographs of both rural and 

urban child workers helped awaken the Nation’s conscience to the problem of 

child labor. From 1910 to 1920, the Committee published and disseminated 

Hine’s photographs while promoting State and Federal laws to ban most forms 

of child labor and encouraging compulsory education.
Lewis Wickes Hine’s photograph of a 

6-year-old selling newspapers in St. 

Louis, MO, ca. 1910. (Library of Congress, 

LC-DIG-nclc-05323)

Lewis Wickes Hine’s photograph of 

5-year-old Mart, who picks 20 lbs. of 

Oklahoma cotton every day. (Library of 

Congress, LC-DIG-nclc-00596)

The Bureau Is Established

The 1909 White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children, and the 

President’s endorsement of its recommendations, brought much-needed attention to the proposal for a Federal bureau for children and the bill calling for its 

establishment, which was once again brought before Congress in 1909. High-level 

government officials, including the Director of the Census, Commissioner of Labor, 

and Commissioner of Education, formally supported the proposal. Supporters 

addressed some potential objections to the bill, among them the concern that the 

bureau would duplicate efforts of other Federal agencies or impinge upon States’ 

rights. Once again, little objection was voiced publicly to the bill, which received 

favorable recommendations from both Senate and House committees; yet once 

again, the bill failed to reach a vote.

In total, 11 bills (8 in the House and 3 in the Senate) were introduced between 1906 

and 1912 to establish a Federal children’s bureau. President William Howard Taft 
became the second President to give his endorsement to the proposal in 1910.19

Still, it took more than another year before the bill finally passed the Senate, on 

January 31, 1912. After the Senate vote, the bill easily passed the House on April 2, 

and President Taft signed it into law on April 9, 1912. With Taft’s signature, the U.S. 

Children’s Bureau was officially established within the Department of Commerce 

and Labor; less than 1 year later, on March 4, 1913, it would be transferred to the 

newly created Department of Labor.20

The text of the final bill was very similar to the original legislation drafted years 

earlier by the NCLC. It called upon the Children’s Bureau to “investigate and report 

upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people.” Although the bill authorized the Bureau to look into “all matters,” 

a few areas of focus were named for special consideration; these included “infant 

mortality, the birth rate, orphanages, juvenile courts, desertion, dangerous occupations, accidents and diseases 

of children, employment, 

and legislation affecting 

children in the several States 

and Territories.”21 The Bureau’s budget for its first year 

was to be $25,640, including 

payroll for a staff of 15.

President Howard Taft signed the bill creating the Children’s 

Bureau in 1912. (Library of Congress, LC-DIG-hec-15152)

A pamphlet published in 

1912 lays out the initial 

charter for the Children’s 

Bureau’s work, which focused on surveying existing 

resources to avoid any duplication of another public 

or private organization’s 

efforts. Initial tasks included creating a handbook of 

child-related national statistics, collecting a library 

of publications relating 
to children, surveying existing and pending State legislation affecting children, 

investigating the incidence and social causes of infant mortality, encouraging 

birth registration, and creating pamphlets for the general public on child-related 

topics. A few boundaries were clearly established. The Bureau did not have the 

authority to conduct any administrative work, including making or enforcing any 

regulations concerning child well-being. Its function was strictly to investigate 

and report on conditions. Also, a last-minute addition to the bill specified that “no 

official, or agent, or representative of said bureau shall, over the objection of the 

head of the family, enter any house used exclusively as a family residence.”22

Selection of the Bureau’s Chief was the next order of business. Both Jane Addams 

and Lillian Wald were reportedly invited to submit their names as candidates, but 

both refused for unknown reasons. Addams does appear, however, to have been 

influential in the decision—she sent both a telegram and letter to Wald just 3 days 

after the act was passed, proposing Hull House colleague Julia Lathrop for the job. 

On April 15, members of the NCLC met with President Taft and indicated Lathrop 

was their first choice. On April 17, Taft named Lathrop as Chief, and she became 

the first woman ever to be appointed head of a Federal bureau.23

Julia Lathrop: First Chief of the U.S. Children’s

Bureau, 1912–1921

M

Julia Lathrop was born in 1858 in Rockford, IL, the first of five children.24 Her 

father was a founding member of the Illinois Republican party and served in 

both the State legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives. Her mother 

was a college graduate and suffrage advocate. Lathrop attended Rockford 

Female Seminary for 1 year before moving on to Vassar College, where she 

graduated in 1880.

In 1890, after 10 years of service in her father’s law firm, Lathrop heard Jane 

Addams lecture on settlement house life one night at the Rockford Female 

Seminary auditorium. Inspired by what she heard, Lathrop soon moved from 

her parents’ home into Addams’ Hull House, where she lived and worked for 
the next 22 years alongside Florence Kelley and other influential advocates of 

social reform. While there, Lathrop was appointed to the Illinois Board of Charities, inspecting county institutions for homeless and mentally ill adults. She also 

helped to found the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, which eventually became the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration.

The Children’s Bureau’s first Chief, Julia Lathrop, ushered in research-based investigations 

to evaluate infant and maternal mortality, child labor, and other social ills. (Library of Congress, LC-DIG-npcc-19209)

At Addams’ urging, Julia Lathrop was named the first Chief of the U.S. Children’s Bureau in 1912. During the next 9 years, Lathrop directed research 

into child labor, maternal and infant mortality, juvenile delinquency, mothers’ 

pensions, and illegitimacy. Her staff fought for Federal child labor laws, helped 

increase birth registration, and published pamphlets on infant and prenatal care 

that would remain government bestsellers for decades. Lathrop also oversaw 

a tremendous expansion of the Bureau’s budget, staff, and influence—from 
its initial limited research and reporting function to an administrative unit with 

authority to create and implement child welfare policy. Lathrop was instrumental in drafting and achieving the passage of the Sheppard-Towner Maternity 

and Infancy Act in 1921. This act provided the first Federal funding for State 

programs to enhance maternal and infant health.

After retiring from the Bureau in 1921, Lathrop returned to Rockford, where 

she remained active in the women’s reform movement and worked with the 

Child Welfare Committee of the United Nations Commission on the Welfare of 

Children and Young Persons.

Chapter 1 Notes

1 Kriste Lindenmeyer, “A Right to Childhood”: The U.S. Children’s Bureau and Child Welfare, 

1912–1946 (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1997), 12.

2 Catherine Reef, Childhood in America: An Eyewitness History (New York: Facts On File, 2002).

3 Andrew L. Yarrow, History of U.S. Children’s Policy, 1900–Present (Washington, DC: First Focus., 

2009), 2, http://firstfocus.net/sites/default/files/r.2009-5.1.yarrow.pdf.

4 John R. Kemp, ed., Lewis Hine: Photographs of Child Labor in the New South (Jackson: University 

Press of Mississippi, 1986).

5 Yarrow, History of U.S. Children’s Policy, 2.

6 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 11.

7 All statistics in this box were taken from Bureau of Statistics, U.S. Treasury Department, 

Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1901 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1902); 

U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1912 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1913). Both available at http://www.census.gov/prod/

www/abs/statab1901-1950.htm.

8 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 12–13.

9 Ron Schmid, “Pasteurize or Certify: Two Solutions to the ‘Milk Problem’” (Washington, DC: A 

Campaign for Real Milk, 2003), http://www.realmilk.com/untoldstory_1.html.

10 “Social Work,” The Adoption History Project, last modified February 24, 2012, http://pages.

uoregon.edu/adoption/topics/socialwork.htm.

11 Howard Husock, “Bringing Back the Settlement House,” Public Interest, no. 109 (1992): 54, 

http://www.nationalaffairs.com/doclib/20080709_19921094bringingbackthesettlementhousehowardhusock.pdf.
12 Cecilia Tichi, “Justice, Not Pity: Julia Lathrop, First Chief of the U.S. Children’s Bureau” (guest 

lecture to the Federal Interagency Workgroup on Child Abuse and Neglect, September 2007), 

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/aboutcb/history_cb_transcript.htm.

13 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 9.

14 Information for this and the following paragraph taken from Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 

15–18.

15 Information for this box taken from “Orphan Train History” and related pages, National 

Orphan Train Complex, Inc., accessed May 18, 2012, http://orphantraindepot.com/OrphanTrainHistory.html.

16 U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Social and Rehabilitation Service, Children’s Bureau, The Story of the White House Conferences on Children and Youth (Washington, DC: 

U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967), http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/19074.PDF.

17 Information for the two preceding paragraphs taken from Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 

20–24.

18 “About NCLC,” National Child Labor Committee, 2010, http://www.nationalchildlabor.org/

history.html.

19 U.S. Department of Labor, Children’s Bureau, The Children’s Bureau: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Washington, DC, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1937), 11, http://www.mchlibrary.info/

history/chbu/20993.PDF.

20 Information for this and the preceding paragraph, except where otherwise noted, taken 

from Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 21–27, 41.

21 U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Children’s Bureau, The Children’s Bureau (Washington, DC: author, 1912), 2, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20364.pdf.

22 Ibid.

23 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 27–29.

24 Information for this box taken from Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 27–29; “Lathrop, Julia 

Clifford, ” Social Welfare History Project, accessed May 18, 2012, http://www.socialwelfarehistory.com/people/lathrop-julia-clifford/; “Julia Lathrop (1858–1932),” National Women’s History 

Museum, accessed May 18, 2012, http://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/julia-lathrop/; and Tichi, “Justice, Not Pity.”
Chapter 2

The Children’s Year campaign of 1918-1919 was viewed as 

a wartime activity. “Next to the duty of doing everything 

possible for the soldiers at the front, there could be, it seems 

to me, no more patriotic duty than that of protecting the 

children who constitute one-third of our population.”

—President Woodrow Wilson (Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-9867)
Chapter 2 

Saving Babies and Restoring 

Childhood (1912–1929)

Introduction

The Children’s Bureau’s first Chief, Julia Lathrop, took the reins with a small 

budget of just over $25,000 but a grand vision. She selected infant mortality as the 

Bureau’s first area of focus: conducting research, advocating comprehensive birth 

registration, and publishing advice for parents. Saving the lives of young children 

also was the primary goal for the Bureau’s nationwide wartime campaign, “The 

Children’s Year” (April 1918 to April 1919). Later in its first decade, with a budget 10 

times its initial appropriation, the Bureau expanded its efforts to include research 

and standard-setting in the areas of child labor, juvenile delinquency, mothers’ 

aid, illegitimacy, child welfare, and child health. The Bureau’s first foray into administrative responsibility was short-lived; the child labor–focused Keating-Owen 

Act was declared unconstitutional in 1918, less than 2 years after it was passed. 

However, with the passage of the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act in 

1921, the Children’s Bureau assumed responsibility for administering the country’s 

first Federal social services grants to States. 

Getting Started

Julia Lathrop was appointed Chief of the Children’s Bureau on April 17, 1912, 

and her work began almost immediately. Funds were not available until August, 

so Lathrop spent her own money to travel the country that spring and summer, 

meeting with women’s organizations, child welfare advocates, and other sup-
porters. She gathered input from such influential reformers as Lillian Wald, Jane 

Addams, Homer Folks, and Edward Devine; she also attended meetings such as 

the National Conference of Charities and Corrections and the biennial convention 

of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs.1 These activities helped Lathrop conceptualize both the content and methods of the Bureau’s first year—and became 

the blueprint for the Bureau’s 100-year tradition of convening experts to advise 

and guide its work.

“The justice of today is born of yesterday’s pity ... This bureau is an expression 

of the Nation’s sense of justice. It will need, as perhaps no other bureau of the 

government will need, the continuance of the popular pity which demanded and 

secured it.” 

—Julia Lathrop, National Conference on Charities and Corrections, 19122

Once her budget was available, Lathrop’s first task was to hire staff. Due to her 

insistence on following civil service protocols to avoid favoritism, this process 

took nearly 6 months. During that time Lathrop faced her own challenges. After 

President Woodrow Wilson was elected, some of Lathrop’s political rivals suggested she be replaced by a Democrat; however, Lathrop was reappointed to her 

post and unanimously confirmed by the Senate. On March 4, 1913, the Bureau was 

transferred to the newly created Department of Labor under the authority of new 

administrators.3

“It is obvious that ... in order to accomplish anything at all, it was necessary 

that the staff should be composed of specially qualified persons. In so small a 

staff also a capacity for all-around work, a spirit of cooperation, and the power 

of teamwork are indispensable.” 

—First Annual Report of the Chief, 19144

Given the breadth of the Bureau’s mandate and its small budget and staff, Lathrop 

knew she needed to be selective about the projects she attempted in the first year. 

In addition to establishing a child welfare library and collecting government data 

on the demographics and well-being of U.S. children, as directed by legislation, she 

needed to choose a manageable topic for the Bureau’s first original research. Child 

labor, although a driving force behind the Bureau’s establishment, was rejected as 
too controversial a place 

to begin.5 In the end, Chief 

Lathrop decided to focus 

the Bureau’s efforts on 

decreasing infant mortality. 

This topic met the criteria she described in her 

first annual report to the 

Secretary of Labor: it addressed a “pressing need” 

and could be done “a small 

bit at a time.”6 It also was 

seen as an opportunity to 

help establish the Bureau’s 

credibility, as it “offered 

the possibility of quickly 

establishing the scientific 

character of the Bureau’s 

work and its usefulness 

to the public.”7 Finally, the 

topic had popular appeal, 

its findings could be easily communicated to the 

public, and it provided a 

basis for concrete action on 

behalf of children. It is likely that the lack of potential for controversy also played 

a role—no one would argue with the goal of saving babies. 

M

From left to right, Florence Kelley, Jane Addams, and Julia 

Lathrop at the Hull House 40th birthday celebration. Lathrop established the precedent of consulting with experts in 

the field. (©Bettmann/CORBIS/ AP Images)

The Important Role of Women’s Clubs

Late 19th- and early 20th-century middle-class women found camaraderie 

and an acceptable outlet for social activism in the formation of women’s clubs. 

Clubs capitalized on the Victorian era’s idealization of women as men’s moral 
superiors and the accompanying authority granted to them in matters of family 

health and welfare to achieve important social and political goals. These included improving the safety of the nation’s food and milk supply, juvenile justice and 

prison reform, labor reforms for women and children, and more. 

Some of the largest, most powerful groups of the time included the Women’s 

Christian Temperance Union (est. 1874), National Congress of Mothers (1897, 

known today as the National Parent Teacher Association), Daughters of the 

American Revolution (1890), and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs 

(1890). The National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, established in 

1896 by a group of women that included Harriet Tubman and Margaret Murray 

Washington (wife of Booker T. Washington), focused on enhancing “the homelife, moral standards, and civic life of our race.”8

Groups such as these were critical to the Children’s Bureau’s success during its 

first few decades, beginning with the establishment of the Bureau itself. Clubwomen staged powerful letter-writing campaigns to support and, when necessary, protect the Bureau and its chiefs, many of whom were themselves valued 

club members. Some of their most notable victories included helping Lathrop 

retain her position when President Wilson’s election appeared to threaten the 

appointment and supporting the Bureau’s request for a large budget increase in 

1914. Women’s clubs also successfully lobbied for landmark legislation such as 

the Sheppard-Towner Act, the first Federal child labor law, and a deficiency bill 

authorizing the Emergency Maternity and Infant Care program (EMIC) during 

World War II. 

Equally important, clubs mobilized legions of volunteers to assist the Bureau’s 

efforts in understanding and preventing infant mortality by conducting birth registration and Baby Week campaigns throughout the Nation. This willing army of 

volunteers supplemented the Bureau’s relatively small budget and staff; without 

them, only a small portion of the Bureau’s early achievements could have been 

realized.9
Why Babies Die: The Bureau’s First Research Program

Lathrop knew addressing infant mortality would require a two-pronged approach: 

(1) determine more clearly how many babies were dying, by expanding birth 

registration efforts, and (2) understand why so many babies died before their first 

birthday.

The Bureau saw birth registration as essential, not only for its role in addressing 

infant mortality, but also because it supported school enrollment and the management of child labor. At the time of the Bureau’s creation, mandatory birth registration existed only in Massachusetts.10 Beginning in 1914, Bureau staff worked 

closely with volunteer committees to investigate birth registration in small areas 

throughout the country. These volunteers were typically women, many of them 

members of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs; as many as 1,500 volunteers in 17 States participated during 

fiscal year 1914 alone.11 Their efforts 

resulted in the establishment of a “birth 

registration area” of 10 States and the 

District of Columbia by 1915.12

The cover of Infant Mortality: Results of a 

Field Study in Johnstown, Pa., Based on 

Births in One Calendar Year. (Maternal and 

Child Health Library)

Even with such tremendous volunteer 

support, however, a national study of 

the causes of infant mortality was out 

of the question on the Bureau’s limited 

budget. Instead, Lathrop selected the 

modest city of Johnstown, PA, for the 

Bureau’s study. Its population of fewer 

than 100,000 people and its established 

birth and death registration program 

made it a good case study. Lathrop also 

chose to focus her study strictly on social and environmental factors in infant 

deaths, citing the lack of medical staff 

at the Bureau (and perhaps to avoid criticism that the Bureau was duplicating 

work of the Public Health Service). With 
the help of volunteers, 

four field agents spent the 

early months of 1913 and a 

budget of $2,500 collecting 

data on all children born in 

Johnstown during 1911.13

The study, published in 

1915, found an overall 

mortality rate of 134 deaths 

per 1,000 live births—

slightly higher than the 

national estimates of the 

time.14 More importantly, it 

revealed a vast discrepancy 

in mortality rates based on 

socioeconomic factors: babies born to literate and native-born mothers and those 

whose fathers earned higher wages, for example, fared better than those born to 

illiterate or foreign-born women or those whose fathers earned less. Babies also 

were more likely to survive if their mothers were married and stayed home with 

them during the first year. Those born to single or working mothers were at far 

greater risk. 

A photo from inside Infant Mortality: Results of a Field 

Study in Johnstown, Pa., Based on Births in One Calendar 

Year depicting the conditions of Plum Street tenements. 

(Maternal and Child Health Library)

The findings of this initial study provided concrete data to demonstrate the grave 

necessity of the Bureau’s work. In her very first report to the Secretary of Labor 

in January of 1914, Lathrop introduced a plan to expand the Bureau’s budget and 

staff. She wrote, “It is obvious that even the most superficial survey of the Bureau’s 

great field is impossible with the present force....”15 Therefore, she requested 

her budget be increased to $164,640, more than six times its original level. This 

request was initially denied. But on April 16, 1914, after a brief letter-writing 

campaign by Bureau supporters, the decision was reversed and her appropriation 

increased for 1915. Annual appropriations for the rest of Lathrop’s term would 

range between $250,000 and $350,000.16

In 1915, Lathrop increased her staff from 15 to 76 people. The Bureau continued to 

draw on the assistance of its volunteers from the General Federation of Women’s 
Clubs, National Consumers’ League, Congress of Mothers, Daughters of the American Revolution, and other women’s associations to complete birth registration 

campaigns and infant mortality studies. Between 1914 and 1921, the birth registration area grew to include 27 States, and research similar to the Johnstown study 

was completed in nine more cities. Further infant mortality studies confirmed the 

connection between poverty and infant deaths, finding low paternal income to 

be the primary factor in high infant mortality rates. In one study, the infant death 

rate among the poorest families was as high as 1 in 7, while prosperous families 

experienced a much lower rate of 1 in 27.17 These studies also revealed higher 

mortality rates among immigrants. 

Few of these early studies (most of which were conducted in Northern cities 

where few, if any, African-American families lived) explored discrepancies in 

infant mortality rates due to race. However, at least two studies—one in Montclair, 

NJ, and the other in Baltimore—were conducted in communities with significant 

African-American populations. The Montclair study,18 for example, found that the 

infant mortality rate for the fourth ward of the city, the poorest and most congested area where most of the city’s African-American and immigrant families 

lived, was nearly one and one-half times as high as the rate for the town as a 

whole in 1912 (130.4 deaths for children under 1 year old per 1,000 births, vs. 84.6). 

African-American families bore the brunt of this discrepancy: While the infant 

mortality rate for foreign-born mothers (88.1) was higher than for native White 

mothers (49), the rate for African-American mothers (151.5) was more than three 

times as high. In the Baltimore study,19 infant mortality among African-American 

families (158.6 deaths per 1,000 live births) was found to be nearly one and onehalf times greater than for all families (103.5) and higher than any other group 

except Polish immigrants (163.2). The report identifies several reasons for this, the 

most significant being the very low wages earned by African-American fathers 

(median annual earnings of $474 vs. $796 for native-born White fathers) and the 

prevalence of mothers’ employment. None of the early studies were conducted in 

areas with significant Asian, Hispanic, or Native American populations.

In addition to the community infant mortality analyses, Bureau staff researched 

preventive measures in the United States, several European countries, and New 

Zealand. All of these studies led to a growing emphasis on prenatal care and 

physician-attended births, in response to the high proportion of infants who died 
within their first few days of life. The Children’s Bureau also urged cities to improve 

public sanitation and milk supply, on the basis of its research. At least in part due 

to these efforts, national infant mortality rates fell 24 percent between 1915 and 

1921.20

Seven Decades of Infant CareM

In its popular Infant Care booklet, 

Children’s Bureau staff worked 

diligently to provide parents with the 

most current information and guidance 

available. As medical knowledge grew 

and social mores shifted over time, so 

did the advice given to parents in each 

new printing of the booklet, of which 

at least 14 editions were published 

between 1914 and 1989.21

Feeding Baby

The 1914 edition strongly emphasizes 

breastfeeding due to the absence of 

safe alternatives: “Statistics gathered 

from this country and many others 

show that breast-fed babies have 

a much greater chance for life than 

those who are bottle fed.”22 For mothers unable to breastfeed, this edition 

includes instructions for home pasteurization of milk and how to make an 

inexpensive wooden icebox (39–41).

1989: “If for some reason you cannot or choose not to breastfeed your baby, 

bottlefeeding of infant formulas is a good substitute.”23

Cover from the 1935 issue of Infant Care, 

a popular Children’s Bureau booklet that 

provided parenting guidance. (Maternal 

and Child Health Library at Georgetown 

University)
Toilet Training

1914: “In order to do away with the need for diapers as early in life as possible, 

the baby should be taught to use the chamber. This training may be begun by 

the third month, or even earlier in some cases” (51).

By 1963, thinking on the subject had changed dramatically: “Most babies 

aren’t ready to master such delicate timing until long past a year of age, so the 

subject scarcely belongs in a book on infants.” It is not mentioned in the 1980 

or 1989 edition.24

Father Involvement

1914: “It is a regrettable fact that the few minutes of play that the father has 

when he gets home at night, which is often almost the only time he has with 

the child, may result in nervous disturbance of the baby and upset his regular 

habits” (59–60).

By 1989, fathers are mentioned frequently throughout the booklet: “Fathers can 

do almost anything for baby that mothers can do” (101). Play is encouraged:

“You and your baby get to know and understand each other as you play together. That’s a good reason to make sure that father, grandparents and other 

children as well as mother have time to play with baby” (52).

Habits

A section labeled “Bad Habits” in the 1914 edition includes crying, pacifiers, 

thumb or finger sucking, bed wetting, and masturbation. For thumb sucking: 

“The sleeve may be pinned or sewed down over the fingers of the offending 

hand for several days and nights, or the hand may be put in a cotton mitten” 

(61).

Compare this to the 1989 edition’s advice: “Most babies get their thumbs and 

fingers in their mouths and suck on them. Many seem to find it very enjoyable 

and do it often. It causes no harm and can be ignored” (38). 
Nurturing Baby

Some of the advice given to mothers in 1914 rings true, even today:

 “[A baby] has no other means of expressing his needs in the early months of 

life, and his cry ought to be heeded” (60).

“Harsh punishment has no place in the proper upbringing of the baby” (62).

“All babies need mothering, and should have plenty of it” (60).

Prenatal Care was first published in 1913. 

(Maternal and Child Health Library at Georgetown University)

Guidance for Parents

The publication of a modest pamphlet 

on prenatal care, released around the 

same time as the Children’s Bureau’s 

first infant mortality study, would prove 

to be one of the Bureau’s most notable 

accomplishments during its early years. 

Prenatal Care, first published in July of 

1913, was prompted by findings that 

more than 42 percent of infants dying in 

their first year did not survive even their 

first month of life and that nearly 70 

percent of those died as a result of conditions present before birth or accidents 

occurring at birth. Its first edition was 

written by Mary Mills West (“Mrs. Max 

West”), a Bureau staff member whose 

qualifications Lathrop lists in her Letter 

of Transmittal as “university training, 

experience in Government research, and 

... a family of young children.” In writing 

the booklet, West conducted “careful 
study of the literature of the subject” and sought the advice and feedback of doctors, nurses, and mothers.25

A second booklet by the same author, Infant Care, followed the next year. Both 

booklets claim to offer “such statements regarding hygiene and normal living as 

every mother has a right to possess in the interest of herself and her children.”26

In fact, a certain level of income is assumed by many of the recommendations. 

Women are advised to breastfeed their infants and not to work. Suburban homes 

are strongly advised; “tenements with dark rooms are not fit homes for children.”27

On the other hand, recommendations such as providing lots of nurturing and 

avoiding harsh punishment were accessible to all. 

The booklets, first published at a time 

when the only parenting advice available to many women was passed orally 

from generation to generation, were 

soon in high demand. Women from all 

over the country, many of whom lived 

in rural areas with limited access to 

medical care and advice, wrote to the 

Bureau requesting the information. The 

demand consistently outpaced frequent printings. The Children’s Bureau 

distributed almost 1.5 million copies 

of Infant Care alone between 1914 and 

1921; by 1929, the Bureau estimated 

that the information in its pamphlets 

had benefited one-half of all U.S. babies.28 Both booklets remained on the 

Federal Government’s bestseller list for 

decades.

A third popular booklet, Your Child From 

One to Six, was added as a result of the 

Children’s Year in 1918. In 1919, a medical advisory committee of pediatricians 

Your Child From One to Six was added to the 

Children’s Bureau’s publication catalogue 

as a result of the Children’s Year campaign 

in 1918 and was printed well into the 1970s.

(Maternal and Child Health Library at Georgetown University)
and obstetricians was established; this body advised the Bureau for decades on 

these and other publications for parents.29

Defending a Right to Childhood: The Bureau and Child Labor

With increased staff capacity, the Bureau was able to expand its focus to other 

areas of child welfare beginning in 1915. Child labor was a top priority. By 1912, 

every State had some form of protective legislation for child workers. However, 

those laws and their enforcement varied widely. Many Children’s Bureau supporters believed that a Federal child labor law was the best way to ensure uniform 

protection for all children.30

Lewis Hine’s photo of 12-year-old Clinton Stewart, ca. 1915, on the mowing machine that severed 

his hand. Like Hine’s images, Children’s Bureau research raised awareness of the conditions and 

struggles experienced by child laborers. (Library of Congress, LC-DIG-nclc-00305)

In 1915, the Children’s Bureau published two studies on the issue. One gathered 

and summarized the child labor laws in every State, finding tremendous disparities. The second looked at the enforcement of such laws in Connecticut.31

During the decades that followed, the Bureau undertook a series of studies to 

examine children’s working conditions by visiting child laborers in their homes 

and workplaces: Eastern European immigrant boys toiling in Pennsylvania coal 
mines; poor, native White and African-American families working side by side in 

oyster-shucking shacks on the Gulf coast; children of Russian-German and Mexican descent laboring in Colorado beet fields; and children of all races engaged in 

various forms of “street work” in cities across the country, to name just a few.32

At the same time, the NCLC was leading the charge for a Federal child labor law. In 

January 1914, a bill discouraging child labor by prohibiting interstate shipment of 

materials produced by businesses that employed young children was introduced 

in both the Senate and House. That bill was not successful; however, a similar bill 

introduced in 1916 by Senator Robert L. Owen (D-OK) and Representative Edward 

Keating (D-CO) was passed and signed by President Wilson on September 1, 1916. 

The Children’s Bureau was tasked with administering and enforcing this law, 

including the authority to levy fines or impose imprisonment in situations where 

employers knowingly violated the law. This was a significant provision, because it 

marked the first time that the Bureau’s authority was expanded beyond its original “investigate and report” mandate. Congress appropriated $150,000 for the law’s 

enforcement, which was to begin 1 year after its passage.33

Chief Lathrop hired Grace Abbott to lead the Bureau’s newly created Child Labor 

Division in April of 1917. In the year before the law went into effect, staff helped 

State officials inspect approximately 700 factories and mines and issued work certificates (permits) in five States where child labor regulations fell below the Federal 

standard. However, on August 31, 1917—just 1 day before the new law went into 

effect—a North Carolina judge ruled the law unconstitutional. A legal battle ensued, ending in a five-to-four Supreme Court decision in June 1918 upholding the 

North Carolina ruling.

A second Federal child labor law, this one using the tax code to penalize those employing children, was passed on February 24, 1919. Although supported by many of 

the same groups, this law was to be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service, rather 

than the Children’s Bureau. With no administrative authority remaining in this area, 

Lathrop had no choice but to dismantle her Child Labor Division; Grace Abbott returned home to Illinois. This second law also was ruled unconstitutional, in May 1922. 

Faced with the defeat of two Federal laws, the child labor movement shifted its 

focus to passing a constitutional amendment. The Bureau was supportive but not 
directly involved in this fight, contributing primarily through its research. Between 

1915 and 1930, the Bureau published 31 studies on the topic, with titles such as 

Canal-Boat Children, Minors in Automobile and Metal-Manufacturing Industries in Michigan, Child Labor and the Work of Mothers on Norfolk Truck Farms, The Welfare of Children 

in Cotton-Growing Areas of Texas, and Industrial Accidents to Employed Minors in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.

34 These studies helped to uncover the extent 

of child labor and the difficult conditions under which many children worked. An 

amendment was presented to the States in 1924; supporters were optimistic about 

ratification, but it was never achieved.

Baby Weeks, Children’s Year

Meanwhile, the Bureau’s commitment to fighting infant mortality led to a natural 

tie-in with the proliferation of “baby saving” campaigns throughout the country.35

The National Congress of Mothers had held “well baby conferences” since 1909, 

offering free preventive and diagnostic exams for infants. In 1912, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs got involved in the effort, adding elements of community education and advocacy for public improvements such as enhanced sanitation. “Better baby” contests at State fairs also became popular during this period, 

although they tended to focus more on aesthetics than health. 

The Children’s Bureau favored campaigns focusing on effective prenatal care, public sanitation, and education of mothers. It also endorsed activities such as infant 

health clinics, visiting nurses, certified milk stations, and “Little Mother Leagues,” 

which instructed school-age girls in the proper care of their younger siblings. In 

1913, Lathrop surveyed mayors of 109 cities with populations of more than 50,000 

people about their baby saving efforts. The results were published in Baby-Saving 

Campaigns: A Preliminary Report on What American Cities Are Doing to Prevent Infant 

Mortality, in 1914.36

Large cities such as New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Chicago began to hold 

“Baby Week” campaigns around the same time. Typically conducted as collaborations between municipal health departments and local child welfare organizations, 

these campaigns sought to educate mothers in the best ways to promote their children’s health. In 1915, the Bureau released a pamphlet titled Baby-Week Campaigns: 
Suggestions for Communities of Various Sizes at the request of the General Federation 

of Women’s Clubs.37 This booklet described some of these early Baby Weeks; it also 

provided suggestions for communities wishing to carry out their own campaigns. 

The publication helped prepare communities for observances of National Baby 

Week in March 1916 and May 1917, efforts cosponsored by the Children’s Bureau 

and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. At least 2,100 communities participated in National Baby Week in 1916 alone.38 The collaborative spirit of this 

early venture, as well as the Bureau’s commitment to making its research findings 

accessible not just to a select few professionals but to all parents and communities, 

would prove consistent with the Children’s Bureau’s later work. 

“If the bureau is to investigate and to 

report as the law directs, then it must 

try to find ways of reporting that will 

be heard by the whole public which it 

was created to serve.” 

—Julia Lathrop39

Apparently encouraged by the success 

of these observances, the Bureau proclaimed a “Children’s Year” beginning 

April 6, 1918. This wartime campaign, 

jointly sponsored with the Woman’s 

Committee of the National Council of 

Defense, was developed to remind the 

country of the importance of protecting children “as a patriotic duty.”40

There were many potential threats to 

children’s health during World War I, 

including shortages of milk, food, and 

public health nurses. The Children’s 

Bureau also feared that increased labor 

demands would lure more mothers of 

young children into the workforce. Attention to children’s health now, the Bureau 

argued, would help ensure a ready supply of physically fit soldiers in the future.

The cover of the Children’s Year final report.

(Maternal and Child Health Library at Georgetown University)
President Woodrow Wilson gave the Children’s Bureau $150,000 from a defense 

fund to implement the Children’s Year. The primary goal was to save the lives of 

100,000 babies—one-third of the estimated 300,000 U.S. children under age 5 who 

died each year. Activities included three separate campaigns: a back-to-school 

campaign to keep children out of the workforce, a campaign to establish more 

opportunities for children’s recreation and physical fitness, and a campaign to 

educate parents in child health and nutrition. Volunteers weighed and measured 

millions of children, resulting in the publication of the Nation’s first age, height, 

and weight standards.41 (These standards are provided on the basis of measurements of 167,024 White children with “no serious defects.” No explanation is 

offered regarding why children of color were excluded from the averages; it was 

likely due to the relatively small number of African-American children whose 

heights and weights were recorded.) The Bureau also encouraged State agencies to 

create traveling health and welfare exhibits for rural areas. In all, Children’s Year 

efforts engaged 17,000 committees and 11 million women—an unprecedented 

effort to raise awareness and improve child health and welfare.42

The Bureau’sM

International Program Begins

During WWI, while waiting for a train, 

four French refugee children are fed 

with milk and bread supplied by the 

American Red Cross. (AmericanPhotoArchive.com)

In 1916, Chief Lathrop received a 

letter from a group of Argentinian 

women who were putting together 

a Pan-American Congress on child 

welfare. Lathrop agreed to cooperate, 

helping to organize a U.S. committee 

that sent an unofficial representation of 

the United States to the first congress 

that year.43 Subsequent meetings took 

place through 1942; these meetings, 

and the U.S. Children’s Bureau’s 

participation, were critical in helping 
to establish child-protective legislation 

and programs in Latin America.

During World War I, the Bureau’s international program extended to Europe. 

Staff volunteers traveled there to work 

with the International Red Cross; in 

turn, representatives from allied nations were invited to the Second White 

House Conference on Children. From 

late December 1918 to mid-February 

1919, Chief Lathrop and Grace Abbott 

visited France, England, and Belgium 

to interview potential conference 

participants and explore the plight of 

children in war-torn Europe.44

A badge from the First Pan-American 

Child Welfare Congress held in Buenos 

Aires, Argentina , July 6–16, 1916. (Library of Congress, LC-DIG-nclc-05119)

1919 White House Conference on Standards of Child Welfare

Some of the nearly 200—domestic and international—attendees at the second White House Conference on Children 

in 1919. (Library of Congress, LC-DIG-npcc-33232)

At the conclusion of the 

Children’s Year, President 

Wilson and the Children’s 

Bureau called the second 

White House Conference 

on Children, held May 5–8, 

1919, in Washington, DC. 

The small gathering of 

approximately 200 child 

welfare specialists met 

with the goal of establishing “certain irreducible 

minimum standards for 

the health, education, 

and work of the American 
child.”45 The gathering included representatives from a few of the allied nations, 

including France, Great Britain, and Japan, as well as representatives from the 

Public Health Service, juvenile court judges, State officials, social workers, pediatricians, psychiatrists, economists, and other child welfare professionals. During 

the meeting, Chief Lathrop presented her plan for the Federal Government to 

provide grants to States for educational programs to decrease infant and maternal 

mortality.46

The national gathering was followed by a series of eight regional conferences and 

a number of city and State meetings. Discussion at the regional conferences centered on four topics: the health of mothers and children, the economic and social 

basis for child welfare standards, child labor, and children with special needs.47

Child Welfare NewsM

Summary (1919–1935) 

In 1919, the Children’s Bureau published 

its first periodical, Child Welfare News 

Summary, which was circulated to 

Bureau staff as well as State and local 

Bureau partners. (Regenstein Library at 

the University of Chicago)

The Children’s Bureau’s first periodical 

appeared in 1919. The mimeographed 

Child Welfare News Summary was 

originally created just for Bureau staff. 

Eventually, its mailing list expanded to 

include State and local Bureau partners—at one point as many as 1,200 

people. Issued three times per month 

from 1921 to 1932, and irregularly 

between 1932 and 1935, the News 

Summary was replaced in 1936 by 

The Child.

48
Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act

As early as 1917, Chief Lathrop outlined a plan for “the public protection of maternity and infancy with Federal aid” in her annual report to the Secretary of Labor. It 

included provisions for public health nurses, child hygiene education for mothers, 

child health conferences to provide well-child exams and advice, and accessible 

maternity and hospital care.49 She proposed Federal grants to States to provide 

these services, a model without precedent in social services but well established 

in agriculture, transportation, and other areas of national concern.

The Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921 was the first of its kind, sending Federal funds through the 

Children’s Bureau to the States. Pictured here, ca. 1921, are many of the women who worked on 

the passage of the act: Mary Stewart, Mrs. Ellis Yost, Mrs. Maud Wood Park, Jeannette Rankin, 

Mrs. Florence Kelley, Lida Hafford, Mrs. La Rue Brown, Adah Bush, Betsy Edwards, Mrs. Raymond Morgan, Mrs. Arthur Watkins, Mrs. Milton P. Higgins, and Amy Maher. (Library of Congress, 

LC-USZ62-63740)

In August of that year, Chief Lathrop, Lillian Wald, Florence Kelley, and several 

Bureau staff members met with Representative Jeannette Pickering Rankin (R-MT), 

who had recently become the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Adapting 
models for public maternal and infant care in New York City, Great Britain, and 

New Zealand, and incorporating findings from the Bureau’s own infant mortality 

studies, the women drafted a plan for a U.S. program with an emphasis on services for rural areas. The bill was first introduced by Rankin and Senator Joseph T. 

Robinson (D-AR) in 1918 without success. Similar bills were proposed in late 1919 

by Senator Morris Sheppard (D-TX) and Representative Horace Mann Towner (RIA). Although initially unsuccessful, this later bill was reintroduced and eventually 

passed in 1921, thanks in part to the support of President Warren G. Harding and 

pressure from recently enfranchised women voters.50

The Sheppard-Towner Act was signed into law on November 23, 1921. The program 

called for a Federal Board of Maternity and Infant Hygiene to review and approve 

State-originated plans for the use of Federal funds. This board comprised the U.S. 

Surgeon General, the Commissioner of Education, and the Chief of the Children’s 

Bureau. Children’s Bureau staff also administered the funds and provided consultation upon request to States in developing their plans or legislation to comply 

with the act. Funding was authorized for 5 years, through June 1927.

Even before the bill was passed, it became clear that Lathrop did not intend to be 

the one to implement it. In June 1921, Chief Lathrop had written to her former 

employee, Grace Abbott, about returning to the Bureau in the role of Chief. Lathrop 

officially announced her intention to retire in August, and she recommended that 

Abbott be named as her replacement. With the Senate’s unanimous approval, 

President Harding appointed Grace Abbott to be the second Chief of the Children’s 

Bureau.51

Sheppard-Towner funds became available on March 20, 1922, but it took most States 

longer to enact legislation that made them eligible for the funds. By the end of June, 

11 States had qualified; 31 others were in the process. Only three States—Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Lathrop’s home State of Illinois—refused to take advantage 

of the funding for the program’s duration. Opposition to the program seemed to 

arise from concerns about the Federal Government infringing on States’ rights.52

The projects implemented with Sheppard-Towner funds in most States included:

• Midwife training programs, licensing, and enforcement
• Individualized parent instruction through traveling health demonstrations, stationary health centers, home visits from public health nurses, 

and correspondence courses

• Group education, such as classes in prenatal and infant care or nutrition, traveling health clinics, and movies or filmstrips

• Distribution of literature, including the translation of some Bureau publications into other languages

• Establishment of standards and licensing procedures for maternity 

homes

• Data collection on maternal and infant mortality and morbidity

Among the many activities established by the Sheppard-Towner Act were traveling health demonstrations and 

dispensaries, such as this traveling health dispensary in 

Connecticut. (Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-16720)

Although most of these 

activities benefited White 

families, some efforts 

were made to reach out 

to minority populations. For example, an 

African-American female 

physician instructed 

African-American midwives in Delaware, Georgia, 

Tennessee, Texas, and 

Virginia and conducted 

child health conferences 

at Tuskegee Institute. A 

Spanish-speaking public health nurse helped 

instruct midwives in New 

Mexico.53 Sheppard-Towner activities as a whole, many of which were concentrated in rural areas where women might otherwise lack access to medical care, likely 

contributed to the decline in the overall U.S. infant mortality rate during this period. Within the birth registration area of 44 States and the District of Columbia, the 

infant mortality rate decreased from 76 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 1921, 

to 69 in 1928. However, these activities had little effect on the higher-than-average 
mortality rate for nonWhite infants, which 

declined only slightly from 

108 in 1921 to 106 in 1928.54

Under Abbott’s direction, 

an annual appropriation of 

$1 million was distributed 

to States in each of the 

program’s initial 5 years. 

In 1927, with President 

Calvin Coolidge’s approval, 

Congress continued the 

program for 2 years. Efforts 

to continue the program 

beyond 1929 were not 

successful. Before it was 

terminated, however, it was estimated that the program touched the lives of more 

than 4 million infants and preschool children and approximately 700,000 pregnant 

women.55

Sheppard-Towner Act activities included home visits by 

public health nurses. A toddler is weighed at a child health 

clinic with an exhibit in the background featuring Children’s 

Bureau pamphlets used by nurses to train “Little Mothers” 

on proper infant and child care. (National Library of Medicine)

Grace Abbott: Chief of the Children’s Bureau 

1921–1934

M

Grace Abbott was born in 1878 in Grand Island, NE.56 After graduating from 

Grand Island College in 1898, she taught high school while completing graduate studies at the University of Nebraska and University of Chicago. In 1907 

she moved to Chicago, where she earned a master of philosophy degree in political science from the University of Chicago and eventually became a resident 

of Jane Addams’ Hull House. 

A staunch advocate of immigrants’ rights, Abbott helped to organize the 

Immigrants’ Protective League, studied conditions at Ellis Island, and testified 
before Congress against immigration restrictions. In 1909–1910, Abbott penned 

a weekly article for the Chicago Evening Post on the subject. Her book, The 

Immigrant and the Community, was published in 1917. 

The press gave Grace Abbott, the Bureau’s second 

Chief, the moniker “Mother of America’s 43 million 

children.” (Associated Press) 

Abbott first joined the 

staff of the Children’s 

Bureau in 1917, as Director of the Child Labor 

Division. In that role, 

she administered the 

first Federal child labor 

law until it was declared 

unconstitutional in 1918. 

In 1919, after staying 

on to assist Lathrop 

with the Second White 

House Conference 

on Children, Abbott 

returned to Illinois. Her 

stay there was brief, 

however; in 1921, President Warren Harding called on Abbott to return to Washington as Julia Lathrop’s successor and the Children’s Bureau’s second Chief. 

As Chief, Abbott was responsible for administering the Sheppard-Towner Act, 

which provided Federal grants-in-aid to States for maternal and infant health 

care. After a second Federal child labor law was declared unconstitutional in 

1922, she also supported a constitutional amendment prohibiting child labor. 

Abbott became one of the first female broadcasters to a national audience 

when she hosted the NBC Radio series, “Your Child,” beginning in 1929.

In 1934, Abbott resigned from the Children’s Bureau and accepted a position 

as professor of public welfare at the University of Chicago’s School of Social 

Service Administration. However, she remained involved with the Bureau; in 

1934–1935 she helped draft the child welfare provisions of the Social Security 

Act as a member of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Advisory Council on 

Economic Security. She also wrote an influential sociological work, The Child 

and the State, published in 1938. Abbott died in 1939.
Delinquency, Dependency, and Disease: The Bureau’s Research 

Expands

Maternal and infant care and child labor consumed the bulk of the Bureau’s 

resources and attention during its first two decades. However, the Bureau also 

conducted approximately 50 other studies concerning children’s welfare during 

that period, focusing on juvenile delinquency, mothers’ aid, illegitimacy, foster 

care, and children’s diseases.57

Cover of the 1926 publication Community 

Care of Dependent, Delinquent, and Handicapped Children. (Maternal and Child Health 

Library)

Delinquency and Juvenile Courts

Juvenile and family courts were still 

very new to the United States—the 

first true juvenile courts were created 

in 1899. As early as 1914, the Bureau 

undertook a study of juvenile court 

procedures in Connecticut.58 In 1921, 

field work was completed for a more 

extensive study of the organization and 

methods of 10 juvenile courts in different States. This research revealed a lack 

of standardization in the courts’ organization and procedures, prompting the 

creation of a committee to establish the 

first-ever standards for effective juvenile 

courts.59 These were officially adopted in 

May 1923, at a Washington, DC, conference cosponsored by the Bureau and the 

National Probation Association. These 

standards would remain the field’s 

benchmark for the next 20 years. 

Not long after, in 1926, the Bureau began 

to collect the first nationwide uniform 

juvenile court statistics; these were 
published in annual reports starting in 1927. In her annual reports to the Secretary 

of Labor for the years 1926 and 1927, Abbott lobbied unsuccessfully for additional 

funds to create a division of delinquency. She made similar requests in 1928 and 

1929—asking for funding both for statisticians to help with the uniform statistics 

project and to hire a “corps of experts” to keep up with requests for assistance 

from States and cooperating Federal agencies.60

At the heart of the Bureau’s interest in juvenile courts was the belief that such 

courts should strive “not to punish, but to save” the offenders.61 Along with this 

sentiment naturally came an interest in discovering the causes of delinquency, with 

the belief that an understanding of causes would pave the way for more effective 

prevention efforts. Interest in this area intensified with the onset of World War 

I, and in 1918, the Bureau issued Juvenile Delinquency in Certain Countries at War, a 

report that examined the incidence and causes of delinquency in England, France, 

Germany, and Russia during the war.62 Studies like this one pointed to other areas 

of Children’s Bureau interest, including mothers’ aid, illegitimacy, and child welfare. 

Mothers’ Aid

The Bureau’s interest in mothers’ aid dated back to the first White House Conference on Children, when participants affirmed the importance of home life, 

a mother’s care, and the belief that children should not be removed from their 

homes due to poverty alone. 

“Home life is the highest and finest product of civilization. It is the great molding force of mind and character. Children should not be deprived of it except for 

urgent and compelling reasons.” 

—From the concluding report of the first White House Conference63

In 1914, staff completed the Bureau’s first study of mothers’ aid: a compilation of 

the history and laws relating to mothers’ pensions in the United States, Denmark, 

and New Zealand. By 1916, 21 States had passed mothers’ aid laws; by 1920, that 

number climbed to 40 States.64 The Bureau’s attention then turned to administration 

of those laws, which varied widely—it soon became apparent that many mothers 

who needed aid were not receiving it, even where they qualified for aid under State 

law. In 1921, the Bureau published a study examining the administration of the Illi-
nois mothers’ aid program. The following 

year, a small conference of experts on 

mothers’ aid gathered to discuss casework standards and other issues. Several 

additional studies followed, including a 

1926 bulletin summarizing the history 

and current state of legislation: Public 

Aid to Mothers of Dependent Children.65 This 

research would help lay the groundwork 

for the Aid to Dependent Children provisions developed by Bureau staff for the 

1935 Social Security Act.

Research in the 1926 publication Public Aid 

to Mothers of Dependent Children laid the 

groundwork for the 1935 Aid to Dependent 

Children provisions. (Maternal and Child 

Health Library)

Illegitimacy

Mothers’ aid laws typically applied only 

to “deserving” women, usually married women who had been widowed 

or abandoned. However, the Children’s 

Bureau recognized that the needs of 

another group of children, those born 

out of wedlock, also must be addressed 

to effectively prevent delinquency and 

dependency. In the years 1913 through 

1916, the Bureau held conferences in 

five cities to discuss the needs of unmarried mothers and their children, with 

another two regional conferences in Chicago and New York occurring in 1920. 

Publications around the same time reported on illegitimacy laws in the United 

States, Norway, and other countries. In 1923, in part due to these efforts, a uniform 

illegitimacy law, providing for the support by both parents of children born out of 

wedlock, was approved by the National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform 

Laws; this became the basis of laws in several States.66

Child Welfare

The 1920s also saw an increased focus on child welfare, as States turned to the 

Children’s Bureau for assistance in organizing and evaluating their services. 
Studies in 1924 and 1925 examined the organization and results of various 

county-based child welfare services in multiple States. On February 15, 1929, representatives of 32 State departments of public welfare came to Washington, DC, 

for a conference on child dependency and protection. Topics of discussion included the scope of child welfare activities, problems at the county level, oversight by 

States, provisions for the care of dependent children, and collection of statewide 

statistics. Across States, there was a growing recognition that providing institutional care for dependent children was not the answer; instead, resources had to 

be invested in prevention efforts and social work with families to help children 

stay in their homes. For those who could not remain at home, there was a growing 

interest in foster family care. The Bureau published Foster-Home Care for Dependent 

Children in 1923.67

Rickets, a condition caused by a lack of 

vitamin D, calcium, or phosphate, weakens 

and softens bones. The disease and effective prevention methods were the center of 

a landmark Children’s Bureau study in the 

mid-1920s. Here, a sharecropper’s child in 

Mississippi County, AR, with rickets. (Library 

of Congress, LC-USF33-002002-M2)

Disease

“Diseases of children” was another topic 

the Bureau was mandated by legislation 

to study as its resources grew. Early research on what were then referred to as 

“feeble-minded” children was conducted in 1914–1915, in cooperation with 

the Bureau of Education and the Public 

Health Service.68 By the mid-1920s, 

the Children’s Bureau could fund such 

studies independently. One landmark 

example was the study of the incidence 

and prevention of rickets, conducted 

in partnership with the Yale University 

School of Medicine and the New Haven, 

Connecticut, Department of Health. Directed by Drs. Martha Eliot (who would 

later serve as Chief of the Children’s 

Bureau) and Edward A. Park, this study 

broke new ground by demonstrating 

the effectiveness of simple preventive 

methods such as sunbaths and cod liver 
oil. A study conducted around the same time of provisions for children with physical disabilities in 14 States would later form the basis of the Bureau’s recommendations to President Roosevelt’s Committee on Economic Security for a crippled 

children’s program. 69

M

From 1871 to 1934, a period known as the Boarding 

School Era, thousands of American Indian children 

were removed from their homes and placed in federally 

operated boarding schools. They were forbidden from 

speaking their Native language or practicing any aspect 

of their culture. Here, students sit in a government 

class at an Indian Boarding School in Carlisle, PA. 

(Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-55423)

Decline of Indian Boarding Schools 

Beginning in the late 19th century, the United States Indian Service established 

25 boarding schools for the education of Native American children and provided 

funding for many more such schools established and run by churches. Many 

of these were based on an assimilation model developed at the Carlisle Indian 

Industrial School, founded in 1879. Ostensibly intended to improve Native 

Americans’ lot by easing their transition into White society, in reality many of the 

schools proved dangerous to the children’s 

physical and emotional 

health.

A 1928 report produced 

by the Institute for 

Government Research, 

commonly known as 

the Meriam Report, 

found conditions at 

the schools to be 

“grossly inadequate.”70

Problems included 

overcrowding, disease, 

insufficient medical 

care, long hours of 

domestic work, and not 
enough nutritious food. In recent years, reports of physical and sexual abuse 

also have come to light.

The Meriam Report took issue with the removal (at times forced or coerced) of 

very young children from their homes and Tribes: “Education for the Indian in 

the past has proceeded largely on the theory that it is necessary to remove the 

Indian child as far as possible from his home environment; whereas the modern 

point of view in education and social work lays stress on upbringing in the natural setting of home and family life.” It suggested that cooperative relationships 

with public and private organizations, including the Children’s Bureau, could 

better inform the Indian Service’s work. Cooperation between the two agencies 

would be established in the decades to come.

By the time this report was issued, the Indian Service had already begun to 

shift its policy away from boarding schools toward the education of Native 

American children in public and day schools closer to home. However, boarding 

schools would remain open and in use, particularly for adolescents, well into 

the 1970s.

Chapter 2 Notes

1 Kriste Lindenmeyer, “A Right to Childhood”: The U.S. Children’s Bureau and Child Welfare, 1912–

1946 (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1997), 33–34; Dorothy E. Bradbury, Five Decades of Action for 

Children: A History of the Children’s Bureau (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1962), 5, http://

www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/2628.PDF.

2 Bradbury, Five Decades, 5.

3 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 38–41.

4 Julia Lathrop, First Annual Report of the Chief, Children’s Bureau, to the Secretary of Labor (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1913), 6, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/21867-1st.PDF.

5 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 37.

6 Lathrop, First Annual Report, 7.

7 Helen Witmer, A Research Program for the Children’s Bureau (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1953), 8.

8 “Who Are We,” National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, accessed May 23, 2012, 

http://nacwc.org/aboutus/index.html. 

9 See, for example, Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 32–35, 41, 53–54, 80–81, 114, 241.

10 Ibid., 35.
11 Julia Lathrop, Second Annual Report of the Chief, Children’s Bureau, to the Secretary of Labor

(Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1914), 10.

12 Bradbury, Five Decades, 11.

13 Lathrop, First Annual Report, 7–8

14 Emma Duke, Results of a Field Study in Johnstown, PA., Based on Births in One Calendar Year Infant Mortality Series No. 3 (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1915), http://www.mchlibrary.

info/history/chbu/2155.pdf.

15 Lathrop, First Annual Report, 6.

16 Lindenmeyer. Right to Childhood, 56.

17 Witmer, Research Program, 8.

18 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Infant Mortality, Montclair, N.J.: A Study of Infant Mortality 

in a Suburban Community Infant Mortality Series No. 4 (Washington, DC: Government Printing 

Office, 1915), http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/2140.PDF.

19 Anna Rochester, Infant Mortality: Results of a Field Study in Baltimore, MD. Based on Births in 

One Year (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1923), http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/

chbu/20544.pdf. 

20 Bradbury, Five Decades, 8-9.

21 Infant Care and its companion booklets, Prenatal Care and the Your Child series, were published by the Children’s Bureau through the release of the 1980 edition of Infant Care. Sometime before the 1983 edition of Prenatal Care was released, responsibility for their publication 

was shifted to the Maternal and Child Health Division of the Public Health Service.

22 Mrs. Max West, Infant Care (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1914), 7, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/3121-1914.PDF. Subsequent citations from this edition will be noted by 

page number only.

23 Bureau of Maternal and Child Health and Resources Development, Health Resources and 

Services Administration, U.S. Public Health Service, Infant Care (Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of 

Health and Human Services, 1989), 30, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/3121-1989.

PDF. Subsequent citations from this edition will be noted by page number only.

24 Quoted in Judith Reed, “Infant Care—Then and Now,” Children Today 20, no. 1 (1981): 20.

25 Mrs. Max West, Prenatal Care (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1913), 5, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/2265-1913.PDF.

26 West, Infant Care, 7. 

27 Ibid., 9.

28 Molly Ladd-Taylor, Raising a Baby the Government Way: Mothers’ Letters to the Children’s Bureau, 

1915–1932 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1986), 2.

29 Bradbury, Five Decades, 10.

30 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 114.
31 Ibid., 117. The two studies are Helen L. Sumner and Ella A. Merritt, Child Labor Legislation in 

the United States (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1915); and Helen L. Sumner and Ethel 

E. Hanks, Administration of Child Labor Laws: Part I, Employment Certificate System, Connecticut

(Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1915), http://books.google.com/books?id=kxlxmJPX9A0C&printsec=toc#v=onepage&q&f=false.

32 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Child Labor and the Welfare of Children in an Anthracite 

Coal-Mining District (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1922), http://pds.lib.harvard.

edu/pds/view/2581401?n=1&s=4&printThumbnails=no; Viola I. Paradise, Child Labor and the 

Work of Mothers in Oyster and Shrimp Canning Communities on the Gulf Coast (Washington, DC: 

Children’s Bureau, 1922), http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/2581409?&id=2581409; U.S. Dept. 

of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Child Labor and the Work of Mothers in the Beet Fields of Colorado and 

Michigan (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1923), http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/

view/2581123?&id=2581123; Nettie P. McGill, Children in Street Work (Washington, DC: Children’s 

Bureau, 1928), http://www.larrydewitt.net/SSinGAPE/street/file1.pdf. 

33 Information in this and the following three paragraphs taken from: Lindenmeyer, Right to 

Childhood, 117–32.

34 These and other titles can be found in the Maternal & Child Health Library at Georgetown 

University: http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/childrensbureau.html#history. 

35 Information for this and the following paragraph taken from: Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 49–50.

36 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Baby-Saving Campaigns: A Preliminary Report on What American Cities Are Doing to Prevent Infant Mortality (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1914), http://www.

mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20388.pdf.

37 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Baby-Week Campaigns: Suggestions for Communities of 

Various Sizes (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1915), http://www.mchlibrary.info/

history/chbu/20696.PDF. 

38 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Baby-Week Campaigns (Revised Edition) (Washington, 

DC: Government Printing Office, 1917), 10, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20696-

1917.pdf. 

39 Bradbury, Five Decades, 11.

40 Information for this paragraph, including quoted material, taken from Lindenmeyer, Right to 

Childhood, 71–72.

41 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Average Heights and Weights of Children Under Six Years 

of Age (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1921), 2, http://www.mchlibrary.info/

history/chbu/20494.PDF. 

42 Bradbury, Five Decades, 12.

43 Bradbury, Five Decades, 11.

44 Lindenmeyer, “A Right to Childhood,” 74.

45 President Woodrow Wilson, quoted in the Children’s Bureau’s The Story of the White House 

Conferences on Children and Youth (Washington, DC: printed by author, 1967), 6, http://www.

mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/19074.PDF.
46 Andrew L. Yarrow, History of U.S. Children’s Policy, 1900–Present (Washington, DC: First Focus, 

2009), 4, http://firstfocus.net/sites/default/files/r.2009-5.1.yarrow.pdf. 

47 Children’s Bureau, Story of the White House Conferences, 7.

48 Bradbury, Five Decades, 12.

49 Julia Lathrop, Fifth Annual Report of the Chief, Children’s Bureau, to the Secretary of Labor (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1917).

50 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 76–89.

51 Ibid., 90–92.

52 Ibid., 92–93.

53 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, The Seven Years of the Maternity and Infancy Act (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931), 16, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/

chbu/20659.PDF. 

54 Ibid., 6.

55 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 104.

56 Information for this box taken from John Sorenson, Grace Abbott: An Introduction (Omaha, NE: 

The Grace Abbott School of Social Work, 2010), http://www.unomaha.edu/socialwork/legacy/

grace_abbott_introduction.pdf; “Grace Abbott,” National Women’s History Museum, accessed 

May 22, 2012, http://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/grace-abbott/; Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood.

57 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 139.

58 Bradbury, Five Decades, 18.

59 Ibid., 19; U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Juvenile-Court Standards (Washington, DC: U.S. 

Government Printing Office, 1923), http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20531-1923.PDF.

60 Grace Abbott, Fourteenth Annual Report of the Chief of the Children’s Bureau to the Secretary of 

Labor (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1926), 35, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/21867-14th.PDF; Grace Abbott, Fifteenth Annual Report of the Chief of the Children’s Bureau to the 

Secretary of Labor (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1927), 42, http://www.mchlibrary.info/

history/chbu/21867-15th.PDF; Grace Abbott, Sixteenth Annual Report of the Chief of the Children’s 

Bureau to the Secretary of Labor (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1928), 52–53, http://www.

mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/21867-16th.PDF; Grace Abbott, Seventeenth Annual Report of the 

Chief of the Children’s Bureau to the Secretary of Labor (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1929), 

53, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/21867-17th.PDF. 

61 Quoted in Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 141.

62 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Juvenile Delinquency in Certain Countries at War: A Brief 

Review of Available Foreign Sources (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), http://

books.google.com/books?id=xx7httNcTU0C&printsec=titlepage#v=onepage&q&f=false. 

63 Children’s Bureau, Story of the White House Conferences, 4.
64 Bradbury, Five Decades, 15–16. The 1914 study referenced: U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Laws Relating to “Mothers’ Pensions” in the United States, Denmark and New Zealand (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1914), http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20375.

PDF.

65 1921 study: Edith Abbott and Sophonisba P. Breckenridge, The Administration of the Aid-toMothers Law in Illinois (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1921), http://books.google.com/

books?id=oTuwFdaieiEC&printsec=titlepage#v=onepage&q&f=false; 1922 conference mentioned in Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 156; 1926 study: Emma O. Lundberg, Public Aid to 

Mothers With Dependent Children: Extent and Fundamental Principles (Washington, DC: Children’s 

Bureau, 1926), http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20602-1926.PDF. 

66 Bradbury, Five Decades, 17–18.

67 Ibid., 33–34, 36.

68 Ibid., 16.

69 Ibid., 26–27, 38–39.

70 Lewis Meriam, The Problem of Indian Administration: Report of a Survey Made at the Request of 

Honorable Hubert Work, Secretary of the Interior, and Submitted to Him, February 21, 1928 (Baltimore, 

MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1928), http://www.alaskool.org/native_ed/research_reports/IndianAdmin/Indian_Admin_Problms.html.
Chapter 3

The National White House Conference poster, “Devotion 

to Child Welfare,” ca. 1930 (White House Conference on 

Child Health and Protection records, Box 145, Hoover 

Institution Archives)
Chapter 3

The Great Depression and Social 

Security (1930–1939)

Introduction

As the country plummeted into the Great Depression and began its slow recovery, 

the Children’s Bureau’s efforts focused on documenting the dire conditions that 

millions of the Nation’s families and children experienced. After the election of 

President Franklin Roosevelt, early relief efforts such as the Federal Emergency Relief 

Administration and the National Child Health Recovery program paved the way for 

Bureau leadership’s involvement in drafting child-focused provisions for the landmark 1935 Social Security Act. With its passage, the Bureau assumed responsibility 

for distributing millions of dollars in Federal grants-in-aid to States. Another longtime goal of the Children’s Bureau, Federal oversight of child labor, also was achieved 

during this period through the passage of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. 

1930 White House Conference on Child Health and Protection

The third White House Conference on Children took place amid an industrial depression and grave economic uncertainty. President Herbert Hoover issued the call 

in July 1929, seeking “to study the present status of the health and well-being of 

the children in the United States and its possessions: to report what is being done; 

to recommend what ought to be done and how to do it.”1

 A planning committee 

was named, including Children’s Bureau Chief Grace Abbott, who also served as 

secretary of the executive committee. The President secured a budget of $500,000 

for the conference.2
Preparations began immediately. A 

total of 17 committees were established 

across the four major sections of the 

conference: medical service, public 

health service and administration, education and training, and handicapped 

children. For the next 16 months, 1,200 

experts gathered research and statistics to document conditions for U.S. 

children, information that was gathered 

into a 643-page volume presented to 

attendees upon their arrival.3 In November, approximately 3,000 attendees met 

in Washington, DC, to review the research and listen to committee reports. 

In addition to the largest-ever group of 

attendees, the 1930 conference was the 

first to utilize radio broadcasts to bring 

some proceedings to the general public.4

Among the Children’s Bureau’s contributions was a nontechnical summary 

of conference findings regarding the 

causes, treatment, and prevention of 

juvenile delinquency.5

The program cover from the White House 

Conference on Child Health and Protection. 

(White House Conference on Child Health and 

Protection records, Box 94, Folder 8: “Materials 

Distributed to Delegates,” Hoover Institution 

Archives)

The economics of family life were understandably a significant focus throughout 

the conference. James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor, noted, “No item is more important to the child or contributes more to our national welfare than the uninterrupted employment of American fathers at a wage which will provide security and 

a reasonable standard of living for their families.” Chief Abbott also spoke to the 

damage that periods of economic depression wrought upon the Nation’s youngest citizens: “Children need not only food and a comfortable home, but they need 

above all things security....”6

One controversy arising at the conference was the majority opinion of the Committee on Public Health Organization, which recommended all Federal health 
functions be consolidated within the Public Health Service (PHS). This proposal 

would have transferred all work pertaining to child health, at that time a large focus for the Bureau, from the Children’s Bureau to the PHS. Chief Abbott submitted 

a minority opinion protesting this proposal. She reminded the President that the 

original recommendation for a Federal children’s bureau was based on the belief 

that “the needs of the child should be considered as a whole by one governmental 

agency.” In defense of retaining the Bureau’s independence, she cited both the 

Bureau’s care not to duplicate work done by other agencies and the “abundant 

evidence that parents have looked to the Children’s Bureau for national leadership 

in problems relating to the health and general welfare of children.” In the end, the 

Bureau’s many advocates rose to its defense, and the reorganization was tabled 

without a vote.7

Final reports from the 

conference were published 

in 32 volumes totaling 

more than 10,000 pages. The sheer heft of the 

findings made substantive 

follow-up difficult, if not 

impossible—an issue later 

conferences would seek to 

address. Arguably the most 

lasting outcome of the 

conference was a 19-point 

Children’s Charter on what 

every child needs for his 

or her education, health, 

welfare, and protection. 

Although its statements 

are fairly general, the ideals encapsulated in this charter served for many years as 

a compass for Americans working to protect child welfare. 

A family gathers around a radio, ca. 1925–1930. The third 

White House Conference on Children in 1930 was the first 

White House Conference to be broadcast over the radio. 

(Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-54357)
The Children’s Charter, White House Conference on M

Child Health and Protection, November 22, 1930 

PRESIDENT HOOVER’S WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE ON CHILD 

HEALTH AND PROTECTION, RECOGNIZING THE RIGHTS OF THE 

CHILD AS THE FIRST RIGHTS OF CITIZENSHIP, PLEDGES ITSELF TO 

THESE AIMS FOR THE CHILDREN OF AMERICA.

[Excerpts:]

III. For every child a home and that love and security which a home provides; 

and for that child who must receive foster care, the nearest substitute for his 

own home.

...

IX. For every child a community which 

recognizes and plans for his needs, 

protects him against physical dangers, 

moral hazards, and disease; provides 

him with safe and wholesome places to 

play and recreation; and makes provision for his cultural and social needs.

...

XIII. For every child who is blind, 

deaf, crippled, or otherwise physically 

handicapped, and for the child who is 

mentally handicapped, such measures 

as will early discover and diagnose his 

handicap, provide care and treatment, 

and so train him the [sic] he may become an asset to society rather than 

a liability. Expenses of these services 

should be borne publicly where they 

cannot be privately met.

The cover of The Children’s Charter, a 

product of the third White House Conference on Children that outlined 19 points 

necessary for every child’s education, 

health, welfare, and protection. (National 

Archives)
XIV. For every child who is in conflict with society the right to be dealt with intelligently as society’s charge, not society’s outcast; with the home, the school, 

the church, the court, and the institution when needed, shaped to return him 

whenever possible to the normal stream of life.

XV. For every child the right to grow up in a family with an adequate standard of 

living and the security of a stable income as the surest safeguard against social 

handicaps.

FOR EVERY CHILD THESE RIGHTS, REGARDLESS OF RACE, OR 

COLOR, OR SITUATION, WHEREVER HE MAY LIVE UNDER THE 

PROTECTION OF THE AMERICAN FLAG.8

Documenting Need: The Depression’s Early Years

By 1930, the Nation began to realize the current Depression was a greater and 

more lasting crisis than at first imagined. Having studied the effects of an earlier 

industrial depression, in 1921–1922, on children’s health and well-being, the 

Children’s Bureau was already aware that children suffered “not temporary but 

permanent losses” during extended periods of unemployment.9 Under the Hoover 

administration, the Children’s Bureau would play a large role in documenting 

these losses.

In 1930, President Hoover’s Emergency Committee for Employment asked the Children’s Bureau to document the need for relief, and resources for meeting those 

needs, in several coal-mining communities. The Bureau completed a similar study 

in 1933, this time of railway workers and their families. In these and other ways, 

the Bureau helped to identify the widening gaps between communities’ needs 

and abilities to provide relief. Resources, according to these studies, were few and 

inadequate to address the problems, which included unemployment, decaying 

buildings and infrastructure, and widespread hunger.10

Also in 1930, the Children’s Bureau assumed the task of gathering monthly reports 

from nearly 7,000 agencies providing public and private family relief, mothers’ 
aid, and aid to transients 

in 38 cities. The Bureau 

soon was asked to expand 

this reporting to include 

all cities with populations 

of more than 50,000. These 

reports were for many 

years the sole source of 

national relief statistics. 

The Bureau continued to 

gather this data until 1936, 

when the newly created 

Social Security Board took 

over the job.11

The plight of older youth, 

sometimes neglected in 

times of crisis, remained a concern for 

the Children’s Bureau. One focus was 

the Depression’s effects on juvenile 

delinquency. From 1932 through 1936, 

the Bureau undertook a joint study on 

juvenile delinquency and probation 

with the University of Chicago and the 

Cook County Juvenile Court.12 Another 

study focused on youth who left their 

homes to escape poverty and unemployment. Bureau field workers visited 

cities such as St. Louis, Kansas City, 

New Orleans, and El Paso, talking with 

workers in relief agencies and others 

(such as police officers and railroad 

employees) who came into contact with 

the youth. In most cases, Bureau staff 

found conditions were not much better 

for youth on the road than at home. 

The “Migrant Mother,” Florence Thompson (far right) with 

four of her seven children in Nipomo, CA, ca. 1936. Thompson and her family were migrant agricultural workers captured in photographer Dorothea Lange’s famous “Migrant 

Mother” series. (Library of Congress, LC-USF34- 009098)

Advocating for planned housing as a method to deter juvenile delinquency, this 1936 

poster features silhouettes of child criminals 

stealing a piece of fruit and committing 

armed robbery. (Library of Congress, LCUSZC2-1017)
This information would lead Chief Abbott to propose, at a congressional hearing 

in 1933, work camps for youth “in which there is an opportunity for training in 

a wholesome environment...” and an “opportunity for vocational classes and for 

work relief in the cities and towns.” This idea was later reflected in the establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Youth Administration.13

Continuing its tradition of gathering experts to share information and advise the 

Bureau on solutions, the Children’s Bureau called several conferences to review 

the state of child welfare during this time. In December 1932, an emergency 

conference was held regarding the Depression’s impact on child labor.14 One year 

later, the Conference on Present Emergencies in the Care of Dependent and Neglected Children met at the Children’s Bureau, arising from a request by the Child 

Welfare League of America to President Hoover.15

Relief Efforts Begin

As reports of the deprivation suffered by families became more prevalent, and 

the situation more dire, support grew for the Federal Government to step in with 

unprecedented forms of aid. During the administration of President Hoover, who 

favored a voluntary/private response, such proposals met with little success. In 

1932, Senator Robert M. La Follette (R-WI) introduced the La Follette-Costigan 

bill (S. 3045), proposing $375 million in aid and the creation of a Federal Board of 

Unemployment Relief. Although the bill did not contain special provisions for children, the proposed board would be headed by the Chief of the Children’s Bureau, 

and La Follette’s proposal was bolstered by a Children’s Bureau report on the effects of the worsening economy on children’s basic needs. The bill, however, failed 

to pass. The following winter (1932–1933), the Bureau asked Hoover’s administration for a $100,000 appropriation to help States conduct demonstrations of county 

child welfare work; this, too, was denied.16

With the election of President Roosevelt, the tide began to turn. President 

Roosevelt appointed Frances Perkins as Secretary of Labor in March 1933. 

Secretary Perkins was the first female Cabinet member, a Hull House alumna, and 

a well-established friend of the Children’s Bureau. In May, Congress established 

the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). The Children’s Bureau helped 
collect data for the FERA, 

helping to determine how 

the program’s $500 million 

appropriation was spent. 

Secretary Perkins called 

an informal Child Health 

Recovery Conference in 

October 1933. This meeting 

was attended by representatives of a number 

of Federal agencies, State 

departments of health, 

private health organizations, medical societies, 

and relief agencies, as 

well as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt 

herself. Conference proposals were 

wide-ranging, focused on myriad ways 

to address widespread malnutrition and 

inadequate health care. The Children’s 

Bureau was central to the conference 

and to many of these proposals. After 

the conference, the Bureau worked with 

the FERA to establish the Child Health 

Recovery Program, providing emergency food and medical care to children 

in greatest need. This was the Federal 

Government’s only “New Deal” relief 

program focused on young children until the Social Security Act was passed.17

Calling for more Federal relief funds for States, Chief Grace 

Abbott (right) told a 1933 U.S. Senate hearing that, “. . . a 

million families were drawing relief funds, but that no one 

familiar with relief works believes the needs have been met 

anywhere.” (Associated Press)

Frances Perkins, the first woman appointed 

to a Presidential Cabinet position, served as 

Secretary of Labor for 12 years under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A Hull House 

alumna, Secretary Perkins was no stranger 

to social reform and played a leading role 

in the establishment of Social Security and 

new programs for workers. (The Frances 

Perkins Center)

With Secretary Perkins at the helm, 

Chief Abbott felt the Children’s Bureau’s 

status was safeguarded for the time being. Sick with tuberculosis, she resigned 
in June of 1934 to accept a position as professor of public welfare at the School of 

Social Service Administration, University of Chicago. In her letter of resignation, 

she clearly states her hopes that the Bureau would continue to play an important 

role in the New Deal programs, writing, “a final test of our recovery program may 

well be what it does to remove the injustices from which children have suffered in 

the past.”18 The President was then presented with two highly qualified candidates 

for the position of Chief: Katharine Lenroot, a social worker, and Martha Eliot, a 

doctor. Perhaps because of her experience serving as Acting Chief during Abbott’s 

earlier leaves of absence, Lenroot was ultimately appointed Chief in November 

1934. She promptly named Eliot Assistant Chief.19

“Perhaps you may ask, ‘Does the road lead uphill all the way?’ And I must answer, 

‘Yes, to the very end.’ But if I offer you a long, hard struggle, I can also promise you 

great rewards. Justice for all children is the high ideal in a democracy.” 

—Chief Grace Abbott, 193420

Katharine Lenroot: Chief of the Children’s Bureau 

1934–1951 

M 

Katharine Lenroot was born in Superior, WI, in 1891.21 Her father, Irvine Lenroot, had a successful political career, serving in the Wisconsin State legislature, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate. Lenroot majored 

in economics and minored in sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. 

After graduating in 1912, she joined the Industrial Commission of Wisconsin 

as a civil servant, assessing living costs in relation to the State’s new minimum 

wage law. 

In the winter of 1914–1915, Lenroot left Wisconsin to join the U.S. Children’s 

Bureau. She started as a special investigator in the Social Services division, 

studying juvenile courts and issues facing unmarried mothers. She advanced 

quickly and in November 1922 became Assistant Chief of the Bureau under 

Grace Abbott. A few months after Abbott’s retirement, Lenroot was appointed 

the Bureau’s third Chief in November 1934. 
Under the Roosevelt administration and Lenroot’s leadership, the Children’s 

Bureau’s responsibilities expanded significantly. Lenroot helped design 

several key provisions of the Social Security Act of 1935, authorizing the 

Children’s Bureau to administer millions of dollars in Federal aid to States. 

Also during Lenroot’s tenure, the Bureau assumed responsibility for enforcing the child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. She 

was involved in planning both the 1940 and 1950 White House Conferences 

on Children.

Lenroot had a great interest in international child welfare. In 1924, she attended 

the Fourth Pan-American Child Congress in Chile. Fluent in Spanish, she was 

the chair of the U.S. delegation to the Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Pan-American 

Child Congresses and served as the president of the Eighth. In 1946, she 

helped create the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund 

(UNICEF). Lenroot 

served as the U.S. 

representative on the 

executive board of 

UNICEF from 1947 

to 1951 and played a 

significant role in establishing direction for the 

new organization. 

Lenroot retired from 

the Children’s Bureau 

in 1951. For her nearly 

37 years of service in 

the Bureau, Lenroot 

received the Federal Security Agency 

Distinguished Civilian 

Service Award.

Katharine Lenroot, the Children’s Bureau’s third Chief, 

joined the Bureau in 1915 and succeeded Grace Abbott 

as Chief in 1934. Attending her swearing in were 

Assistant Secretary of Labor Edward F. McGrath, Chief 

Lenroot, Acting Chief Clerk J. C. Watts, and Secretary 

of Labor Frances Perkins. (Bettmann/Corbis)
A New Deal for Children: The Social Security Act of 1935

The President established a Committee on Economic Security on June 29, 1934; 

an Advisory Committee on Child Welfare was announced on November 19 of the 

same year. Thomas Eliot (no relation to Martha Eliot) was selected to write the 

Social Security bill, and he asked Katharine Lenroot to draft the child welfare 

sections. Lenroot enlisted Martha Eliot and Grace Abbott to assist her, so the three 

Children’s Bureau leaders worked together to create the child-focused sections of 

this historic act.22

Four sections were proposed by the Children’s Bureau:

Aid to Dependent Children increased local and State government contributions to 

mothers’ aid programs and provided Federal matching grants.

Maternal and Child Health Care funded clinics, professional education, and medical care for needy children, expanding upon the Children’s Bureau’s experience 

under the Sheppard-Towner Act.

Crippled Children’s Services created Federal grants, to be matched dollar-for-dollar 

by States, to assist children with physical disabilities.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security 

Act on August 14, 1935, which substantially increased the 

Children’s Bureau’s authority, staff, and funding. (The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum, Hyde Park, NY)

Child Welfare Services

provided grants-in-aid to 

States to address the needs 

of dependent and neglected children.

Most of the attention given 

to the bill was focused on 

the old age and unemployment insurance sections. 

As a result, the child-focused proposals were 

included with minimal 

changes in the Presi-
dent’s final report to Congress. When the bill was signed on August 14, 1935, the 

Children’s Bureau received authority to administer the last three of its four proposed programs. The first—Aid to Dependent Children—was to be administered 

by the newly established Social Security Board, along with the old age insurance 

program. Thus, with a swoop of the pen, the Bureau went from distributing 

$337,371 in 1930 to dispensing $10,892,797 by the end of the decade. Its staff grew 

from 143 to 438.23

“The early days of these programs were exciting days ... These were days of exploring possibilities, days of questioning, days of refreshing advice and aid from 

people in many professions, days of great satisfaction as we saw functioning 

programs emerge from planning.” 

—Chief Martha Eliot, reflecting on the early days of the Social Security Act, in 195324

The first thing the Children’s Bureau did after passage of the Social Security Act 

was to establish advisory groups for each of its programs. As with earlier work, 

advisory groups remained a critical aspect of the Children’s Bureau’s work, helping 

to guide the technical and administrative aspects of these programs.25

A visiting nurse from the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Program visits a home in New York City, ca. 1940. (Roy Perry/

Museum of the City of New York)

Maternal and child health 

funds helped medical staff 

(including doctors, dentists, nurses, medical social 

workers, and nutritionists) 

reach mothers and children 

in primarily rural areas, 

where adequate medical 

care was frequently not 

available or accessible.26

Funding provided for prenatal and child health clinics and, when necessary, 

home visits. Most of the 

maternal and child health 

funds for the first few years 

were used to pay for pre-
ventive care and professional training, rather than directly for medical or hospital 

care. Funded services also included some experimental demonstration projects in 

the areas of maternal and infant health. For example, several special programs for 

premature babies were funded. In January 1938, at the urging of an advisory group, 

the Children’s Bureau called a special Conference on Better Care for Mothers and 

Babies to examine and address the continuing problems of maternal and infant 

mortality at childbirth and during the first month of life.

 “In planning health services, as in meeting mass disaster, the needs of mothers 

and children require that they be placed among the first to be cared for ... The 

time for major advance is at hand. We must go forward.” 

—Chief Katharine Lenroot at the 1938 Conference on Better Care for 

Mothers and Babies27

The crippled children’s 

program represented 

the first U.S. program of 

medical care providing 

continuing Federal grants 

to States. One requirement 

established by Congress 

was for States to seek out

eligible children, effectively providing diagnostic 

services to all U.S. children. 

The types of conditions 

treated with these funds 

varied from State to State, 

but they tended to expand 

as funding increased over 

the years. In 1939, additional funds were made 

available for this program, 

in part to provide care for 

children with rheumatic 

heart disease.

A student nurse teaches a toddler to use his crutches by 

encouraging him to walk toward a picture book, ca. 1942. 

The crippled children’s program was the first U.S. medical 

care program to provide continuing Federal grants to 

States. (Library of Congress, LC-USE6-D-006947)
While most U.S. cities by this time had voluntary or public child welfare agencies 

to protect and care for vulnerable children, such programs were still the exception for rural children. Most rural areas lacked trained workers and the resources 

to provide for children who had to be removed from their homes due to abuse, 

neglect, or abandonment. As a result, early Social Security child welfare funds 

focused on addressing this gap. States developed their own plans for use of the 

funds, but they frequently called on Children’s Bureau staff for technical consultation and advice. Because of the small amount of money available, the Bureau’s 

advisory group determined funds should be used to employ and train staff and/or 

provide services to children, rather than to maintain children in foster homes. 

Special Attention to Minority GroupsM

The Children’s Bureau was envisioned from the beginning to be an inclusive 

agency. Its founders emphasized that the Bureau’s focus was to be on the 

needs of all children, not only those privileged by race or class—and many of 

the early studies included an examination of the role race played in determining 

a child’s health and well-being. However, around the time of the development of 

the Social Security Act, several special studies of the needs of minority groups 

were undertaken to ensure the development of responsive programs.

One such effort collected and analyzed infant and maternal mortality statistics 

for African-Americans.28 Although it had long been recognized that rates of both 

infant and maternal mortality were unusually high, most analyses up to this 

point had combined statistics for African-Americans with those for other nonWhite groups, including Native Americans and Asian-Americans. Like studies 

of a smaller scale conducted before 1930, Infant and Maternal Mortality Among 

Negroes (1937) found that “in every section of the United States the mortality 

rate for Negro infants is greatly in excess of that for White infants.” The mortality rate was found to be highest during the infants’ first month. Combined with 

findings of disproportionately high maternal mortality among African-American 

women, this led the Bureau to conclude that there was a “great need for the development of widespread activities” for African-American mothers and infants.
Meanwhile, Bureau staff were conducting a more general survey of the health 

and social welfare needs and provisions for Native American children in seven 

States.29 This study, Survey of Health and Social Needs of Indian Children, was 

published in 1937 as an outgrowth of an interdepartmental committee formed 

in 1935, consisting of representatives of the Children’s Bureau, Office of Indian 

Affairs, and the Public Health Service. Interviews were conducted with State 

officials, field staff of the Office of Indian Affairs, and Native Americans themselves, during visits to individual homes. In some States the report found Native 

American children and families excluded from social services, either by regulation or individual discrimination; in others, Native American families appeared to 

receive services on an equal basis with White families. In all cases, the Bureau 

made recommendations to enhance inclusiveness and community health.

Three American Indian children at the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico, ca. 1936. (Library of Congress, 

LC-USF34-001668-E)
Child Labor Reform and the Depression

The early years of the Depression brought greater challenges with regard to child 

labor, as families struggled to survive and some sweatshop owners sought to 

cut costs by hiring young workers. The 1930 census counted 2 million employed 

children; other estimates at the time were much higher.30 As during earlier periods, the rates of working children continued to be many times higher among 

African-Americans and “other races” than among native or foreign-born Whites, 

probably because child labor and truancy laws were not as strictly enforced 

among these groups.31 Five years after Congress approved the national child labor 

amendment to the Constitution, it was still many States short of ratification. The 

Children’s Bureau called an emergency conference in December 1932 to review 

current conditions and strategies. Fearing public opinion would not support further ratification attempts, conference participants instead decided to focus efforts 

on State laws that would set a minimum employment age of 16.32

Ten African-American children picking dewberries near 

Southern Pines, NC, ca. 1920. (Library of Congress, LCUSZ62-36651)

In 1933, the National 

Industrial Recovery Act 

(NIRA) opened the door for 

the Children’s Bureau to 

establish industry-specific 

child labor codes.33 The 

Bureau set a full-time 

employment minimum age 

of 16, with children ages 

14 to 16 allowed to work 

only when school was 

not in session; 18 was the 

minimum age for certain 

dangerous occupations. 

The Children’s Bureau also 

succeeded in establishing the first agricultural labor code, requiring children to 

be at least 14 years old to work in the sugar beet industry. In all, the Children’s 

Bureau and the National Child Labor Committee worked with industry representatives to establish 45 codes for child labor. Unfortunately, the NIRA was 

declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in May of 1935. The Bureau 
encouraged employers to continue following the codes voluntarily, but without 

the NIRA they lacked any authority to enforce them.

A young Mexican boy works in the sugar 

beet fields near Lincoln County, NE, ca. 1938. 

(Library of Congress, LC-USF34-008764-D)

M

Lasting Federal regulation of at least 

some child labor was finally achieved 

with the passage of the 1938 Fair Labor 

Standards Act. This law essentially recreated the NIRA codes and granted the 

Children’s Bureau enforcement authority. Only about 6 percent of child workers 

in the United States were affected by 

the law, which regulated only businesses that shipped products across State 

lines. It also exempted most agricultural industries, although the sugar beet 

industry had already been addressed in 

the Federal Sugar Act of 1937. Although 

imperfect, the Fair Labor Standards 

Act represented great progress from 

where the country had been when the 

Children’s Bureau was established just 

25 years earlier, and it set the stage for 

the future of child labor enforcement 

efforts.

The Child (1936–1953) 

In 1936, the Children’s Bureau introduced a new periodical. The Child: Monthly 

News Summary succeeded the Bureau’s mimeographed Child Welfare 

News Summary, which it had published at varying intervals since 1919.34 As 

introduced by Secretary of Labor Perkins in a foreword to the first edition, the 

publication’s aim was to “provide a regular means of communication between 

the Children’s Bureau and those who in their own States and communities are 

striving to establish a more adequate basis for child life.”35 Contents included 
reports from the Bureau divisions, including summaries of current research and 

recent publications, international news, and events of interest.

The Child, a monthly Children’s Bureau 

publication introduced in 1936. An 

extensive archive of the issues is 

available: http://hearth.library.cornell.

edu/h/hearth/browse/title/4732639.html. 

(National Archives)

Chapter 3 Notes

1 Children’s Bureau, The Story of the White House Conferences on Children and Youth (Washington, 

DC: printed by author, 1967), 8, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/19074.PDF.

2 Kriste Lindenmeyer, “A Right to Childhood”: The U.S. Children’s Bureau and Child Welfare, 

1912–1946 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 165.

3 Child Welfare League of America, The History of White House Conferences on Children and Youth

(Washington, DC: printed by author, n.d.), 4–5, http://www.cwla.org/advocacy/whitehouseconfhistory.pdf. 

4 Children’s Bureau, Story of the White House Conferences, 8–9.
5 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Facts About Juvenile Delinquency: Its Prevention and Treatment (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1932), http://www.mchlibrary.info/

history/chbu/20669-1932.PDF. 

6 Both quotes from Children’s Bureau, Story of the White House Conferences, 10.

7 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 168–70.

8 “The Children’s Charter [Government Document],” in Children and Youth in History (Item 

#124), accessed May 28, 2012, http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/124. 

9 Dorothy Bradbury, Five Decades of Action for Children (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 

1962), 29, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/2628.PDF.

10 Ibid., 29–32. See for example Carter Goodrich, Earnings and Standard of Living of 1,000 Railway 

Employees During the Depression (Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Labor, 1934), http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20892.PDF. 

11 Bradbury, Five Decades, 30. See for example Glenn Steele, Family Welfare: Summary of Expenditures for Relief, General Family Welfare and Relief, Mothers’ Aid, Veterans’ Aid (Washington, DC: 

Children’s Bureau, 1932), http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20651.pdf. 

12 Bradbury, Five Decades, 38.

13 Ibid., 31–32.

14 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 195.

15 Bradbury, Five Decades, 32.

16 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 173–75.

17 Ibid., 177–78.

18 Ibid., 181.

19 Ibid., 182.

20 Bradbury, Five Decades, 30.

21 Information for this box taken from “Katharine F. Lenroot papers, 1909–1974,” Columbia 

University Libraries Archival Collections, accessed May 28, 2012, http://www.columbia.edu/cu/

lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4079022. 

22 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 179–83.

23 Ibid., 193–94.

24 Bradbury, Five Decades, 44.

25 Ibid., 43–44.

26 Information for this and the following 2 paragraphs taken from Bradbury, Five Decades, 

44–50.

27 Ibid., 48.

28 Elizabeth C. Tandy, Infant and Maternal Mortality Among Negroes (Washington, DC: Children’s 
Bureau, 1937), quotes from 33–34, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20860.PDF. 

29 Hazel A. Hendricks, Survey of Health and Social Needs of Indian Children (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1937), http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20346.PDF. 

30 U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1935 (Washington, DC: 

U.S. Government Printing Office), 54–55, http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/1935-02.pdf. 

31 See, for example, Helen Wood, Young Workers and Their Jobs in 1936: A Survey in Six States

(Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1940), 18, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20878.

PDF. 

32 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 195–96. 

33 Information for this and the following paragraph taken from Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 

196–98

34 Bradbury, Five Decades, 12.

35 Frances Perkins, “Foreword,” The Child 1, no. 1 (1936): 4, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/

text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4732639_149_003. 
Chapter 4

Children playing “war”; a Red Cross nurse and her aides 

tend to a patient during WW II (Library of Congress, LCUSE6-D-010014-1)
Chapter 4

Wartime and Recovery (1940–1956)

Introduction

During World War II, the Children’s Bureau helped to safeguard thousands of European children who came to America to escape the fighting, while advocating for 

continued attention to U.S. children’s well-being at home. The Bureau also administered the country’s largest-ever child health program, providing maternity and 

infant care to families of thousands of enlisted soldiers between 1943 and 1949. 

As the Nation adapted to a changed world after the war, the Bureau made its own 

adjustments to a reorganization of the Federal Government and a change in leadership. The Children’s Bureau began to direct greater attention and resources to 

the needs of specific groups of vulnerable children, including juvenile delinquents 

and premature infants, as well as to the emotional security and development of 

all children. As research efforts became more focused in these areas, grant-in-aid 

programs expanded significantly.

White House Conference on Children in a Democracy

Children’s Bureau Chief Katharine Lenroot called and directed the fourth White 

House Conference in 1940. It was a much smaller gathering than the 1930 conference, 

involving approximately 700 people and including for the first time a few youth who 

attended as observers and commentators. Concern for all children—not just those 

considered needy or handicapped—was a recurrent theme throughout the conference. Equal opportunity was another prevalent theme.1

 Conferees recommended 

specific attention to creating opportunities for children in rural areas, congested 

cities, and low-income families, as well as children with disabilities and those from 
minority groups. Other recommendations called for the elimination of racial discrimination with regard to employment, housing, and public child welfare services.2

On the evening of the second day, a conference report was presented to President 

Roosevelt; after that, discussion focused on how best to follow up on the conference findings, which included 98 recommendations to be addressed during the 

next 10 years. The plan for follow-up consisted of creating both a nongovernmental National Citizens’ Committee and a Federal Interagency Committee. At the urging of the National Citizens’ Committee, 20 States and 25 national organizations 

formed groups, held meetings, or planned programs to follow up on conference 

recommendations. These efforts quickly fell by the wayside in the face of more 

urgent national defense and wartime activities; however, they established a precedent for follow-up after subsequent White House Conferences.3

“No matter what the storms, no matter what the stresses, no matter what the 

world problems are, both economic and social problems, it is our intent and 

purpose to keep our minds firmly fixed upon the welfare of our children and to 

promote that welfare under all conditions ...” 

—Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, speaking at the White House Conference on 

Children in a Democracy, 19404

Care for Refugee Children Leads to International Influence

Even before the White House Conference, the Nation’s thoughts were turning 

toward the war in Europe. Concern for the plight of children in war zones grew 

throughout 1939. That summer, a member of the Children’s Bureau staff visited 

several nations to see how refugee children were faring. She reported that assistance from the United States was needed to bolster strained relief efforts. In June 

1940, the United States Committee for the Care of European Children (CCEC) was 

formed, with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt serving as honorary president and Marshall Field as acting president and chief fundraiser. The group sought to facilitate 

admission of as many children as possible to the United States, while ensuring 

their proper care and that they would not become a public burden. To this end, 

they hoped to raise $5 million and provide care for up to 20,000 children expected 

to seek refuge in the United States.5
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was the honorary president of United States Committee 

for the Care of European Children (CCEC).

(Franklin D. Roosevelt Library)

The Children’s Bureau was charged with 

maintaining a central register of the 

evacuated children and overseeing their 

placement with agencies and foster 

families. By December 1940, the Children’s Bureau (in cooperation with State 

agencies) had approved 184 agencies 

in 40 states to place refugee children.6

The Bureau also published standards for 

the children’s care in 1941. During the 

war, more than 8,000 unaccompanied 

children came to the United States, the 

majority of whom (about 5,000) were 

British evacuees. Immigration rules 

made it difficult for children from most 

other countries to obtain visas. The children stayed in U.S. foster homes until 

the danger had passed, most of them 

returning to their home countries by 

the summer of 1945.

After 1945, the CCEC’s focus shifted to the unaccompanied children in refugee 

camps throughout Germany: Polish, Hungarian, and Romanian adolescents who 

had lost their homes, families, and years of their lives. A directive issued by President Truman in December of that year eased immigration rules for displaced persons and refugees, facilitating the process of bringing these youth to the United 

States. By the end of March 1948, the Children’s Bureau reported that 1,275 refugee 

children had been placed in foster homes in 30 States. About 80 percent of these 

children were teenage survivors of concentration camps. 

Although Bureau staff had been engaged in international relations since its early 

years, these wartime activities paved the way for more significant involvement. 

In 1941, the State Department granted the Children’s Bureau funding for the first 

time to cooperate with other countries in matters pertaining to maternal and 

child health and child welfare.7

 After the war, the United Nations asked the Bureau 

to arrange observations of U.S. child health and welfare programs for specialists 
from war-devastated nations and to 

coordinate training for United Nations 

Fellows in various aspects of child welfare.8

 Two 1949 laws further expanded 

the Children’s Bureau’s international involvement: one provided for the temporary detail of Bureau employees to other 

American Republics, the Philippines, 

and Liberia (P.L. 595, as amended in 

1949), and the other authorized government agencies to carry out agreements 

reached during inter-American conferences (P.L. 335).9

Three-year-old refugees playing games in 

English at the New York Children’s Colony, 

a school for refugee children. (Library of 

Congress, LC-USW3-009933-E)

Domestic Wartime Concerns

As America’s men went off to fight in World War II, America’s women entered the workforce. Women shipyard workers leave the Pennsylvania shipyards after a day of work, 

ca. 1943. (Library of Congress, LC-USW3-030979-D)

The United States’ involvement in World War II brought increased challenges for 

many U.S. families and children. During this period, the Children’s Bureau saw 

its progress threatened on multiple fronts. As men went off to war, the need for 

workers was filled by women—often young mothers—and older youth. The period 

saw a general relaxation of hard-won child labor standards. Areas of wartime 

industry quickly attracted 

overwhelming numbers of 

workers and their families, 

with a lack of infrastructure creating overcrowded 

conditions. These circumstances led, in turn, to 

increased juvenile delinquency, as more children 

and younger youth were 

left unsupervised, and 

older youth had access to 

more disposable income. 

Many States and commu-
nities also were plagued by shortages of 

medical personnel, which threatened to 

curtail the Bureau’s maternal and child 

health programs.

Throughout the war, the Children’s 

Bureau remained committed to studying 

and bringing attention to these issues 

and to preventing a general backslide in 

children’s well-being. In February 1941, 

President Roosevelt named Assistant 

Bureau Chief Martha Eliot to the United 

States Defense Mission to Great Britain. 

While overseas, Eliot studied the effects 

of warfare on England’s children and the 

government’s response to these effects. 

Her report, Civil Defense Measures for the 

Protection of Children, was published in 

1942. The research and interviews conducted during this trip helped to guide 

U.S. policy regarding children in wartime 

throughout the next several years.10

A 1943 poster encouraging women to join 

the workforce. (Library of Congress, LCUSZC4-5600)

Day Care

During the summer of 1941, the Bureau convened its Conference on Day Care of 

Children of Working Mothers to address the current shortage of affordable quality 

day care and its predicted increase as the labor shortage grew more severe. Among 

the conference committees was the Committee on Standards and Services for Day 

Care; this group’s report, submitted in 1942, contained its detailed Standards for 

Day Care of Children of Working Mothers.11

Bureau leadership clearly had mixed feelings on this subject, but in general the 

recommendations reflected the thinking of the time. Despite advocating for day 

care services to be developed, the Bureau could recommend this approach only in 

communities where economic necessity required mothers to work, and then for 
only those families with children older than 2 years. “The committee is unanimous 

in its belief that mothers of preschool children and especially of those under 2 

years of age should not be encouraged to seek employment.”12 A subsequent conference in July 1944 took a similar stance, asserting that “every effort must be made to 

preserve for the baby his right to have care from his mother.”13 This later conference 

did acknowledge that younger children sometimes required day care, but attendees 

agreed that foster family day care was a better option than group care for children 

under 3 years of age. When Federal funds were made available to support nursery 

schools and child care centers, beginning in 1943, the Children’s Bureau worked 

with the Office of Education to certify the need for centers. Federal support was 

withdrawn after the war, in 1946.14

Children in Wartime

By early 1942, the Children’s Bureau was launching a full-blown campaign to focus 

the Nation’s attention on the plight of “Children in Wartime.” First, the Bureau 

called together a group of 60 carefully selected child welfare professionals and 

individuals to form a National Commission on Children in Wartime, tasked with 

recommending programs to safeguard children’s well-being. At its first of three 

annual meetings in March of that year, the group, chaired by then-President of 

the Child Welfare League of America Leonard Mayo, adopted a “Children’s Charter in Wartime” to guide Children’s Bureau policy during the war. Recommended 

programs included the use of the Social Security Act’s title V provisions for widespread immunization and evacuation of children.15

“We are fighting again for human freedom and especially for the future of 

our children in a free world. Children must be safeguarded—and they can be 

safeguarded—in the midst of this total war so they can live and share in that 

future. They must be nourished, sheltered, and protected even in the stress of 

war production so they will be strong to carry forward a just and lasting peace.” 

—A Children’s Charter in Wartime, 194216

Having lost funding for any research not directly related to the war effort, the 

Bureau then focused on producing advice literature and public awareness campaigns. In 1942–1943, the Bureau produced a series of radio broadcasts, “Children 

in Wartime.” These were accompanied by a magazine/newspaper campaign and 
several series of booklets and pamphlets focused on the physical and emotional 

needs of children during the war.17

Juvenile Delinquency

Juvenile delinquency was another concern during this period, with rates rising 

steadily from 1940 through 1945. The Children’s Bureau undertook several studies 

to understand what contributed to the growing problem and how it might be effectively addressed. Activities included a study of delinquency in 10 cities affected 

by war industry and a study of training schools for “socially maladjusted” children. 

In 1943, the Bureau attended a meeting of the National Commission on Children 

and Youth and, at the Commission’s recommendation, issued bulletins on the 

topic for communities and parents. In 1943–1944, the Children’s Bureau also held 

conferences on training police officers to work more effectively with youth.18

One concern about which the Bureau took little action was the internment of Japanese American children and families by the War Relocation Authority. Aside from 

a single memo dated August 4, 1942, from Katharine Lenroot to Secretary Perkins 

citing the camps’ inadequate provisions for housing, nutrition, and education of 

children and youth, the Children’s Bureau appears to have kept silent on the topic.19

Children in WartimeM

Publishing advice for parents and communities on the needs of children was 

the Children’s Bureau’s primary contribution to the war effort. The following are 

some samples of literature published during this time:

To Parents in Wartime, published in 1942, was the first in the Bureau’s Children 

in Wartime series. This short booklet placed an unprecedented emphasis on 

children’s emotional well-being during war, claiming, “Our children are as much a 

concern of our Government in this emergency as are the soldiers and munitions 

workers who carry on the war directly.” It recommended two primary strategies 

for parents: “1. Prepare yourselves to face whatever may come. 2. Help your 

children to continue living their everyday lives with as little change as possible.”20
Toys in Wartime, printed the same year, emphasized the importance of play for 

children’s healthy development, as well as the benefits children gain from helping to create their own playthings. “Families that can get together over a home 

toy project not only are conserving essential war materials but also are building 

up family solidarity and making a contribution to the war effort.”21

The Children’s Bureau publication 

Toys in Wartime provided parents with 

directions on how to make toys, ca. 1942. 

(Internet Archive, Community Books)

Toys in Wartime instructions for parents, 

ca. 1942. (Internet Archive, Community 

Books)

The 1944 booklet If Your Baby Must Travel in Wartime featured drawings by 

cartoonist Gluyas Williams and acknowledged the difficulties of rail, bus, and 

car travel at the time due to the focus on military needs. The booklet offered 

helpful advice for the mother who needed to travel, including advice on clothing 

to pack: “Limit yourself to one dark dress or suit. Many mothers have found an 

apron a convenience, one that could be slipped over their dresses when they 

were caring for their babies.”22
Community Action for Children in 

Wartime described six basic responsibilities local communities should 

assume toward all children, as their 

parents faced unusual levels of 

stress. “[In] war many parents, hard 

pressed by new responsibilities, need 

help. Not for themselves, but for their 

children. Never have so many children 

depended on so many people for their 

chance to grow in safety, strength, and 

security.”23 Perhaps not surprisingly, 

these recommendations included 

many of the same protections emphasized by the Bureau during peacetime, 

including “a well-baby clinic in every 

community” and “employment safeguards for every boy and girl.”

The Defense of Children Series was 

another collection of brief brochures 

published in 1941–1942. Each of 

these began with the premise, “Children bear the promise of a better world.”

Subtitles include “Their defense is security they find at home,” “Their education 

is democracy’s strength,” and “Our nation does not need their toil,” among others. Like the Community Action for Children publication, many of the messages 

within this series are consistent with the Bureau’s peacetime program.24

A page from the 1944 Children’s Bureau 

booklet If Your Baby Must Travel in Wartime. (Internet Archive, Community Books)

Providing Maternity and Infant Care for Soldiers’ Families

In peacetime, Army and Navy hospitals provided medical care for dependents of 

servicemen as a matter of course. However, by early 1941, the war was beginning 

to put a strain on this system, along with so many others. 
The commanding officer of Fort Lewis in Washington State was the first to draw 

the Children’s Bureau’s attention to this growing problem.25 As the number of 

soldiers stationed there grew, and more young wives joined their husbands near 

base, he saw growing numbers of women who were having babies without the 

benefit of medical care. Many women could not afford private care, which could 

cost as much as 2 months’ pay.26 All of the fort’s limited medical resources were 

needed to care for the soldiers’ health, and most wives did not qualify for county- or State-sponsored medical care because they were not official residents. The 

fort’s commanding officer approached the State health officer, who turned to the 

Children’s Bureau for assistance. In August 1941, the Bureau agreed that Social Security Act funds made available under title V for maternal and child health could 

be used to provide support for these women and their infant children.

Philadelphia Inquirer, “How We Protect 

Servicemen’s Wives and Babies” by Martha 

M. Eliot, M.D., Associate Chief, Children’s 

Bureau, 1945. (Used with permission of 

Philadelphia Inquirer, copyright©2012. All rights 

reserved. Photo by Alfred A. Do’Lardi of Martha 

Eliot)

Other State health officers soon followed suit. It quickly became clear 

that the current allotment of maternal 

and child health funds would not be 

sufficient to meet this growing need. 

The Children’s Bureau appealed to the 

Bureau of the Budget in late 1942 for 

emergency funding. The request was 

argued to be an expansion of the existing maternal and child health program, 

rather than a new program, and one 

that was essential to military morale 

(and thus, the war effort). On March 

18, 1943, President Roosevelt signed 

the 1943 Deficiency Appropriation Bill, 

which included these additional funds. 

The resulting program was called Emergency Maternity and Infant Care (EMIC), 

and it provided for medical, hospital, 

and nursing care for wives and babies of 

men in the four lowest pay grades of the 

Armed Forces.
A soldier, his wife, and child were among the millions of 

GI families that benefited from EMIC. (National Archives)

The Children’s Bureau promoted 

the EMIC program through fliers 

like this one, inserted into servicemen’s pay envelopes. EMIC provided medical, hospital, and nursing 

care for wives and babies of men 

in the four lowest pay grades of the 

Armed Forces. (Maternal and Child 

Health Library)

These services were available only to wives of 

servicemen; women enlisted in the military, 

unmarried mothers, and infants born to unmarried servicemen were not eligible for care. 

Benefits included at least five prenatal exams, 

10 days’ hospital care at delivery, and postpartum medical exams as needed for mother and 

child. Babies were then eligible for medical, 

nursing, and hospital care for their first year.27

Criticism of the program centered on the idea 

that it provided “socialized” medicine.28 It 

was generally tolerated even by critics as a 

wartime exception; however, the program was 

phased out after the war, ending in June 1949. At the time and for many years 

later, EMIC was the largest federally funded medical care program undertaken 

in the United States. From beginning to end (approximately 6 years), it provided 

care for approximately 1.5 million women and babies.
Changes for the Bureau

Since 1939, rumors had circulated that President Roosevelt intended to reorganize 

the Children’s Bureau and transfer it from the Labor Department to the Federal 

Security Agency (FSA). Chief Lenroot and her supporters successfully advocated 

against several such attempts between 1939 and 1945. The President’s Reorganization Act of December 1945, however, made change almost inevitable by granting 

President Harry Truman power to put any reorganization plan into effect as long 

as Congress did not defeat the proposal within 60 days.29

In fact, Truman’s Reorganization Plan No. 2, sent to Congress on May 16, 1946, 

achieved what Bureau supporters had long feared. President Truman’s message to 

Congress cited increased efficiency in making the change, arguing, “The transfer 

of the Children’s Bureau will not only close a serious gap, but it will strengthen the 

child care programs by bringing them in closer association with the health, welfare, and educational activities with which they are inextricably bound up.”30 However, the Children’s Bureau was effectively lowered one more step in the Federal 

hierarchy in the move—it was placed within the Social Security Administration, 

one of four agencies within the FSA, and staff no longer had direct contact with a 

cabinet officer. The Bureau also lost authority over all labor-related programs and 

child labor enforcement; 

these stayed with the Department of Labor.

President Harry S. Truman. (Library of Congress, LCUSZ62-70080)

Thus, the years just before 

1946 are considered by 

many to be the peak period 

of influence for the Bureau. 

After that time, its role 

became more limited in 

scope, and it ceased to 

be what it was originally 

conceived to be: the single 

Federal agency lobbying for 

the needs of all children.
On April 11, 1953, the Federal Security Agency became the Department of Health, 

Education, and Welfare. Not long before, a change in Bureau leadership also took 

place. On September 4, 1951, Martha Eliot became the Bureau’s fourth Chief. In her 

statement accepting the role, she promised to focus special attention on the needs 

of certain groups of children, including adopted children, those with congenital 

disabilities, children in rural and migratory families, minority children, children of 

working mothers, and adolescents.31

Martha Eliot: Chief of the Children’s Bureau 

1951–1956 

M

Martha Eliot, Children’s Bureau Chief 

1951–1956, ca. 1951. (National Archives)

Martha May Eliot was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1891 and graduated from Radcliffe College in 1913.32 After college she enrolled in Johns Hopkins 

University School of Medicine; Eliot received her M.D. with honors in 1918.

After completing her residency in 

pediatrics at St. Louis Children’s 

Hospital from 1919 to 1920, Eliot 

was invited to become the first chief 

resident in the new Department of 

Pediatrics at Yale Medical School. 

There she rose through the university 

ranks, eventually serving as associate 

clinical professor. With Edward A. 

Park, Eliot is credited with establishing 

the importance of vitamin D, cod liver 

oil, and sunbathing in the prevention 

of rickets.

Eliot joined the Children’s Bureau in 

1924 as director of the Division of 

Child and Maternal Health. She commuted to Washington for 1 week each 

month while continuing her duties at 
New Haven Hospital until being named Assistant Chief of the Bureau in 1934. 

As Assistant Chief, Eliot drafted major sections of the 1935 Social Security Act 

and developed and administered the Emergency Maternity and Infant Care 

program for the wives and children of servicemen during World War II. After the 

war, she served on the U.S. delegation to the first-ever World Health Assembly 

and was the only woman to sign the founding document of the World Health 

Organization (WHO). 

In 1949, Eliot left the Children’s Bureau to serve as assistant director general 

of the WHO in Geneva. Two years later, she returned to the United States to 

accept an appointment as Chief of the Children’s Bureau. During her tenure as 

Chief, Eliot oversaw a shift in research priorities to a greater focus on the needs 

of vulnerable children, as well as a period of significant growth in the Bureau’s 

Federal grant-in-aid programs. Eliot received numerous honors for her work, 

including the American Pediatric Society’s most prestigious award, the Howland 

Medal, in 1967. In 1947, she became the first woman to be elected president of 

the American Public Health Association (APHA); in 1958, she also became the 

first woman to receive APHA’s Sedgwick Memorial Medal. 

Eliot left the Children’s Bureau in 1956. The following year she became chair of 

the Department of Child and Maternal Health at the Harvard School of Public 

Health. After retiring in 1960, she taught for APHA and continued her work 

for the WHO and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), reporting on 

medical education in Asia and Africa. 

Midcentury White House Conference on Children and Youth

Preparation for the 1950 White House Conference began in 1948 when President 

Truman established the Interdepartmental Committee on Children and Youth (a 

direct descendant of the 1940 Federal Interagency Committee) to provide a venue 

for Federal agencies to share information about programs for children, encourage 

the agencies to collaborate in program planning, and strengthen relationships 

among Federal agencies and State and Territorial Committees for Children and 

Youth.33 The Chief of the Children’s Bureau was named Vice Chairman of this 
group. All told, more than 1,000 committees throughout the country worked on 

planning for the conference and developing the 170-page Fact Finding Report.

34

The conference itself was attended by nearly 6,000 people, including 500 youth 

delegates and 200 foreign delegates representing 30 nations.35 Many more thousands of Americans experienced some of the proceedings via radio and television. 

The focus of the conference, for the first time, was the emotional well-being of 

children: development of a “healthy personality.” Conference attendees agreed 

that parents bore the greatest responsibility for this; however, the contributions of 

all institutions touching children’s lives were addressed. The negative effects of racial discrimination were a common thread in many of the conference proceedings. 

Katharine Lenroot (far right) and five officers of the Advisory Council pictured with youth 

attendees at the White House Midcentury Conference on Children and Youth, December 3, 1950. 

(National Archives)

Information on this subject from the conference’s Fact Finding Report would later 

be used in the majority opinion for the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing 

racial segregation in public schools. Another common theme was how to protect 
children’s well-being during war, as the threat of the conflict in Korea loomed over 

the conference proceedings.

The conference included plenary 

presentations, workgroups, and a town 

meeting-style gathering resulting in 67 

recommendations and a Pledge to Children. Other products of the conference 

included a technical book for workers, 

Personality in the Making (1952), and a 

handbook for parents, A Healthy Personality for Your Child (1952), which was 

a popular version of the conference’s 

Fact Finding Report.

36 A Healthy Personality

quickly joined Prenatal Care and other 

Children’s Bureau publications as a 

bestseller for the Government Printing 

Office. The Interdepartmental Committee on Children and Youth continued to 

meet to follow up on conference recommendations, sometimes in conjunction 

with the National Advisory Council on 

State and Local Action for Children and Youth. The two groups sponsored interim 

conferences in 1954, 1955, 1956, and 1958, for the first time maintaining continuous 

momentum between White House Conferences. Smaller follow-up conferences 

were held in most States to discuss how to implement conference findings.37

The Children’s Bureau’s pamphlet A Healthy 

Personality for Your Child. (Internet Archive, 

USA Government Documents)

The Children’s Bureau’s Research Agenda: Renewed Commitment 

to Vulnerable Children 

Beginning in 1951, the Children’s Bureau decided to take a closer look at the focus 

and scope of its research program. After reviewing previously published studies, 

analyzing current research activities, and inviting the recommendations of experts 

in related fields, the Bureau published A Research Program for the Children’s Bureau

in 1953. This led to an increased focus within the Bureau on specific groups of 
children whose health or welfare was in jeopardy. The Bureau also began directing 

more of its attention to examining the cost and effectiveness of funded programs.38

Children who were delinquent, or at risk of becoming delinquent, were one vulnerable group that received considerable attention during this period. After experiencing 

a brief decline following World War II, delinquency rates were again on the rise by 

1949; in 1953, the rate was 45 percent higher than it had been just 5 years earlier.39

In 1952, the Bureau invited a group of people and organizations concerned with 

juvenile delinquency to discuss what could be done to help. That July, the Special 

Juvenile Delinquency Project was formed as a partnership of foundations and other 

private partners interested in helping the Children’s Bureau focus public attention 

on the prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency and stimulate action to 

improve services to this population. The Project and the Bureau sponsored 5 meetings in 1952 with 90 national social welfare, education, health, civic interest, and 

professional organizations. They also collaborated on a series of practice guides and 

standards for training schools, juvenile courts, police, and other personnel working 

in the delinquency field. These activities were precursors to the National Conference on Juvenile Delinquency, which took place in June 1954 in Washington, DC. 

The Special Juvenile Delinquency Project ended in 1955, but the Bureau’s work in 

this area continued without interruption. Congress authorized additional funds 

that year for the Bureau to expand its work within a newly created Division of 

Juvenile Delinquency Service. An advisory committee was appointed to propose 

the best methods for training juvenile delinquency workers. Key Bureau publications around this time included Parents and Delinquency (1954), The Effectiveness of 

Delinquency Prevention Programs (1954), and New Perspectives for Research on Juvenile 

Delinquency (1956). In 1955, the Bureau also began collecting data from a representative national sample of 502 juvenile courts. A 1956 conference on data reporting 

for juvenile courts bolstered the effort, resulting in the most accurate and representative source yet of nationwide statistics on the topic. 

Other research efforts during this period included a pilot project to improve services for migrant families, research on improving services to children with mental 

retardation, and a conference to investigate the well-being of children adopted 

without the involvement of legal and social work professionals (so-called “black 

market babies”).40
Children (1954–1971) M

The final issue of the Children’s Bureau’s longstanding monthly periodical, 

The Child, was published in December 

1953. It was replaced by a bimonthly 

magazine, Children, in 1954. The 

audience envisioned for Children was 

a broad one: professionals in all fields 

concerned with children’s well-being. 

Martha Eliot wrote, in her Foreword to 

the first issue, “By intentionally favoring 

material of interest or concern to more 

than one profession, CHILDREN hopes 

not merely to add to interprofessional 

understanding and teamwork but also 

to multiply the effectiveness with which 

each profession deals with its own 

problems.”41

The magazine promised to offer “a 

balanced fare of technical articles on 

health, welfare, and child development; what needs doing and why; who’s doing, or might do, what; and how to do it.” In doing so, it strove to put forth more 

than a single, Bureau-endorsed perspective, giving voice instead to multiple 

perspectives through “data, discussion, and debate on the physical, social, 

emotional, and cultural aspects of child growth and development; on standards 

of child care and professional training; and on developments in professional 

techniques, personnel, and programs serving children and parents.”

The Child periodical was renamed 

Children in 1954. (Child Welfare Information Gateway)
Grant-in-Aid Programs Expand

All three Children’s Bureau grant-in-aid programs grew significantly in the decade 

following World War II, and this Federal investment was met with even greater 

increases in funding from States and localities.42 By 1955, Federal funds represented only about one-eighth of the total amount expended for these programs, with 

State and local funds making up the difference.

Maternal and Child Health

In the maternal and child health program, a growing emphasis was placed 

on prevention of premature births, and, 

when they occurred, on preserving the 

infants’ health. For the first time, States 

began using maternal and child health 

funds to provide direct medical and 

hospital care to premature infants, in 

addition to demonstration programs, 

advanced training for medical personnel, equipment, and transportation of 

premature infants from remote areas to 

specialized care centers. Another area 

of focus, in keeping with the Midcentury White House Conference, was on 

psychological aspects of maternity and parenting. This reflected a growing recognition that mental health was as important as, and closely interrelated with, the 

physical aspects of healthy child development. 

A nurse carefully bathes an infant in an incubator, ca. 1950s. (National Library of Medicine/

World Health Organization)

By 1956, maternal and child health programs were providing, annually:

• Prenatal doctor visits to more than 200,000 expectant mothers

• Postdelivery nursing for more than 300,000 mothers

• Well-child clinic visits for more than 1 million babies and preschool 

children
• Dental exams for approximately 3 million school-age children

• Medical exams for more than 2.5 million school-age children

• Diphtheria and smallpox immunizations for more than 4 million children

Crippled Children

Much of the focus within the crippled children’s program during this period was 

on treatment options to help keep children with disabilities within their own 

families, neighborhood schools, and communities. This focus remained as the 

program expanded beyond treatment of orthopedic handicaps to include children 

with hearing loss, cerebral palsy, cleft palates, burns, and epilepsy, among others. 

Beginning in 1949, the first programs to address congenital heart defects were established. The number of children receiving this treatment increased dramatically 

throughout the 1950s, as surgical techniques advanced. The development of artificial hands and arms for children (previously available to adults only) was another 

cutting-edge practice facilitated by the help of Children’s Bureau funding. Funds 

also were used to provide specialized training to medical personnel and to ensure 

that the latest research was applied and accessible in rural as well as urban areas.

Child Welfare Services

State child welfare services grew steadily in the decade following World War II, 

with assistance from Social Security Act funds.43 States used Federal and other 

funding sources to enhance legislation and strengthen adoption, foster care, and 

in-home services for children and families. Starting in 1946, and increasing by 

1950, States began using a portion of their allotments to pay for the support of 

children in foster care. A growing emphasis also was placed on keeping families together and providing services, including homemaker services, to support 

parents and children in their own homes. Group care was further deemphasized, 

as foster family care became the norm when children could not live at home. 

However, there was some interest in the development of small community homes 

for children who needed temporary shelter or adolescents and others who could 

not adapt to foster family homes.
A considerable portion of child welfare funds continued to be used to enhance 

professional development for workers. In 1952, a peak year for child welfare training, 500 people from 47 States completed educational leave, 92 percent of these 

with the help of Federal funding. Ensuring that trained workers were accessible in 

rural areas, not just cities, was a strong priority.

Despite experiencing a slight decrease in scope and influence, the Children’s 

Bureau made significant gains for child health and family life during this period. 

During the war, the Bureau served as the Nation’s unflagging advocate for children’s needs in times of conflict, while successfully administering the largest-yet 

national program of public medical care to children. During the decade that 

followed, the Bureau’s grant-in-aid programs continued to grow. Perhaps more 

importantly, we can begin to see the roots of the modern Children’s Bureau in 

this period, with its growing interest in children’s emotional well-being and more 

focused attention to the needs of the Nation’s most vulnerable children. These 

emphases will become even more prominent in the late 1950s and into the 1960s, 

under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

“Never before have children had as great likelihood of surviving the physical 

hazards of birth and of contagious diseases during their growing years. With 

the conquest of these diseases now within sight, the problems of emotional and 

mental growth and development stand out as the most pervasive challenge of 

our time in the broad field of child well-being.”

—Annual Report of the Children’s Bureau, 195044

Chapter 4 Notes

1 Children’s Bureau, The Story of the White House Conferences on Children and Youth (Washington, 

DC: printed by author, 1967), 12–13, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/19074.PDF.

2 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Recommendations of the White House Conference on Children in a Democracy (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1940), http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20882.PDF. 

3 Children’s Bureau, The Story of the White House Conferences, 13–15.

4 Ibid., 12.

5 Information for this and the following two paragraphs taken from Kriste Lindenmeyer, “A 

Right to Childhood”: The U.S. Children’s Bureau and Child Welfare, 1912–1946 (Urbana: Universi-
ty of Illinois Press, 1997), 210–13; and U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Care of Children 

Coming to the United States for Safety Under the Attorney General’s Order of July 13, 1940: Standards 

Prescribed by the Children’s Bureau (Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1941), v–ix, 

http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20695.PDF. 

6 Children’s Bureau, Care of Children, vii.

7 Dorothy Bradbury, Five Decades of Action for Children (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 

1962), 72, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/2628.PDF. 

8 Ibid., 94.

9 Ibid., 76.

10 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 215–16; and “Dr. Martha May Eliot” in Changing the Face of 

Medicine, National Library of Medicine, accessed June 1, 2012, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_99.html. 

11 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Standards for Day Care of Children of Working Mothers: Report of the Subcommittee on Standards and Services for Day Care Authorized by the Children’s Bureau 

Conference on Day Care of Children of Working Mothers (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing 

Office, 1942), http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20695.PDF. 

12 Ibid., vii, original emphasis.

13 Quoted in Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 219–20.

14 Bradbury, Five Decades, 60–62.

15 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 222.

16 Quoted in Bradbury, Five Decades, 55.

17 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 223.

18 Bradbury, Five Decades, 58–59; and Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 227.

19 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 247.

20 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, To Parents in Wartime (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942), 1–2, http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/hgp&CISOPTR=462&CISOBOX=1&REC=9. 

21 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Toys in Wartime: Suggestions to Parents on Making Toys 

in Wartime (Washington, DC: printed by author, 1942), 5, http://www.scribd.com/haraoi_conal/d/29516024-Toys-in-Wartime-%E2%80%93-labor-childrens-bureau-1942. 

22 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, If Your Baby Must Travel in Wartime (Washington, DC: 

U.S. Government Printing Office, 1944), 5, http://archive.org/details/ifyourbabymusttr00unit. 

23 U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Community Action for Children in Wartime (Washington, 

DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943), 1, http://archive.org/details/communityactionf00unit. 

24 See for example: U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Children Bear the Promise of a Better 

World: Are We Defending Their Right to Health? (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 
1941), http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/hgp&CISOPTR=474&CISOBOX=1&REC=2. 

25 Information in this section on EMIC from Bradbury, Five Decades, 65–68, unless otherwise 

noted. For more information on EMIC, see Nathan Sinai and Odin W. Anderson, EMIC: A Study 

of Administrative Experience (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan School of Public Health, 1948), 

http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20982.PDF. 

26 Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood, 238.

27 Ibid., 242.

28 Ibid., 243.

29 Ibid., 249–50.

30 Bradbury, Five Decades, 74.

31 Ibid., 88.

32 Information for this box taken from “Dr. Martha May Eliot,” in Changing the Face of Medicine,

National Library of Medicine, accessed June 3, 2012, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_99.html; “Martha May Eliot Biography,” American Public 

Health Association, accessed June 3, 2012, http://www.apha.org/membergroups/sections/

aphasections/mch/benefits/mmebio.htm; and Lindenmeyer, Right to Childhood.

33 Bradbury, Five Decades, 75.

34 Children’s Bureau, Story of the White House Conferences, 15; Andrew L. Yarrow, History of U.S. 

Children’s Policy, 1900–Present (Washington, DC: First Focus, 2009), 10, http://firstfocus.net/sites/

default/files/r.2009-5.1.yarrow.pdf.

35 Information in this paragraph taken from Bradbury, Five Decades, 74–75; and Children’s Bureau, Story of the White House Conferences, 16–21.

36 Children’s Bureau, A Healthy Personality for Your Child (Washington, DC: printed by author, 

1952), http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20300.PDF. 

37 Children’s Bureau, Story of the White House Conferences, 21.

38 Bradbury, Five Decades, 76–77.

39 Information for this and the following paragraph taken from Bradbury, Five Decades, 78–79, 

88–90.

40 Bradbury, Five Decades, 91–94.

41 This and the two quotes in the following paragraph all taken from Martha M. Eliot, “To 

Our Readers,” CHILDREN 1, no. 1 (1954): 4, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx-

?c=hearth;idno=4761305_130_001. 

42 Information in this section on grant-in-aid programs taken from Bradbury, Five Decades, 

79–86. Specific details are cited by page number only in this and the following paragraphs.

43 Information for this and the following paragraph taken from Bradbury, Five Decades, 84–86.

44 Quoted in Bradbury, Five Decades, 79.
Chapter 5

President Lyndon B. Johnson surrounded by elementary 

schoolchildren during their visit to the White House, ca. 

1967. A hallmark of Johnson’s “Great Society” was significant 

progress in children’s issues. (Lyndon Baines Johnson Library 

and Museum photo by Yoichi Okamoto) 
Chapter 5

A Growing Government Shrinks the 

Children’s Bureau (1957–1973)

Introduction

President Dwight D. Eisenhower named Katherine Oettinger the fifth Chief of 

the Children’s Bureau on May 17, 1957.1 Oettinger oversaw the Bureau during a 

period of tremendous social change in the United States. Forces such as the postWorld War II Baby Boom, “White flight” to the suburbs, the Federal Government’s 

heightened focus on poverty and racial justice, and an increased interest in the 

rights of children and youth deeply affected the Bureau’s work. Public awareness 

of child abuse and neglect grew, as did an emphasis within the child welfare field 

on assessing and understanding children within the context of their families. 

Meanwhile, legislative changes to Social Security greatly broadened the scope of 

the Children’s Bureau’s health and child welfare programs. Ironically, as the Children’s Bureau’s responsibilities grew, so did pressure to move some of its work to 

other areas of the Federal Government. This was finally realized in 1969 when the 

Bureau was relocated and stripped of most of its administrative responsibilities, 

including those for maternal and child health and crippled children, among others. The Children’s Bureau then sharpened its focus on issues of child maltreatment, foster care, and adoption, where it remains today.
The Bureau in the Late 1950s

Strengthening Family Life

Katherine Oettinger’s tenure as Chief reflected a growing emphasis on the 

importance of protecting and strengthening family life. More and more, the 

Bureau encouraged child welfare workers to explore providing services to children while still in their homes and to review the situations of children in foster 

care more frequently to see if they could be safely returned home. Options such 

as homemaker and day care services were advocated as critical pieces of the 

family-strengthening puzzle. A Census Bureau study conducted for the Children’s 

Bureau in 1958 found approximately 400,000 children under the age of 12 caring 

for themselves while their mothers worked. To address these children’s needs, the 

Bureau appointed an Ad Hoc Advisory Committee on the Day Care of Children in 

November 1959 and sponsored a national conference on the issue, along with the 

Women’s Bureau, in 1960.2 Particular attention was paid to the children of migrant 

worker families, resulting in a report to Congress on the subject in early 1961.3 The 

Bureau also sponsored a number of activities, including a national conference in 

1959, aimed toward encouraging and helping communities to develop homemaker 

services.4

In keeping with its focus on the whole family, under Oettinger’s direction the 

Children’s Bureau also advocated for greater protections for all parties in the 

adoption process. As early as 1955, Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee had 

initiated a series of oversight hearings on adoption in response to growing reports 

of unethical and deceptive private adoption practices. The same year, the Bureau 

had sponsored a Conference on Unprotected Adoptions, and in 1957 it initiated 

a partnership with the Florida Department of Welfare to conduct the first-ever 

longitudinal study of outcomes for children adopted without the involvement of 

an agency.5

 These concerns led to a series of conferences and publications during 

the first several years of Oettinger’s leadership on the proper roles of physicians, 

attorneys, and social workers in adoption. In fiscal year 1961, the Bureau published legislative guidelines for States on the separate processes of termination of 

parental rights and the adoption of children. These guides were used to provide 

consultation to States and voluntary groups as they worked to draft and improve 

State laws.6
Social Security Amendments

Changes to the Social Security Act prompted further shifts in the Bureau’s child 

welfare work. The Social Security amendments of 1958 allowed Federal funds to be 

used for the first time to provide child welfare services in urban areas, reflecting 

recent trends toward urbanization, demographic changes, and growth of inner-city 

“ghettoes.” The 1958 amendments also called for an Advisory Council on Child 

Welfare Services to report to Congress and to the Secretary of the U.S. Department 

of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) by January 1960. The 12-member Advisory 

Council, assisted by Bureau staff, gathered information from State public welfare 

agencies and national voluntary agencies to inform its recommendations, several 

of which were enacted into law that year.7

One such recommendation, the authorization of research and demonstration 

(R&D) grants in child welfare, supported the Bureau’s growing interest in research 

regarding the effectiveness of services, which was also reflected in the publication 

of Some Guide Lines to Evaluative Research in 1959.8 Funds for the new R&D grants 

were first appropriated in 1961, and the first 16 project grants (totaling $218,335) 

were made in 1962.9 These grants supported special research and demonstration 

projects that were considered to be of regional or national significance in the field 

of child welfare, and they were approved by the Chief of the Children’s Bureau 

upon recommendation of an advisory group. Some early topics included methods 

for meeting the needs of disadvantaged preschool children and their families 

(a precursor to the Head Start program), selection of foster parents, and the 

well-being of adopted children and their families.

Training Professional Staff

Another Advisory Council recommendation was to provide Federal child welfare 

training grants to address an acute and growing shortage of trained child welfare 

workers. By 1958, the majority of professionally trained public child welfare workers in rural areas had received Federal funds for their training.10 In 1960, the Bureau provided approximately 10 percent of the $13 million in child welfare funds 

allocated to States for educational leave11—still, there was an estimated shortage 

of 3,000 trained public child welfare workers.12 A 1960 Children’s Bureau study, 

Salaries and Working Conditions of Social Welfare Manpower, showed that only 26 percent of social work staff in child welfare services were fully trained.13 The Advisory 
Council recommended three types of Federal grants to address the gap: scholarships for existing workers through State public welfare departments, grants to accredited social work programs for individual scholarships and enhanced training 

resources for the field, and grants to public or private agencies conducting training 

projects of regional or national significance.14 In a 1961 report on the topic, the Bureau called for a “vigorous, sustained national recruitment” campaign in addition 

to significant increases in salaries, scholarships, and educational leave.15

“Undeniably it is costly to build staffs of high professional quality—but we 

know that in human terms the cost is infinitely greater if we fail, for whatever 

reason, to provide adequate services. In the end, it is the children who suffer 

most.” 

—Chief Katherine B. Oettinger, Panel Presentation, Second National Conference on 

the Churches and Social Welfare, Cleveland, OH, October 24, 196116

Health Programs 

By the late 1950s, the 

infant mortality rate was 

increasing for the first time 

in more than 20 years. 

Factors included problems 

arising from overcrowded 

hospital nurseries, including antibiotic-resistant 

staph infections and early 

discharge of mothers and 

babies, particularly in 

inner-city areas affected by 

the flight of middle- and 

upper-income families to 

the suburbs.17 Renewed 

concern about infant 

mortality, and a growing 

emphasis on preventing mental retardation and other disabilities, was reflected in 

a continuing focus on maternal and infant health programs throughout the 1960s. 

A drawing from Bradbury’s Five Decades of Action for 

Children shows a social worker visiting a family. (Maternal 

Child Health Library)
The crippled children program established regional centers for the surgical treatment of congenital heart defects, which increased from 2,200 children served in 

1950 to 16,800 in 1960.18 Other special projects during this period included prosthetics research, epilepsy treatment, dissemination of polio and other vaccines, 

and more.

Katherine Oettinger: Chief of the Children’s Bureau M

1957–1968 

Katherine Brownell Oettinger was born in Nyack, NY, in 1903.19 She graduated 

from Smith College with honors in sociology in 1925; the following year she 

received a master’s degree from the Smith College School for Social Work. In 

1931 she married Malcolm Oettinger; the couple had two sons. Oettinger was 

both the first Children’s Bureau Chief formally trained in social work and the 

first working mother to serve as Chief.

The early years of Oettinger’s career were spent serving in social work roles 

of increasing responsibility in New York and Pennsylvania, ending as the Chief 

of the Division of Community Services within Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Mental 

Health (appointed in 1950). Oettinger left Pennsylvania in 1954 to become the 

first woman dean of Boston University’s School of Social Work. 

In 1957, President Eisenhower appointed Oettinger to be Chief of the Children’s Bureau. For the next 11 years she presided over a sixfold increase in the 

Bureau’s budget. She was instrumental in focusing public attention on issues 

such as maternal and child health, child abuse and neglect, programs for children with mental retardation and other disabilities, juvenile delinquency, and the 

development of day care. She served as secretary of the 1960 White House 

Conference on Children and Youth and as chair of the Federal Interdepartmental Committee on Children and Youth. Her international activities included 

serving as the U.S. representative on the UNICEF executive board from 1957 

to 1961.
Oettinger left the Children’s Bureau 

in 1968 and was appointed Deputy 

Assistant Secretary for Population 

and Family Planning within HEW, a 

reflection of her longstanding interest 

in family planning. In 1970, she retired 

from the Federal Government. After 

leaving the Government, Oettinger 

served as a consultant, lecturer, and 

speaker for universities and various 

health, welfare, and civic organizations. 

“The kind of vision we have in regard 

to children will largely determine the 

future of the world.” President John F. Kennedy walks with 20

Katherine Brownell Oettinger, Children’s Bureau Chief, before delivering 

an address at the Children’s Bureau 

50th Anniversary Celebration. (Abbie 

Rowe. White House Photographs. John F. 

Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, 

Boston)

Golden Anniversary White House Conference on Children and 

Youth

The Children’s Bureau initiated planning for the 1960 White House Conference on 

Children as early as the mid-1950s, working in partnership with the coordinating 

groups from the 1950 conference.21 In 1958, President Eisenhower appointed a 

92-person national committee, including for the first time 10 youth of high school 

or college age, to plan the conference. Conference planning activities were extensive and included gathering eight volumes of material on children and youth for 

attendees to review prior to their arrival.

The 1960 conference, called the Golden Anniversary White House Conference on 

Children and Youth, was the largest such gathering yet. Among the 7,600 official 

delegates were 1,400 youth and 500 foreign visitors.22 An additional 3,400 invited 
guests attended the opening assembly. Delegates then met in 210 subject-focused 

work groups to develop specific recommendations, all addressing the overall purpose “to promote opportunities for children and youth to realize their full potential for a creative life in freedom and dignity.”23 Some of these recommendations 

would directly affect the Bureau’s work, including concern about rising delinquency rates and the need for more professional training for those working with 

children, while others were beyond its scope, such as educational opportunities 

for youth and the use of educational television. In all, 670 recommendations were 

eventually published as a result of conference activities, along with a statement of 

“youth priorities” that emerged from a special panel of youth participants. 

Following the conference, Congress 

appropriated $150,000 for the Children’s Bureau to establish a Special 

Unit for Follow-Up, which helped the 

Bureau focus on conference-established 

objectives. A full-time consultant was 

established within the Bureau to coordinate with national, State, and local 

organizations on similar tasks. In November 1960, a National Committee for 

Children and Youth also was established 

to follow up on conference findings, a 

joint effort by private, State, and Federal 

committees for children and youth. 

That group was instrumental in helping 

to maintain momentum from the 1960 

conference, sponsoring three biennial joint Conferences on Children and 

Youth in 1962, 1964, and 1966 and two special conferences on unemployed youth. 

The Federal Interdepartmental Committee withdrew its participation in 1966, but 

the group remained active.

The poster from the 1960 Golden Anniversary White House Conference on Children and 

Youth. (National Archives)
Kennedy Administration

President John F. Kennedy’s administration was characterized by a marked attention to and considerable legislative action in the area of social services and public 

welfare. As President-elect in November 1960, Kennedy appointed a Task Force on 

Health and Social Security to prioritize health and welfare proposals for the new 

administration. A number of the recommendations concerned children’s programs 

and would influence the fate of the Children’s Bureau during the next few years. 

Some of these included:

• Creation of a National Institute of Child Health to conduct research, 

some of which overlapped projects then administered by the Children’s 

Bureau

• Development of a Family and Child Welfare Services Plan to bring 

together Federal aid to States under the Social Security Act into a single 

program, including social services for needy families and children and 

community social services (including juvenile delinquency prevention)

• Transfer of the Children’s Bureau from the Social Security Administration to the Office of the Secretary of HEW

• Creation of an Institute of Family and Child Welfare Research within the 

Social Security Administration to retain the Children’s Bureau’s child 

welfare research and demonstration functions

• Transfer of the administration of the Maternal and Child Health and 

Crippled Children programs to the Public Health Service

• Transfer of the administration of the Child Welfare Services program 

to the Social Security Commissioner pending the development of the 

Family and Child Welfare Services plan24

Changes in Social Security

These recommendations began to be realized as early as 1961, when the Social Security Amendments created a temporary expansion of the Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) program that authorized Federal matching funds for State payments 

on behalf of children placed in foster care. (Prior to this, funds were authorized 
to support only children living with their parents or certain relatives.) States also 

were required to develop a plan for each child in foster care, including periodic 

reviews of the necessity for care and provision of services to assist the family in 

providing a safe home for the child’s return.25 States were required to use services 

of the State’s public child welfare program whenever possible, thus creating a 

formal link between the two previously separate Social Security programs. A joint 

committee was formed to establish policies to implement the new requirements, 

including both Children’s Bureau and Public Assistance staff. Draft regulations 

were reviewed by State and Regional representatives.26

These provisions were made permanent the following year by the Public Welfare 

Amendments of 1962. Other changes to the child welfare provisions (title V) of 

Social Security included an increase in appropriations, a broader definition of 

child welfare services, and earmarked funds for day care services.27 For the first 

time, the 1962 amendments authorized the Children’s Bureau to make grants to 

institutions of higher learning for child welfare training projects under section 426 

of title IV-B, including traineeships to support graduate study leading to a master’s 

or doctoral degree in social work, grants to employ additional instructors for the 

classroom or fieldwork, and short-term grants to support seminars, workshops, 

and other training activities. These grants were first awarded in 1963.28

Two provisions made permanent by the Public Welfare Amendments had lasting 

impact on the need and availability of professional child welfare staff: States’ child 

welfare services divisions were required to show coordination with the State’s 

ADC program (strengthening the federally mandated link between the two programs), and they were required to have a plan for extending child welfare services 

throughout the State, making services available to all children who needed them 

by July 1975, with priority given to communities with the greatest need.29

Juvenile Delinquency Prevention

Juvenile delinquency was another focus during the Kennedy administration. 

President Kennedy formed the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency 

and Youth Crime by Executive Order in 1961 to review, evaluate, and coordinate 

Federal activities and to recommend more effective prevention, treatment, and 
control methods.30 This committee built upon recommendations for more Federal 

leadership in this area originally presented in a joint report by the National Institute of Mental Health and the Children’s Bureau in February 1960 at the request 

of Congress.31 The committee’s formation was soon followed by the passage of the 

Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offenses Control Act of 1961. This groundbreaking 

law created a 3-year program of Federal grants-in-aid and technical assistance for 

the prevention and control of juvenile delinquency. Although grants were administered by the Secretary of HEW, the Children’s Bureau retained an essential role 

by helping to administer the grant programs and providing technical assistance to 

grantees through its new Youth Development Unit (established within the Office of 

the Chief in January 1962) and by continuing to create training materials and other 

publications on the subject. Additional grants were authorized by the Juvenile 

Delinquency Prevention and Control Act of 1968.32

President Kennedy signs the Maternal and Child Health 

and Mental Retardation Planning bill on Oct. 24, 1963. (Cecil 

Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)

Mental Retardation

One of the Kennedy administration’s most notable legacies was its commitment 

to prevention and treatment of mental retardation. 

This had been a focus of 

Children’s Bureau attention for several years prior 

to Kennedy’s election. As 

early as 1956, for example, 

$1 million of the Children’s 

Bureau’s annual maternal 

and child health appropriation was earmarked for 

programs for mentally retarded children;33 by fiscal 

year 1958, the Bureau had 

approved 27 State plans 

for special projects in this area.34 Meanwhile, the Children’s Bureau continued to 

provide national leadership in the diagnosis and treatment of phenylketonuria 
(PKU), a rare genetic condition that results in severe mental retardation if untreated. Between 1956 and 1961, the Bureau helped State health departments develop 

early detection and treatment programs; as a result of these activities, nearly 500 

children with PKU were identified.35

This program gained added momentum in 1962, when the President named a 

24-member panel to develop a “comprehensive and coordinated attack” against 

mental retardation.36 On October 19, 1962, the panel delivered its report, The President’s Panel on Mental Retardation: A Proposed Program for National Action to Combat 

Mental Retardation. This, in turn, led to the development of two laws passed just 1 

year later. The 1963 Maternal and Child Health and Mental Retardation Planning 

Amendments to the Social Security Act authorized new grants for maternity and 

infant care projects and research projects aimed at reducing mental retardation; 

it also authorized one-time grants for the development of comprehensive State 

plans with the same goal.37 Two advisory committees were appointed to help the 

Children’s Bureau implement this law.38 A second law, the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act, was signed just a 

few days later. 

President Kennedy delivers the opening speech at the 

Children’s Bureau 50th Anniversary Celebration at the Statler-Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC, April 9, 1962, to a crowd 

of more than 1,000. (Abbie Rowe. White House Photographs. 

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)

The Bureau 

Celebrates Its 

Fiftieth Anniversary

It was during the Kennedy 

administration that the 

Children’s Bureau marked 

its Golden Anniversary. A 

Citizens Committee was 

formed to organize the 

celebration, with Mrs. John 

F. Kennedy as the honorary 

chairperson. On April 9, 

1962, the Children’s Bureau 

turned 50 years old, and 

the festivities included a 

number of special events, 
publications, and greetings from around the globe. President Kennedy kicked 

off the daylong celebration with a speech that detailed many of the significant 

accomplishments of the Children’s Bureau, as well as the challenges ahead.39 Following the presidential speech, prominent child welfare experts forecast what life 

might be like for American children in 2012. In the evening, a reception honored 

the three living former and current Bureau Chiefs (Katharine Lenroot, Martha 

Eliot, and Katherine Oettinger), and a birthday dinner capped off the event. Many 

well-wishers from around the country sent telegrams, which the Bureau preserved 

in a scrapbook of news clippings and photos from the event.40

In addition to the events of April 9, the Bureau published a special issue of Children, which looked at the past, present, and future of the country’s children and 

included articles by Katherine Oettinger, Adelaide Sinclair (Deputy Director of 

UNICEF), Joseph Reid (Director of the Child Welfare League of America), and Eli Cohen (Director of the National Committee on the Employment of Youth of the National Child Labor Committee), among others. That year also saw the publication 

of Dorothy Bradbury’s Five Decades of Action for Children: A History of the Children’s 

Bureau.

41 Bradbury, the Director of the Bureau’s Division of Reports, presented a 

detailed account of the history and accomplishments of the Bureau, while Chief 

Oettinger wrote a persuasive afterword, “To the Future,” which described the ongoing need that the Children’s Bureau fulfilled in the lives of America’s children and 

outlined necessary activities for ensuring the well-being of children. She ended 

with the following:

“Society moves forward in terms of what its care, hopes, and aspirations are for 

its children. With pride and dedication, the Children’s Bureau begins a new half 

century.”42

More Moves for the Children’s Bureau

Despite the Bureau’s valuable work during this period, structural shifts began to 

indicate greater changes on the horizon. In October 1962, Congress amended the 

Public Health Act to create an Institute of Child Health and Human Development 

within the Public Health Service (PHS). To avoid duplicating efforts, PHS and the 

Children’s Bureau developed a working agreement that the Children’s Bureau 

would focus on “improving the development, management, and effectiveness of 
maternal, child health, and crippled children services,” while the new institute 

would focus on developing “new knowledge relating to health problems and requirements of children and the phenomena of human growth and development.”43

In January 1963, the Children’s Bureau was moved from the Social Security Administration to the newly created Welfare Administration, which also included the 

Bureau of Family Services, the Office of Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Development, and the Cuban Refugee Program, among others.44 This move reflected a 

growing emphasis on coordination between child welfare services and the AFDC 

program (the ADC program was renamed Aid to Families with Dependent Children 

in 1962), administered by the Bureau of Family Services. The Welfare Administration was abolished, and its functions assigned to the Social and Rehabilitation 

Service, in another reorganization in 1967.

“Battered Child Syndrome”M

In July 1962, pediatrician Dr. C. Henry Kempe and his colleagues published a 

paper titled “The Battered Child Syndrome” in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Many credit Kempe and his colleagues with introducing the 

term “battered child” and for sparking a growing recognition among the medical 

community of physical 

child abuse.

Pediatrician Henry Kempe and colleagues authored 

“The Battered Child Syndrome” in the Journal of the 

American Medical Association. (The Kempe Center)

The Children’s Bureau, 

however, was aware 

of this emerging issue 

even before Kempe’s 

article was published. 

In January 1962, 

prompted by reports of 

apparent increases in 

physical child abuse, 

the Bureau held a small 

meeting in Washington, 

DC, to explore how it 
might provide leadership to States and communities seeking to address the 

problem.45 A second meeting in May with legal experts provided the basis for 

a draft model statute, which was then circulated further among members of 

the legal profession, law enforcement officers, pediatricians, hospital administrators, social workers, and others concerned with child well-being.46 By the 

summer of 1963, the Children’s Bureau was distributing suggested legislative 

language for a law requiring doctors and hospitals to report suspected abuse, 

the fourth in a series of legislative guides developed by the Bureau.47 Thanks in 

part to the Bureau’s leadership on the issue, all States had enacted child abuse 

reporting laws by the end of 1967.48

But the Children’s Bureau knew that ensuring that cases of child abuse and neglect were reported, while an important step, was not enough to solve the problem. In keeping with its emphasis on prevention, the Bureau provided research 

and demonstration grants as early as 1966 to explore the causes of child abuse 

and what steps might be taken on a national level to prevent further cases.49

These early grants paved the way for much greater efforts in the next decade. 

The Children’s Bureau in the Great Society 

In 1964, President Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act, a keystone of his 

War on Poverty. Its anti-poverty provisions included several new work opportunity programs as well as education and other supports for poor families, including 

migrant workers. These programs enhanced the Children’s Bureau’s work on behalf 

of children by providing critical supports for struggling families; however, they also 

created increased demand for professional social workers, already in short supply. 

President Johnson recognized this difficulty in his Message to Congress on the Welfare of Children, delivered February 8, 1967. One element of his 12-point program 

to enhance children’s health and welfare was to “help the States train specialists—

now in critically short supply—to deal with problems of children and youth.”50

The Children’s Bureau continued to offer assistance in the form of training grants, 

as well as research grants that explored various methods of organizing and using 

professional and paraprofessional staff. For example, in 1966 the Children’s Bureau 
created and distributed 

a process for State child 

welfare agencies to evaluate their intake processes 

to improve services.51 The 

crisis in professional staff 

was not limited to social services; in 1965, the 

Bureau conducted a study 

on the “manpower situation in maternity care” at 

the request of the Special 

Assistant to the President 

for Mental Retardation.52

Special grants also provided fellowships and 

traineeships in fields such 

as pediatrics, psychology, nursing, speech pathology, occupational therapy, and 

audiology.53

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Economic Opportunity Act, also known as the Poverty Bill. (Lyndon Baines 

Johnson Library and Museum)

Focus on Youth

Prevention of juvenile delinquency was another significant priority of President 

Johnson, building on work begun during the Kennedy administration. From the 

signing of the Economic Opportunity Act, which included programs for youth such 

as Job Corps, Neighborhood Youth Corps, and VISTA, to his 1967 message to Congress citing the need to “enrich the summer months for needy boys and girls,”54 a 

greater emphasis was placed on proactive attention to the needs of youth. Within 

the Children’s Bureau, a Youth Services Unit developed in 1966 was charged with 

helping youth transition successfully to adulthood by “identifying the problems 

and needs of adolescents and young adults in today’s changing society, exploring 

existing resources for meeting these needs, and stimulating new approaches for 

dealing with them.”55 One early program of this unit focused specifically on the 

needs of young parents ages 14 to 19. 

Although a greater emphasis was placed on prevention, the Children’s Bureau also 

continued to study ways to improve the effectiveness of juvenile court systems in 
treating offenders.56 In 1965, the Bureau designed an improved local-State-Federal 

reporting plan for juvenile courts. Bureau staff also continued to offer consultation 

services to States through its Division of Juvenile Delinquency Service; in 1966, 

they examined State facilities and programs for juvenile offenders in Maryland 

and New York. In 1967, the Bureau released a revised version of its groundbreaking Standards for Juvenile and Family Courts, which emphasized the importance of 

due process for youth offenders. These standards were cited in the landmark in re 

Gault decision the same year.57

Young Children

The needs of young children were also of great 

concern, evidenced by the 

creation of the Head Start 

program in the summer of 

1965.58 In April 1968, the 

President named a Federal 

Panel on Early Childhood, 

with Jule Sugarman (who 

would later serve briefly as 

Acting Chief of the Children’s Bureau in 1969) as 

Chairman. This panel was 

established to coordinate 

the efforts of all federally 

funded early childhood programs and help develop plans for the most effective 

use of those funds. To that end, the panel created the Community Coordinated 

Child Care (4-C) program to encourage similar coordination at the local level. In 

addition to participating on this Federal panel, Children’s Bureau staff published 

a newsletter, Day Care Notes, beginning in April 1969 to inform the public of the 

panel’s activities. 

A ceremony for National Head Start Day included (front row 

from left to right) Timothy Shriver, Robert Shriver, Danny 

Kaye, Lady Bird Johnson, Mrs. Lou Maginn—Director of 

a Head Start project in East Fairfield, VT—and Sargent 

Shriver, ca. June 30, 1965. (Lyndon Baines Johnson Library 

and Museum)

Health Care

Two new projects during this time provided additional resources to address the 

health care needs of infants and young children in low-income areas. The Mater-
nity and Infant Care Projects (authorized by the 1963 Maternal and Child Health 

and Mental Retardation Planning Amendments) were established in April 1964 

to reduce high maternal and infant mortality rates in target areas, particularly in 

crowded urban ghettoes. By June 30, 1968, 53 such projects were funding regular 

prenatal appointments, nutrition counseling, transportation assistance, homemaker assistance, and hospital births for low-income mothers. Target cities experienced significant decreases in infant mortality rates: In Chicago, the 1967 rate was 

9.6 percent lower than the 

previous year, with the 

rate for African-American 

women declining an unprecedented 16.8 percent. 

Baltimore saw a similar 

15 percent decline in its 

non-White infant mortality rate. In response to the 

project’s success, Congress 

(in the 1967 Social Security 

amendments) authorized 

the maternity and infant 

care projects to continue 

through June 30, 1972.59

A nurse cares for a newborn in a hospital maternity ward, 

ca. 1960s. (National Library of Medicine)

In March 1966, the Children’s Bureau provided a grant to the Chicago Board of 

Health to establish the first federally funded comprehensive health services for 

preschool and school-age children of low-income families, as authorized by the 

1965 Social Security amendments.60 By June 30, 1968, the Bureau had funded 58 

similar projects, providing comprehensive health care to 220,000 low-income children. Services included screening, diagnostic, and preventive medical and dental 

services.61

Research during this period also was conducted by Children’s Bureau staff or 

funded through grants on a wide variety of health-related topics, including prematurity, children with emotional disturbances, mental retardation, neurological 

defects of infancy and childhood, hunger, and malnutrition. Some of the Bureau’s 

published studies included Vision Screening of the Preschool Child (1964), Parent and 
Family-Life Education for Low-Income Families (1965), The Practice of Nurse-Midwifery 

in the United States (1965), Prevention of 

Iron-Deficiency Anemia in Infants and Children of Preschool Age (1967), Recommended 

Guidelines for PKU Programs (1967), and 

Multiservice Programs for Pregnant School 

Girls (1968).62

A child receives preventive dental care at 

the Children’s Clinic of Meharry Hospital in 

Nashville, TN. (National Library of Medicine)

International Research and Training Expands M

The Children’s Bureau has long benefited from a healthy exchange of information with other nations. In fiscal year 1956, for example, the Bureau arranged 

for 74 specialists in maternal and child health or child welfare from 31 countries 

to attend professional training schools or observe health and welfare programs 

in the United States. The professionals included 39 physicians, 9 child welfare 

workers, and 4 juvenile delinquency workers, among others. Brief interviews 

or observation visits were arranged for 156 additional professionals from 51 

countries that year.63

The International Health Research Act of 1960 expanded the Children’s Bureau’s ability to conduct research and training activities in foreign countries.64

By early April 1963, the Bureau had approved 11 international maternal and 

child health and social welfare research projects. Participating countries includ-
ed Israel, Pakistan, and India. By 1966, additional projects had been funded 

in Egypt, Poland, and Yugoslavia. Topics included prematurity, toxemia of 

pregnancy, infant mortality, PKU screening methods, deafness and hearing loss 

in children, and the impact of contraception use on abortion rates.

Family Planning

The 1950s post-World War II Baby Boom resulted in a 1960s concern about population explosion and interest in family planning. In the Bureau’s early years, this 

topic was treated as off-limits; Chief Lathrop and her staff in general declined 

to answer women’s questions about contraception, although they occasionally 

referred women to other, more local sources.65 By the 1960s, however, that had 

changed. The 1967 Social Security amendments for the first time earmarked 6 

percent of maternal and child health funds for family planning. A 1969 publication, The Children’s Bureau’s Job Today, proudly notes that the Bureau “has played a 

major role in making it possible for all parents to exercise their right to plan their 

families.”66 Similar sentiments were expressed by groups such as the American 

Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, and the National 

Academy of Sciences, and efforts were made across the Federal Government to 

increase knowledge and access to family planning strategies. In the Children’s 

Bureau, these consisted of research and demonstration grants, support for professional staff training, and matching funds to States through the maternal and child 

health programs of the Social Security Act.67

In 1964, only 20 States provided family planning services to women who needed 

them.68 By 1968, nearly all States were providing some form of family planning 

services through this program, bringing family planning assistance to more than 

420,000 women.69 In the meantime, family planning had become a deep personal 

interest of Chief Oettinger’s. In early 1968, President Johnson appointed Oettinger to be the new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population and Family Planning, 

HEW. Pardo Frederick DelliQuadri was appointed as her replacement as Chief of 

the Children’s Bureau. DelliQuadri’s term was brief: He left the Bureau in 1969, in 

anticipation of a significant reorganization. 
Cuban Refugee Children M

Shortly after Fidel Castro assumed power in Cuba in 1959, refugees began 

arriving in the United States. Many of the new arrivals were unaccompanied 

children, sent by their parents to protect them from the impact of Castro’s 

regime. The influx of refugees, most of whom landed in Miami, FL, quickly 

overwhelmed the resources in place to assist them.70 Federal funds were first 

allocated by President Eisenhower in November 1960—$1 million for a new 

refugee center. In February 1961, President Kennedy ordered HEW to develop 

a new program for meeting refugees’ needs. 

Under the authorization of a new 

Migration and Refugee Assistance 

Act passed in June 1962, Congress 

appropriated more than $70 million 

to carry out the program, including 

almost $14 million for aid to unaccompanied children. Foster care 

services were provided to many of 

these children by the Florida State 

Department of Public Welfare, under 

contract with HEW. The Children’s 

Bureau, drawing on its experience 

with earlier groups of refugee children, 

provided extensive consultation to 

States for program planning and 

placement. By 1966, at least 13,000 

unaccompanied children had arrived in 

the United States, and approximately 

8,000 of these received foster care 

under the Federal program.71 Most of 

the children were eventually reunited 

with family members; only 395 Cuban refugee children remained in foster care 

on December 31, 1966.72

Cuban refugee children arrive in Miami. 

Between December 1965 and the spring 

of 1973, the United States airlifted more 

than 260,000 Cubans to United States. 

(Miami News Collection, HistoryMiami)
Reorganization of the Bureau

On September 17, 1969, Secretary of HEW Robert H. Finch announced that the 

Children’s Bureau was being moved from the Social and Rehabilitation Service to 

a new Office of Child Development (OCD) within HEW’s Office of the Secretary.73

The newly formed OCD had three Bureaus: The Children’s Bureau, the Head Start 

Bureau, and a Bureau of Program Development and Resources. According to the 

official announcement, the Children’s Bureau retained authority to “perform the 

functions assigned to it by Congress when the Bureau was created in 1912—‘to investigate and report on all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child 

life among all classes of our people’—to carry out research, demonstration and 

training functions, to coordinate the programs for children and parents throughout the Department, to promote programs for youth, to identify areas requiring 

the development of new programs, and to serve as an advocate for children.” In 

actuality, however, many of the Bureau’s responsibilities were assigned to other 

areas of the Federal Government, never to be regained. 

All health programs, including maternal and child health services, crippled children’s services, maternity and infant care projects, and health research, were permanently relocated (after decades of debate) to the Public Health Service within the 

Health Services and Mental Health Administration. Today, these programs still exist 

within the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Juvenile delinquency 

services, child welfare services under title IV of the Social Security Act, and services 

to families in the AFDC program were retained by the Social and Rehabilitation 

Service within a new unit, the Community Services Administration (CSA). Even staff 

for the 1970 White House Conference on Children and Youth were relocated from 

the Children’s Bureau to a unit within the Secretary’s own office. Research Relating 

to Children, a publication of the Clearinghouse for Research in Child Life since 1948, 

was transferred to the ERIC Clearinghouse on Early Childhood Education in 1970.74

As a result of these changes, the Bureau was left to administer research and 

demonstration grants but no direct service programs. The position of Chief of the 

Children’s Bureau, vacant since DelliQuadri’s departure in 1969, also ceased to exist 

in its current form. The Director of OCD would hereafter also hold the title of Chief 

of the Bureau. When the new Director, Dr. Edward Zigler, was appointed in 1970, 
he was quick to address concerns about 

the changes. In an article published in 

Children, he reassured readers, “The Children’s Bureau, in its advocacy function, 

will be even more important and influential under the present organization 

than it has been in the past.”75 Despite 

the loss of many of the Bureau’s former 

programs, Zigler promised the Bureau 

would retain key responsibilities such 

as advocacy for disadvantaged children, 

standard-setting for services, technical 

assistance to States, drafting models for 

State legislation, and recommending 

Federal legislation involving children’s 

services. 

Zigler appointed pediatrician Frederick 

Chapman Green to be Associate Chief, the role now responsible for the Bureau’s 

day-to-day operations, in August 1971.76 By 1972, the new Children’s Bureau had 

been reorganized into three major subdivisions representing the new scope of its 

responsibilities: the Division of Research and Evaluation, the Division of Public 

Education, and the National Center for Child Advocacy. The Center in turn comprised three subdivisions: a Children’s Concern Center to address questions and 

ideas received from the public, a Secretariat to collect information about children 

and children’s programs, and a Division for Vulnerable Children. The Center began 

a new newsletter, Advocacy for Children, in 1971 with the guidance of an editorial 

advisory board including representation from multiple agencies within HEW.

Dr. Edward Zigler was appointed OCD Director and Children’s Bureau Chief in 1970. 

(National Archives)

1970 White House Conferences on Children and Youth

Planning for the 1970 White House Conference on Children began as early as August 1966, when the Secretary of HEW, at the request of President Johnson, wrote 

to Governors asking for their support. Each Governor was asked to name a State 

committee to plan for the State’s participation in the conference, act as liaison 

with the national committee, and work with national conference staff. The Chief 
of the Children’s Bureau also convened several advisory groups, including one 

youth advisory group, to explore possible themes and formats for the conference.77

In 1970, it was decided that for the first time there would be two separate White 

House Conferences: one on children and another on youth. The seventh White 

House Conference on Children was held December 13–18, 1970. At the conference, approximately 5,000 people—including 3,700 voting delegates in addition 

to international visitors, Federal staff, and other guests—identified 16 “overriding 

concerns” for child well-being. The top three were: 

• “Comprehensive family-oriented child development programs including 

health services, day care, and early childhood education

• The development of programs to eliminate the racism that cripples all 

children

• Reordering of national priorities beginning with a guaranteed basic 

family income adequate for the needs of children”78

Attendees also called for more attention to children’s issues at the Federal level, including the establishment of a federally funded child advocacy agency and a Cabinet 

post dedicated to the needs of children. These 16 overriding concerns were accompanied by a list of 25 specific recommendations, topped by a call to reorder national 

priorities to “provide opportunities for every child to learn, grow, and live creatively.”79

Regional follow-up meetings were attended by nearly 1,000 delegates in Omaha, 

Denver, Indianapolis, Atlanta, and Seattle.80 A White House Conference on Children (WHCC) Follow-Up Office, located in the Children’s Bureau’s newly established National Center for Child Advocacy, was assigned leadership for pursuing 

implementation of the conference recommendations. The Bureau worked with 

multiple advisory groups, including representatives of national voluntary and 

professional organizations and groups specifically focused on each of the 1970 

conference topical areas, to decide the best approach for moving forward.81

A separate White House Conference on Youth was planned and conducted largely 

by the youth delegates themselves. In April 1971, 915 youth met at a YMCA con-
ference camp near Estes 

Park, CO, with 473 adults to 

discuss 10 areas of concern: 

foreign relations, environment, race and minority 

group relations, drugs, 

education, the draft, poverty, legal rights and justice, 

economy and employment, 

and values, ethics, and culture. After 4 days of discussion, a follow-up committee 

was elected to meet with 

Federal officials, present 

recommendations to the 

President, and issue a final 

report to the delegates.82

Although White House Conferences on specific issues pertaining to children and 

youth have been held since 1970, the 1970–1971 conferences were the last to be 

conducted in the tradition of the original 1909 White House Conference on the 

Care of Dependent Children.

“I wonder if there is any time that our children seem more precious to us than 

the years when they move from childhood into youth; when the world is opening before them, and they and we are dreaming big dreams of what the future 

will hold for them.”

—Chief Katherine B. Oettinger, Fifth District Parent Teachers Association, 

Louisville, KY, March 12, 196283

After an unexpected snowstorm, the Army distributed boots 

and parkas to youth attendees at the 1971 White House 

Conference held in Colorado. (Children, 18, no. 4, 1971)

Focus on Foster Care and Adoption (1970–1973)

One benefit of the Children’s Bureau’s reorganization was an enhanced focus on 

two critical areas: increasing the supply of available foster families and helping 

to find permanent families for children awaiting adoption. These needs had been 

growing throughout the 1960s.
Foster Care

The number of children receiving child welfare services each month grew by 50 percent between 1961 and 1967.84 The composition of children in foster care also was 

changing. Enhanced economic supports for families, a result of the War on Poverty 

programs during this decade, resulted in fewer families breaking up due to poverty 

alone. As a result, however, a larger percentage of children entering foster care were 

now doing so for reasons that resulted in greater emotional disturbance: parental 

instability, substance abuse, and child abuse and neglect. In addition, the expansion 

of job opportunities in social services continued to exacerbate the shortage of professionally trained staff available to help these children and their families progress 

toward greater stability. Changes in the nature and composition of families in the 

child welfare system necessitated changes in how child welfare agencies did 

business. The years between 1969 and 

1973 were a time of exploration—issues 

of Children featured articles on topics 

such as early principles of family-centered casework, family reunification, 

and the needs of children living with 

relatives and other guardians.85

Along with these changes came a 

growing recognition that foster parents 

were critical partners in the work of 

providing support for struggling families. First locally, and then at a national 

level, foster parents began to organize 

their own advocacy groups. The Children’s Bureau supported this movement by creating a list of the “Rights of 

Foster Parents,” first published in draft 

form in the May–June 1970 issue of 

Children.

86 The Bureau invited feedback from readers, and the list became a topic 

of discussion at the first Bureau-sponsored National Conference of Foster Parents 

held May 7–9, 1971, in Chicago. The conference was attended by 850 foster parents and social workers from 47 States.87

Dr. Frederick Green, Associate Chief of the 

Children’s Bureau, signs the Bill of Rights 

for Foster Children. (Children Today, 2, no. 4, 

1973)
One unanimous resolution from that conference was the initiation of an annual 

National Action for Foster Children Week,88 first held April 9–15, 1972. Established 

by a proclamation signed by President Nixon, the week’s activities included a public 

information campaign and other efforts to raise awareness of the needs of foster 

children, support recruitment of the estimated 50 percent more foster parents 

required to address the current need, and assess resources and services available 

to support foster children and their families.89 A planning meeting in Washington, 

DC, called by the Children’s Bureau and CSA, helped the Bureau to create an action 

program for the coming year. Representatives of 75 national voluntary organizations 

attended the meeting. On the recommendation of this group, the Bureau established a steering committee including specialists from the Children’s Bureau, CSA, 

and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to work with communities and groups seeking to 

improve services to foster children and their families.90

A second National Conference of Foster Parents, attended by nearly 1,200 delegates, 

was held in May of 1972, supported by a grant from the Children’s Bureau to the Child 

Welfare League of America (CWLA). In addition to supporting the conference activities, this grant also provided for the development of educational opportunities for foster parents and the establishment of a national foster parent information exchange.91

Bill of Rights for

Foster Children

The Bill of Rights for Foster Children. (Children 

Today, 2, no. 4, 1973)

M

The second National Action 

for Foster Children Week, April 

8–14, 1973, was followed by 

the convening of a congress of 

foster parents and concerned 

citizens to develop a “Bill of 

Rights for Foster Children.” 

The group met in Philadelphia’s historic Congress Hall 

on April 28, during the Third 

National Foster Parent Asso-
ciation Conference, to pledge their support of the 10 articles. Associate Chief 

Green presided over the congress.92

Adoption

The need for permanent families for children was growing at least as quickly as the 

need for foster families. During this period, the emphasis in adoption policy shifted 

from finding children for families interested in adoption to finding parents for the 

many children awaiting families. As a result, increased attention was given to the 

growing number of hard-to-place children, including those from minority groups, 

older children, children with disabilities, and sibling groups. Agencies also began to 

expand their thinking about who would make appropriate adoptive parents, in order 

to meet those children’s needs. They were more willing than ever to consider possibilities such as cross-cultural, transracial, single-parent, and subsidized adoptions. 

By January 1970, six States (California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, 

and New York) had passed laws to provide subsidies to families who were well 

prepared in all ways except financially to meet a child’s needs.93 By 1973, the number of States with such legislation had increased to 22, and many States were consulting with Children’s Bureau staff in developing their guidelines. In addition, the 

Children’s Bureau provided a grant to Illinois to support evaluation of the impact 

of adoption subsidy programs on adoptions of children from minority groups.94

Also in 1970, the Children’s Bureau initiated a multiyear, nationwide recruitment 

effort to help develop adoption resources for African-American children and 

children of mixed racial background. They began by conducting interviews with 

100 adoptive parents, agency representatives, and African-American organizations 

in five cities—New York, Washington, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles—to 

explore what might be done to enhance recruitment efforts.95 Transracial and 

subsidized adoptions were among the potential solutions discussed with respondents, and the implications of these options would continue to be explored in the 

decades to come.

“One of the major changes in the area of adoption has been in attitudes toward 

it. When adoption first became an accepted practice, it was seen as a service for 
couples who did not have children. Today it is seen as a service for children who 

do not have parents. Whereas once only healthy White infants were placed—

with healthy White families—agencies now consider most children for adoption 

placement. We have seen a tremendous growth in placement of older children, handicapped children and nonwhite children. The practice of subsidized 

adoptions and increased recruitment have brought the possibility of adoption to 

people who had never before considered it. More realistic standards on the part 

of agencies have also encouraged many couples who earlier might have been 

intimidated by agency requirements to come forward as adoptive parents.” 

—Joseph Reid and Maxine Phillips, in “Child Welfare Since 1912,” Children Today, 197296

Indian Adoption ProjectM

The report Far From the Reservation, 

by David Fanshel, outlined outcomes 

of Native American children adopted by 

non-Native families through the Indian 

Adoption Project from 1960 to 1968.

(Child Welfare Information Gateway)

In 1958, the Children’s Bureau, in 

partnership with the Bureau of Indian 

Affairs, provided a grant to CWLA to 

administer the Indian Adoption Project. 

Operating from 1958 through 1967, the 

project placed 395 Native American 

children with White families, primarily in the U.S. East and Midwest.97

Approximately 50 public and private 

adoption agencies cooperated with 

the effort. CWLA’s Adoption Resource 

Exchange of North America (ARENA), founded in 1966, continued the 

practice of placing Native American 

children with White adoptive parents 

into the early 1970s.98

In a time when race-matching in 

adoption was nearly universal policy, 

this program was a notable exception. 
Many child welfare leaders at the time viewed the project as an example of 

enlightened practice and decreased racial prejudice. On the other hand, Native 

American activists denounced the project as a genocidal attack against Native 

communities and cultures.

Researcher David Fanshel conducted an outcome study of families who 

adopted through the Indian Adoption Project from 1960 to 1968. In his report, 

Far From the Reservation, Fanshel concluded that the majority of children and 

families had adjusted well, but he also acknowledged potential criticism: “It may 

be that Indian leaders would rather see their children share the fate of their 

fellow Indians than lose them in the White world,” he wrote. “It is for the Indian 

people to decide.”99

The Indian Adoption Project was one of the events that motivated activists to 

urge passage of legislation to protect Native American children’s ties to their 

Tribes. In 1978, this was achieved by the Indian Child Welfare Act. In April 

2001, CWLA President and CEO Shay Bilchik expressed the incumbent Board 

of Directors’ “sincere and deep regret” for CWLA’s role in the Indian Adoption 

Project, while addressing the National Indian Child Welfare Association’s annual conference.100

Child Abuse and Neglect

Meanwhile, concern about child abuse and neglect, which by this time represented one of the most common reasons children entered into foster care and 

required adoption services, continued to grow. In 1973, the Office of Child Development (OCD) was designated by Caspar Weinberger, then Secretary of HEW, to be 

the lead agency to conduct interdepartmental efforts to prevent child abuse and 

neglect. That year OCD awarded two grants totaling $99,368 to collect information 

about the problem and survey current local child protection efforts. The Children’s 

Division of the American Humane Association was funded to establish a clearinghouse to gather data on the nature and characteristics of child abuse and neglect, 

to collect information on reporting procedures and protective services, and to 

design a voluntary uniform reporting system for States.101 This and similar efforts 

were very soon to become a much greater focus of the Children’s Bureau’s work.
Chapter 5 Notes

1 Dorothy Bradbury, Five Decades of Action for Children: A History of the Children’s Bureau (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1962), 96, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/2628.PDF.

2 Ibid., 115–16.

3 Ibid., 102–3.

4 Ibid., 116.

5 Conference: Margaret Thornhill, “Unprotected Adoptions,” Children 2, no. 5 (1955): 179, http://

hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_131_005. Study: Bradbury, 

Five Decades, 104.

6 Bradbury, Five Decades, 115, 118.

7 John C. Kidneigh, “A Look to the Future in Child Welfare Services,” Children 7, no. 2 (1960): 66, 

http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_133_003. 

8 Elizabeth Herzog, Some Guide Lines for Evaluative Research: Assessing Psycho-Social Change in 

Individuals (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1959), http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/

chbu/20308-1968.PDF. 

9 “Child Welfare,” Children 9, no. 4 (1962): 165, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_135_004. 

10 Katherine Brownell Oettinger, “Current Concerns of the Children’s Bureau,” Children 5, no. 4 

(1958): 123.

11 Bradbury, Five Decades, 115.

12 Kidneigh, “A Look to the Future,” 69.

13 Bradbury, Five Decades, 117.

14 Kidneigh, “A Look to the Future,” 69.

15 Alvin L. Schorr, “Need for Trained Social Work Staff: A Ten-Year Goal,” Social Security Bulletin 

24, no. 8 (1961): 13.

16 Quoted in Bradbury, Five Decades, 114.

17 Ibid., 110.

18 Ibid., 112.

19 Information for this box taken from Radcliffe College, Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger 

Library on the History of Women in America, “Oettinger, Katherine Brownell, 1903-. Papers, 

1924 1982: A Finding Aid” (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Library, 1986), http://oasis.lib.

harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00835.

20 “Children’s Bureau Concerns,” Children 5 (1958): 128.

21 Information about the 1960 White House Conference, unless otherwise noted, taken from 

Children’s Bureau, The Story of the White House Conferences on Children and Youth (Washington, 

DC: printed by author, 1967), 22–29, http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/19074.PDF.
22 Kathryn Close, “Impressions of the White House Conference,” Children 7, no. 3 (1960): 83, 

http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_133_004. 

23 Quoted in Ibid.

24 “Task Force Report,” Children 8, no. 2 (1961): 73, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_134_003. 

25 “Federal Legislation,” Children 8, no. 4 (1961): 154, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_134_005. 

26 Bradbury, Five Decades, 119.

27 “Public Welfare Amendments,” Children 9, no. 5 (1962): 199, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/

cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_135_005. 

28 “Child Welfare Training,” Children 11, no. 4 (1964): 161–2, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/

cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_137_004. 

29 “Public Welfare Amendments,” 199.

30 Bradbury, Five Decades, 125–6.

31 “Report to Congress on Juvenile Delinquency,” Children 7, no. 3 (1960): 117, http://hearth.

library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_137_004. 

32 Bradbury, Five Decades, 126 and 1962 insert, p. 4.

33 “Recent Congressional Action,” Children 3, no. 5 (1956): 193, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/

cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_132_005. 

34 Children 4, no. 5 (1957): 196.

35 “Mental Retardation,” Children 10, no. 5 (1963): 201, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/

text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_136_005. 

36 “Mental Retardation,” Children 9, no. 1 (1962): 33–34, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/

text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_135_001. 

37 Arthur J. Lesser, “Accent on Prevention Through Improved Service,” Children 11, no. 1 (1964): 

13–18, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_137_001. 

38 “Advisory Committees,” Children 11, no. 3 (1964): 121, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/

text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_137_003. 

39 “Remarks on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Children’s Bureau,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (April 9, 1962). Audio file available at http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKWHA-085-001.aspx. 

40 Children’s Bureau, 50th Anniversary of the Children’s Bureau: Memory Book (1962), http://www.

mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/15192.pdf.

41 Bradbury, Five Decades.

42 Ibid., 131.

43 “Federal Legislation,” Children 9, no. 6 (1962): 242, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_135_006. 
44 “New Welfare Administration,” Children 10, no. 2 (1963): 81, http://hearth.library.cornell.

edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_136_002. See also “Records of the Children’s 

Bureau,” National Archives, accessed June 10, 2012, http://www.archives.gov/research/guidefed-records/groups/102.html#102.1. 

45 “Child Welfare,” Children 9, no. 3 (1962): 123, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_135_003. 

46 “Child Abuse,” Children 9, no. 5 (1962): 200–1, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_135_005. 

47 “Abused Children,” Children 10, no. 5 (1963): 202–3, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_136_005. 

48 In its brief article, “Child Abuse,” appearing in the July/August 1966 issue of Children (vol. 

13, no. 4), the Bureau confirms, “Hawaii is now the only State without a child abuse reporting law” (p. 163). (See http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_139_005.) Hawaii’s law requiring certain professionals to report suspected child 

abuse (section 350-1.1) was passed in 1967.

49 “Child Abuse,” Children 13, no. 1 (1966): 36, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_139_002. 

50 “President’s Message on the Welfare of Children,” Children 14, no. 2 (1967): 85, http://hearth.

library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_140_003. 

51 “Child Welfare,” Children 13, no. 2 (1966): 79, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_139_003. 

52 “Maternity Care,” Children 12, no. 5 (1965): 204, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_138_005. 

53 Children’s Bureau, The Children’s Bureau’s Job Today (Washington, DC: U.S. Government 

Printing Office, 1969), 28, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_139_007.

54 “President’s Message on the Welfare of Children,” 85.

55 “For Youth,” Children 13, no. 6 (1966): 244, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx-

?c=hearth;idno=4761305_139_007. 

56 Information on the activities mentioned in this paragraph can be found in issues of Children, 

including vol. 12, no. 2, p. 73; vol. 13, no. 6, p. 247; and vol. 14, no. 1, p. 31. All of these issues are 

available at http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/h/hearth/browse/title/4761305.html. 

57 Children’s Bureau, The Children’s Bureau’s Job Today, 17. 

58 Information for this paragraph taken from issues of Children, including vol. 16, no. 2, p. 76 

and vol. 16, no. 4, p. 164, both available at http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/h/hearth/browse/

title/4761305.html. 

59 Children’s Bureau, The Children’s Bureau’s Job Today, 4–5.

60 “Health Care,” Children 13, no. 3 (1966): 123, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_139_004. 
61 Children’s Bureau, The Children’s Bureau’s Job Today, 15.

62 These and other Children’s Bureau research studies can be found in the Children’s Bureau 

Historical Publications section of the Maternal and Child Health Library at Georgetown University (http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/childrensbureau). 

63 Children 4, no. 1 (1957): 35.

64 Information for this paragraph taken from issues of Children, including vol. 7, no. 5, p. 196; 

vol. 10, no. 3, p. 119; and vol. 13, no. 6, p. 246. All of these issues are available at http://hearth.

library.cornell.edu/h/hearth/browse/title/4761305.html.

65 Kriste Lindenmeyer, “A Right to Childhood”: The U.S. Children’s Bureau and Child Welfare, 

1912–1946 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 70.

66 Children’s Bureau, The Children’s Bureau’s Job Today, 6–7.

67 Katherine B. Oettinger, “This Most Profound Challenge,” Children 12, no. 6 (1965): 211–14, 

http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_138_006. 

68 Children’s Bureau, The Children’s Bureau’s Job Today, 6.

69 “Family Planning,” Children 16, no. 5 (1969): 204, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_142_005.

70 Information for this box, except where otherwise noted, taken from Kathryn Close, “Cuban 

Children Away From Home,” Children 10, no. 1 (1963): 4, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/

text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_136_001. 

71 “Cuban Children,” Children 13, no. 2 (1966): 80, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_139_003.

72 “Refugee Children,” Children 14, no. 2 (1967): 83, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_140_003.

73 Information about the 1969 reorganization in the next two paragraphs is taken from “Reorganization in HEW,” Children 16, no. 6 (1969): 242, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_142_006. 

74 “Miscellaneous,” Children 17, no. 6 (1970): 241, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_143_006. 

75 Edward F. Zigler, “A National Priority: Raising the Quality of Children’s Lives,” Children 

17, no. 5 (1970): 167, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_143_005. 

76 Information in this paragraph taken from 1971 issues of Children, including vol. 18, no. 5, 

p. 196 and vol. 18, no. 6, p. 241. Both can be accessed at http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/h/

hearth/browse/title/4761305.html.

77 Children’s Bureau, Story of the White House Conferences, 29–30.

78 Kathryn Close, “Selecting Priorities at the White House Conference on Children,” Children 18, no. 2 (1971): 44, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_144_002. 
79 Ibid., 47.

80 Ibid., 48.

81 “Children’s Conference Followup,” Children 18, no. 6 (1971): 242, http://hearth.library.cornell.

edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_144_006. 

82 Sidney Rosendorf, “Youth Has Its Say in the Rockies,” Children 18, no. 4 (1971): 122–26, http://

hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_144_004. 

83 Quoted in Bradbury, Five Decades, 128.

84 Children’s Bureau, The Children’s Bureau’s Job Today, 8.

85 See for example: Beatrice L. Garrett, “Meeting the Crisis in Foster Family Care,” Children 13, no. 1 (1966): 2–8, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_139_002; Sidney Z. Moss, “Integration of the Family Into the Child Placement 

Process,” Children 15, no. 6 (1968): 219–224, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx-

?c=hearth;idno=4761305_141_007; Shirley L. Hughes, “Services to Children Living With Relatives or Guardians,” Children 16, no. 3 (1969): 109–13, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_142_003; Hanni B. Edinger, “Reuniting Children and Parents 

Through Casework and Group Work,” Children 17, no. 5 (1970): 183–87, http://hearth.library.

cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_143_005. 

86 Beatrice L. Garrett, “The Rights of Foster Parents,” Children 17, no. 3 (1970): 113, http://hearth.

library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_143_003. 

87 Kathryn Close, “An Encounter With Foster Parents,” Children 18, no. 4 (1971): 138, http://

hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_144_004. 

88 Ibid., 142.

89 Sidney Rosendorf, “Joining Together to Help Foster Children: Foster Parents Form a National 

Association,” Children Today 1, no. 4 (1972): 2–6.

90 “Foster Children Week,” Children Today 1, no. 4 (1972): 13.

91 “Foster Children Week,” Children Today 1, no. 2 (1972): 26.

92 “Rights of Foster Children,” Children Today 2, no. 4 (1973): 20.

93 “New Legislation,” Children 17, no. 2 (1970): 77, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_143_002. 

94 “Letters,” Children Today 2, no. 1 (1973): 35.

95 Elizabeth Herzog, Cecilia E. Sudia, and Jane Harwood, “Some Opinions on Finding Families 

for Black Children,” Children 18, no. 4 (1971): 143, http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/

text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4761305_144_004. 

96 Joseph Reid and Maxine Phillips, “Child Welfare Since 1912,” Children Today 1, no. 2 (1972): 15, 

http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20143.pdf. 

97 Kristen Kreisher, “Coming Home: The Lingering Effects of the Indian Adoption Project,” Children’s Voice (2002): http://www.cwla.org/articles/cv0203indianadopt.htm. 
98 See for example, Reid and Phillips, “Child Welfare Since 1912.” 

99 David Fanshel, Far From the Reservation: The Transracial Adoption of American Indian Children

(Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1972), 339–42. Excerpt published on The Adoption History 

Project website: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/archive/FanshelFFTR.htm. 

100 Kreisher, “Coming Home.”

101 Children Today 2, no. 5 (1973): 19.
Chapter 6

A collection of issues from one of the Bureau’s most popular 

publications, Children Today (Child Welfare Information 

Gateway)
Chapter 6 

Sharpening the Focus on Child 

Welfare (1974–1992)

Introduction 

Passage of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) of 1974 created 

a National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) to support the Children’s 

Bureau’s growing focus on more effective child abuse prevention, research, State 

reporting laws, and systems to address reports. Despite these efforts, studies 

showed an increased incidence of child abuse throughout the 1980s. Meanwhile, 

skyrocketing numbers of children in out-of-home care, contrasted with a cultural 

emphasis on the importance of families, signaled the need for major changes to 

the national foster care system. Several strategies were explored to resolve the 

problem, including home-based preventive services, intensified reunification 

efforts, and removal of barriers to adoption through subsidies and other supports. 

Planning and timeliness became important considerations, to prevent children 

from “drifting” indefinitely in out-of-home care. A groundswell of support for 

these concerns led to the passage of landmark foster care and adoption legislation 

at the end of the 1970s.

With the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980, the Children’s Bureau’s 

influence was diminished in many areas. However, support for family-based 

services, special needs adoption, and child abuse prevention continued. New 

technical assistance methods were explored, and the foundation was laid for today’s modern State and Federal child welfare data systems. New pressures on the 

foster care system, including growing public concern about child maltreatment, a 
national child welfare staffing crisis, and the crack cocaine and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemics of the mid-1980s, set the stage for more change in 

the 1990s and beyond.

National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect

President Nixon signed the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) 

on January 31, 1974, in response to growing public concern about child abuse and 

neglect. CAPTA provided unprecedented financial assistance to help States develop 

child abuse and neglect identification and prevention programs. To access this 

funding, States had to meet certain requirements, including stronger laws governing the reporting of alleged child abuse and neglect, as well as standards relating 

to investigation and cooperation among law enforcement, the courts, and social 

service agencies.1 (In its first year, fiscal year (FY) 1975, 16 States qualified for grants 

totaling nearly $750,000.2) CAPTA also authorized funding for continued Federal 

research into child abuse and neglect incidence, prevention, and treatment.

The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA)—signed into law by President Nixon on January 31, 

1974—was groundbreaking legislation, providing States 

with funds to develop child abuse and neglect prevention 

programs. (Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum)

CAPTA established a 

National Center on Child 

Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) within the Children’s 

Bureau to coordinate 

these activities. NCCAN 

was tasked with administering the State grants 

and providing technical 

assistance to help States 

qualify. NCCAN also administered discretionary 

grants, identified areas 

of focus for research and 

demonstration programs, 

created training materials 

for workers in the field, and collected and disseminated information through its 

National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information. An Advisory 
Board, including representatives of all Federal agencies responsible for child abuse 

programs, was established to assist with program coordination and advise on 

standards for prevention and treatment projects. In June 1974, Congress appropriated $4.5 million to support the Center’s first-year activities.3

 NCCAN’s first 

director, Douglas J. Besharov, J.D., was appointed the following year. Besharov was 

a nationally recognized expert on child protective services and had served as executive director of the New York State Assembly Select Committee on Child Abuse 

and Neglect since 1971.4

Douglas J. Besharov, J.D., (right) at an NCCAN meeting 

ca. 1978. “All citizens must recognize the critical need to 

strengthen the family so that it can better cope with periods 

of stress.” 

—Besharov, in “Building a Community Response to Child 

Abuse and Maltreatment,” Children Today, 4, no. 5, 1975 

(Douglas J. Besharov’s Personal Photo)

One of NCCAN’s first 

priorities was to support 

States in enhancing their 

reporting laws. Although 

most States had laws in 

place, improvements were 

needed in areas such as 

reporting of neglect as well 

as abuse, confidentiality of 

reports and immunity for 

reporters, and appointing 

guardians ad litem in court 

proceedings.5 In 1974, a 

grant to the Institute of 

Judicial Administration 

in New York supported 

revision of the model 

Child Abuse and Neglect 

Reporting Law (originally developed in 1962).6 Other grants during the Center’s 

first few years funded demonstrations of services to abused children and their 

families—including programs to address the needs of specific populations such as 

military, rural, migrant, and Native American families—and research into the “underlying causes of child abuse and neglect within the context of the family and of 

institutions affecting family life.”7

 NCCAN also helped the newly founded Parents 

Anonymous (established in 1970) develop additional chapters around the country.8

Resource Projects were established in all 10 HEW Regions, providing training and 

technical assistance to State and local agencies.9

 NCCAN’s efforts contributed to a 
deepening understanding of the various types of maltreatment during the 1970s, 

including neglect and emotional maltreatment, as well as a growing awareness of 

and willingness to talk about sexual abuse. 

In providing training and technical assistance to States and communities, early 

NCCAN efforts focused on the following seven elements of effective child protection systems, all of which are still emphasized today:

• Accurate knowledge of the true incidence of child maltreatment

• Strong and well-publicized reporting laws

• Well-maintained central registers of child maltreatment reports

• An adequate supply of specially trained child protective workers 

• Treatment programs for parents and children

• Effective court systems

• Interdisciplinary cooperation10

In 1976, NCCAN developed its first campaign to raise public awareness and generate referrals for families at risk of child abuse and neglect. The campaign included 

television and radio public service announcements (PSAs), newspaper ads, posters, 

and a handbook for communities. The materials emphasized advance planning 

to ensure that communities were prepared to follow up effectively on resulting 

reports and requests for help.11

Bureau Administration: 1975–1979 M

On July 22, 1975, John H. Meier, Ph.D., was confirmed by the Senate as Director of the Office of Child Development and Chief of the Children’s Bureau.12

His appointment marked the end of a long vacancy in this appointed office, 

following Zigler’s resignation in July 1972. Dr. Meier came to the Bureau from 

the John F. Kennedy Child Development Center in Denver, CO, where he had 
served as associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics and specialized 

in research programs for children 

with mental retardation and other 

developmental disabilities. Meanwhile 

Frederick Green, who had resigned 

in June of 1973 to return to practicing 

medicine, had been replaced as Associate Chief by Frank Ferro, who held 

that post until 1986.13

Two years after Meier’s appointment, 

the Office of Child Development was 

abolished and a new agency, the 

Administration on Children, Youth 

and Families (ACYF) was created to 

administer its former programs. ACYF 

contained three major divisions: the 

Head Start Bureau, a new Youth Development Bureau, and the Children’s 

Bureau. As part of this reorganization 

of the now-named Office of Human 

Development Services, the Children’s 

Bureau also regained administration 

of the title IV-B Child Welfare Services program, which it had lost to the Public 

Services Administration in 1969.14

Just a few days after this reorganization was announced, on August 4, 1977, 

Dr. Blandina Cardenas was sworn in as Commissioner of the new ACYF and 

Chief of the Children’s Bureau. A specialist in education programs for minority 

children, Dr. Cardenas came to ACYF from the Center for the Management of 

Innovation in Multicultural Education, where she had served as director for the 

prior 2 years.15

John H. Meier, Ph.D., was confirmed 

by the Senate as Director of the Office 

of Human Development and Chief of 

the Children’s Bureau on July 22, 1975. 

(Meier Family Personal Photo)
Dr. Blandina Cardenas is sworn in as Commissioner of 

the new Administration on Children, Youth and Families 

and as Chief of the Children’s Bureau by Vice President 

Walter Mondale and Sec. Joseph Califano. (Blandina 

Cardenas Personal Photo)

A Crisis in Foster Care

During the mid-1970s, there was a growing recognition that the foster care system 

in America was in grave need of improvement. One cause for alarm was the sheer 

growth in the number of children in foster care: from 177,000 in 1961 (when Federal matching funds for foster care were first made available) to 503,000 by 1978. 

Proportionally, the increase was even greater, because the population of children 

under age 18 decreased by more than 1.5 million during the same period.16 Studies 

in California, Massachusetts, New York, and other States documented the plight of 

foster children languishing in State custody. News reports, including a 1975 series 

of articles in the New York Daily News, brought the issue to a wider public.17

Many factors were believed to contribute to this increase. The growing awareness 

of abuse and neglect certainly played a part, resulting in greater numbers of children being taken into State custody. Deinstitutionalization during the 1960s and 

1970s was another factor. As large facilities for children with mental retardation 

and mental illness were shut down without a concomitant increase in family- and 
community-based services, children in foster care demonstrated relatively greater 

needs and were more difficult to place than earlier cohorts.18 Fewer children in 

general were being adopted during this period—despite the increase of children in 

need of families, adoptive placements declined between 1971 and 1976.19 Children’s 

advocates also observed that the way child welfare services were funded at the 

Federal level created challenges, because the Government subsidized foster care 

services for children in State custody but not services to prevent children from 

being separated from their families or to provide for children in adoptive homes. 

The Bureau funded several studies during the mid-to-late 1970s in response to 

concerns about the rising number of children who were “adrift” in foster care 

(remaining in care simply for lack of a better plan), as well as the quality of care 

those children were receiving. One study published by the Children’s Bureau in 

1977, Foster Care in Five States, evaluated foster care programs in Arizona, California, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Findings from all five States revealed 

insufficient preventive services for families, neglect of children’s needs once in 

care, and inadequate preparation for foster parents.20

Cover of the 1977 Bureau publication 

Foster Care in Five States. (Internet Library or 

archive.org)

Workforce issues contributing to the 

problem also were identified. A study 

commissioned by the Children’s Bureau 

and published in 1977 reviewed child 

welfare services in 25 States (home to 

about 70 percent of the Nation’s children). It found a significant void in professional child welfare leadership and 

practice, minimal staff development, 

and heavy workloads (often including 

other types of cases—such as elderly 

and handicapped adults—in addition 

to child welfare). The authors called for 

“immediate action by the States; the 

Federal Government; national, state and 

local organizations.”21 In response to the 

identified lack of trained child welfare 

staff, in 1979 the Bureau provided grants 
totaling more than $2 million to establish a National Child Welfare Training Center 

at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and 10 regional training centers. The National Center focused on disseminating best practices and coordinating the regional centers’ efforts. It also provided a comprehensive review of the 

current status of educational programs for the child welfare workforce, including 

in-service programs as well as collaborations between universities and child welfare agencies.22

Proposing Solutions

As awareness of the problems in the national foster care system grew, State and 

local agencies, private and grassroots organizations alike worked to identify creative solutions. The passage of title XX of the Social Security Act in January 1975, 

with its emphasis on State flexibility and community participation in planning for 

human services, encouraged a strong constituency to speak out in support of foster children.23 This national grassroots movement continued to blossom through 

annual National Action for Foster Children Week activities and Foster Parent 

Association conferences. The Children’s Bureau continued to support Action Week 

activities and to provide technical assistance to State programs. A 1976 Bureau 

publication, Sharing and Caring, encouraged citizens to join the effort by forming or 

becoming involved with local Action for Foster Children committees.24

Both the understanding of the problems with foster care and potential solutions 

were grounded in a newfound sense of the importance of families to children 

and their development. “The whole field of services to children and youth has 

become energized, in the last few years, by family awareness,” stated Blandina Cardenas, Commissioner of ACYF and Chief of the Children’s Bureau, in an 

introduction to a 1978 special issue on the family of Children Today.

25 As early as 

1974, Children’s Bureau Central and Regional Office staff met to discuss ways to 

reduce the need for and improve the quality of foster care services. The Bureau 

targeted three specific improvements to the child welfare system: in-home services to strengthen families and prevent out-of-home placement, permanency 

planning for children in out-of-home care, and removal of barriers to adoption 

for children with special needs.26
Family Preservation

In 1977, the Children’s Bureau began supporting a National Clearinghouse for 

Home-Based Services to Children and Families at the University of Iowa School of 

Social Work. The clearinghouse was created to facilitate research regarding homebased programs and serve as a resource for the many public and private agencies that were already beginning to channel funding into programs designed to 

support, strengthen, and maintain children’s families rather than to replace them. 

These were comprehensive and intensive service models, with staff available 24 

hours a day, 7 days per week, in contrast to the more limited, earlier versions of 

home-based services such as nurse visiting or homemaking. The clearinghouse 

facilitated two national symposia to explore policy, research, and practice on the 

topic, as well as conducting additional workshops and distributing education and 

training materials.27 The Homebuilders program was one in-home family preservation model supported by the Children’s Bureau. Begun in Tacoma, WA, in 1974, 

Homebuilders is a specific, intensive service model to help families in crisis stay 

together by providing short-term, around-the-clock therapeutic services. Encouraged by the program’s initial success, the Children’s Bureau provided a grant in 

1977 to fund additional therapists and a more formal (control group) evaluation.28

This and future demonstration efforts prompted extensive development of family preservation services 

across the country in the 

coming decade.

A young man works with a parent on money management 

skills as part of the Homebuilders program, ca. 1992. (Institute for Family Development HOMEBUILDERS program)

Permanency Planning

The Children’s Bureau encouraged the development 

of innovative permanency practices through its 

research and demonstration grants. In 1973, the 

Bureau provided a 3-year 

demonstration grant to the 

Children’s Services Division 

of the Oregon State Depart-
ment of Human Resources to support its Freeing Children for Permanent Placement project. This project emphasized termination of parental rights in order to 

expedite adoption for children who had been in foster care longer than 1 year and 

who were believed to be unlikely to return to their homes. Through strategies such 

as reduced caseloads and independent counsel for children, more than 60 percent 

of the 509 children in the program achieved permanency during its first 3 years, 

either through reunification with their families or adoption. As a result of the 

program’s success, the Children’s Bureau decided to offer additional grants beginning in 1976 for States to replicate the Oregon project or test other approaches to 

enhancing permanency.29 The Bureau also awarded six short-term training grants 

during FY 1978 to develop materials to help foster care workers and supervisors 

more effectively achieve permanence for children.30

Removing Barriers to Adoption

The Bureau focused on two strategies to increase adoptions for children with 

special needs during this period. The first was the development of model State 

laws for subsidized adoption and termination of parental rights. In 1974, the 

Bureau awarded a grant for this purpose to the Child Welfare League of America 

(CWLA). The Model State Subsidized Adoption Act, which drew on broad public 

input as well as the strengths of laws already enacted in 39 States, was approved 

in July 1975 and disseminated to more than 6,000 State directors, committees, 

voluntary organizations, schools of social work, and others.31 The second strategy was to encourage States to enact the Interstate Compact on the Placement 

of Children (ICPC), a uniform State law that provides critical protections for 

children being placed across State lines for the purposes of foster care or adoption. Although the ICPC was drafted in the 1950s in response to the Kefauver 

hearings, and first enacted in New York in 1960, little progress had been made in 

encouraging States to join by the mid-1970s. The Children’s Bureau lent its support and provided a grant to the American Public Welfare Association (APWA) to 

encourage more States to join.32
Growth in Intercountry Adoption M

President Gerald R. Ford carries a Vietnamese baby 

from “Clipper 1742,” one of the many planes that transported approximately 325 South Vietnamese orphans 

from Saigon to the United States. (The Gerald R. Ford 

Library)

Intercountry adoptions had been taking place in significant numbers since the 

Korean War, with the majority of children arriving from Korea (35,000 between 

1953 and 1975). Between 1968 and 1975, the number of intercountry adoptions more than doubled, to approximately 3,000 per year.33 These adoptions 

were completed privately, as independent adoptions or overseen by licensed 

agencies. Nevertheless, the Children’s Bureau had a great interest in how the 

children were faring. 

In April 1975, at the end of the Vietnam War, the highly publicized Orphan Airlift 

(or “Operation Babylift”) brought intercountry adoption to the world’s attention. 

Just before the fall of Saigon, approximately 2,000 infants and young children 

were quickly evacuated from South Vietnam to the United States under the 

auspices of the U.S. Agency for International Development and through the 

efforts of seven private adoption agencies approved by the Vietnamese government.34 Proponents claimed the speed with which the action was executed 

saved many young lives. Critics, however, argued that the children’s orphan 

status was not clearly established in all cases; some suggested that the Children’s Bureau should 

oversee similar international adoption efforts 

in the future. That 

year, the Bureau also 

published Tips on the 

Care and Adjustment of 

Vietnamese and Other 

Asian Children in the 

United States.35

In 1980, the Bureau 

released two more publications, developed under contract by APWA, 

to provide information 
and encourage enhanced protection for foreign-born children and their adoptive 

parents. Intercountry Adoption Guidelines contained model administrative 

procedures developed by a 22-member advisory committee, including agency 

representatives as well as parent groups. The Bureau’s National Directory of 

Intercountry Adoption Service Resources served as an information resource 

for all those interested and involved in intercountry adoptions. It was the first 

resource of its kind published in the United States.36

Worldwide concern on behalf of children adopted internationally would eventually lead to the conclusion of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children 

and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, in 1993.

Adoption Opportunities: The First Federal Adoption Legislation

Vice President Walter Mondale was a long-time child 

advocate. His Senate Subcommittee on Children and Youth 

conducted hearings on children with special needs that 

resulted in the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Adoption Reform Act. (Minnesota Historical Society)

In 1975, Senator Walter Mondale’s (D-MN) Subcommittee on Children and Youth 

conducted 2 days of hearings on adoption of children with special needs. From 

these hearings, and the testimony of 19 agency representatives and children’s 

advocates, emerged the 

framework for the first 

Federal legislation in the 

field of adoption: The Child 

Abuse Prevention and 

Treatment and Adoption 

Reform Act (P.L. 95–266), 

which was signed into law 

in April 1978.37 Title II of 

that law established the 

Adoption Opportunities 

program with the aim 

of eliminating obstacles 

and facilitating adoption 

for children with special 

needs. It authorized HEW 

to propose model legisla-
tion, establish a national data system, promote quality standards for services, develop a national adoption information exchange, and offer training and technical 

assistance to State adoption programs. 

In FY 1980, the Children’s Bureau awarded Adoption Opportunities grants totaling 

$4.8 million to 16 projects to facilitate adoption of foster children, including children over the age of 12, minorities, and children with disabilities. A large portion 

of those funds was used to establish 10 Regional Adoption Resource Centers. 

These centers provided technical assistance to States, collected resource libraries, 

disseminated resources to State and local agencies, trained child welfare workers, and helped establish adoptive parent groups. CWLA received two significant 

awards: one to develop the National Adoption Information Exchange and a second 

to support creation of PSAs to recruit adoptive and foster parents, with the theme 

“You Can Make a Difference.” All national projects were required to address the 

needs of minority children in the foster care system (including representation of 

a diverse group of children in all visual ads and announcements); in addition, four 

projects were funded exclusively to meet minority children’s needs.38

The model legislation mandated by title II, the Model Act for the Adoption of Children with Special Needs, called for adoption assistance for all children with special 

needs, expanded grounds for termination of parental rights, and clarified the roles 

of adoption agencies and States in facilitating and supporting such adoptions. It 

was published in the Federal Register on October 8, 1981.39

The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 M

Over the years, Federal policies regarding Native Americans have had a 

devastating effect on families. The policy of removing Indian children from their 

homes and placing them in Federal boarding schools with the goal of assimilating them into mainstream American society resulted in lost ties between Indian 

children and their families, cultures, and communities. The assimilation and 

termination policies of the 20th century broke up reservation communities and 

forced Native American families into cities, isolating them from community and 
kin. Too often State officials, failing to understand the importance of cultural beliefs and the value of the extended family, advocated for the removal of Indian 

children from their homes in favor of foster care placement. 

Around the same time as Senator Mondale’s adoption hearings, a 1976 study by 

the Association on American Indian Affairs showed that 25 to 35 percent of Indian 

children were being removed from their homes by State courts and welfare agencies. The vast majority (85 percent) of these were placed in non-Indian homes 

or institutions.40 The alarming rate of out-of-home placement of Indian children 

with non-Indian families came to be viewed as a form of cultural genocide. In 

response to this trend, Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in 

1978. ICWA was designed to protect the best interests of Indian children and promote the stability and security of Native American Tribes and families by granting 

jurisdiction to the Tribe in custody matters involving Indian children. 

Since the passage of ICWA, the Children’s Bureau has worked closely with 

the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other groups to disseminate information about 

the law and to enhance communication between Tribal and State child welfare 

systems.

Foster Care Reform: The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare 

Act of 1980 (P.L. 96–272)

Around the same time that P.L. 95–266 was being developed and passed, momentum also was building for significant changes in Federal foster care legislation. 

Following the veto of child welfare reform legislation in California in 1975 by 

then-Governor Ronald Reagan, Representative George Miller (D-CA) asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) to investigate the national foster care system.41 The 

GAO’s report, Children in Foster Care Institutions: Steps Government Can Take to Improve 

Their Care, was released on February 22, 1977. Its recommendations included increasing caseworker visits with foster children and parents, more closely monitoring services provided and children’s progress, and a possible expansion of the Aid 

to Families with Dependent Children program.42 Representative Miller introduced 

legislation the same year, H.R. 7200, that addressed many of these and other 
experts’ recommendations, including 

the need for adoption subsidies and 

other changes to correct the foster care 

program’s financial bias toward family 

separation. Although the House voted 

overwhelmingly in favor of the bill, it 

did not pass the Senate.43

In the meantime, a large and active 

alliance of advocacy groups was forming that would prove essential to the 

national reform effort. Two major players, CWLA and the Children’s Defense 

Fund (CDF), were joined by a host of 

other constituents, including adoptive 

parent organizations, foster parents, 

and former foster children, as well as 

public and private agency executives, 

social work educators, journalists, foundations, and public interest law firms.44

In 1978, CDF published the results of 

a 3-year study revealing many shortcomings of the national foster care system, Children Without Homes: An Examination 

of Public Responsibility to Children in Out-of-Home Care. Around the same time, Who 

Knows? Who Cares? Forgotten Children in Foster Care, by the National Commission on 

Children in Need of Parents, summarized data collected from multiple studies and 

testimony from more than 400 witnesses in nine regional hearings. Both reports 

identified numerous problems with the system—including foster care “drift”; 

courts’ reluctance to terminate parental rights; inadequate payments to foster 

parents; “overburdened, underpaid and often professionally unprepared staff”; 

and the Federal funding disincentive to move children out of foster care (or prevent their placement in the first place)—and made recommendations to address 

the problems they identified.45

The Congressional Subcommittee on Education asked the General Accounting Office to 

investigate the national foster care system in 

1975, resulting in the 1977 report Children in 

Foster Care Institutions: Steps Government 

Can Take to Improve Their Care.

Studies like these, in addition to news coverage and the vocal support of advocacy 

groups, lent weight to the reform effort. In 1978, new bills—written in partnership 
with Children’s Bureau staff and leadership, members of Congress, and advocacy organizations, and including many of the same features as H.R. 7200—were 

introduced in the House and Senate. With tremendous bipartisan support, both 

versions passed in late 1979. President Carter signed the final bill, the Adoption 

Assistance and Child Welfare Act (P.L. 96–272), on June 17, 1980.46

P.L. 96–272 Requirements 

P.L. 96–272 effected major changes in 

how child welfare services were funded 

and administered at the Federal level. 

Funds for foster care originally authorized under title IV-A of the Social 

Security Act were now appropriated 

under a new section, title IV-E. Foster 

care funds, formerly open-ended, were 

capped under the new law. Federal 

adoption subsidies provided further 

incentive for States to move children 

toward permanency and away from 

long-term reliance on foster care. Title 

IV-E also required State plans to guarantee that “a reasonable effort” would be 

made to prevent foster care placement 

or to return children home as quickly as 

possible. Responsibility for the administration of title IV-E funds, which (under 

IV-A) had remained with the Social Security Administration during the Bureau’s 

1969 move, was restored to the Bureau.

President Jimmy Carter signed the Adoption 

Assistance and Child Welfare Act (P.L. 96–

272), on June 17, 1980. (Library of Congress, 

LC-USZC4-599)

Title IV-B (child welfare services) formula grants also saw changes, primarily in 

the form of new conditions on the use of funding increases above 1979 appropriation levels. To access those funds, States were now required to establish certain 

safeguards. For the first time, States were required to provide written case plans 

for individual children, ensure placement in the least restrictive setting in the 

child’s best interests, and hold case reviews regarding the suitability of those 

plans every 6 months. An additional hearing was required after 18 months in 
care, to establish permanency plans for the child’s future and prevent children 

from drifting in foster care indefinitely.

It would be difficult to overstate the significance of these changes in the history 

of the U.S. child welfare system. The law both reflected and propelled a shift in 

thinking from States’ reliance on foster care to a focus on permanence for children, achieved either by remaining with (or returning to) their families of origin or 

through adoption. It included a number of groundbreaking requirements, including:

• First Federal assistance to support the adoption of children with special 

needs

• A requirement that all States establish an adoption assistance program

• Mandated preplacement preventive services to help keep children with 

their families whenever possible

• Mandated permanency planning services and procedures 

• Financial incentives for States to refocus child welfare programs on 

serving families, rather than on placing children in foster care 

• A requirement for States to conduct an inventory of all children remaining in foster care for 6 months or longer47

Along with the new requirements for States and administration of the new title 

IV-E program, the law assigned the Children’s Bureau a host of additional responsibilities by imposing greater accountability on Federal and State systems alike. 

For the first time, the Bureau was required to report to Congress on foster care 

placements and the title IV-E program, to collect and publish data on foster care 

and adoption, and to conduct regular audits of State programs.

Its first responsibility was to publish regulations that would put the legislation 

into practice. Working closely with national and State child welfare authorities, 

and after close review of committee reports, Bureau staff drafted detailed regulations for the law’s implementation. A notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) was 

published in the Federal Register for public comment on December 31, 1980.48 The 

following January, Bureau leadership conducted 10 regional forums with State 

administrators to gather additional input. Despite the prescriptive nature of the 
regulations and their stringent requirements for States, the Bureau found administrators in many States were aware of the challenges of the current foster care 

system, eager for change, and in agreement with the law’s general direction.49

Many States began to implement its requirements even before the regulations 

were finalized.50

More Changes for the Bureau M

On February 14, 1980, John Calhoun was sworn in as the new Commissioner 

of ACYF and Chief of the Children’s Bureau. Before his appointment, Calhoun had served as youth services director in Massachusetts. He brought to 

the Bureau a strong 

belief in family-based 

services: “Everything 

I’ve seen and done 

over the past 15 years 

has convinced me that 

the best way to help 

children is through families.”51 Calhoun also 

sought to enhance both 

citizen involvement and 

Federal cooperation in 

programs for children 

and families. He was a 

strong advocate for the 

creation of the Office 

on Domestic Violence.

Shortly before Calhoun’s appointment, in October 1979, the Bureau’s parent 

agency, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was renamed 

the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) through the Department of Education Organization Act.52

John Calhoun is sworn in as the new Commissioner 

of the ACYF and Chief of the Children’s Bureau by 

Patricia Roberts Harris, Secretary of Health and Human 

Services. (John Calhoun Personal Photo)
A New Administration Brings Challenges for the Bureau

The inauguration of President Ronald Reagan on 

January 20, 1981, brought 

significant changes in the 

administration’s view of 

the proper role of the Federal Government and to the 

plans for implementing P.L. 

96–272. On March 3, 1981, 

just 41 days after Reagan’s 

inauguration, the interim 

final rule was withdrawn.53

After attempts to repeal 

P.L. 96–272 and block grant foster care services failed,54 a final rule was issued 

on May 23, 1983, which removed many of the original regulations’ more detailed 

requirements.55 As a result, it would be many years before the child welfare system would reap the full benefits of this landmark legislation. Nonetheless, a 1984 

report to Congress on early implementation of the law during the 3 years that the 

regulations remained in limbo found that the number of children in the U.S. foster 

care system had been reduced by 50 percent, from 500,000 to 250,000.56

President Ronald Reagan speaks at his inauguration on 

January 20, 1981. (Ronald Reagan Library)

Other changes for the child welfare system also followed Reagan’s election. Children’s Bureau staff had begun to develop a revitalized Federal-State joint planning 

process in the late 1970s, as authorized by title IV-B. After 1981, these planning 

efforts were dropped in favor of more straightforward administrative reviews of title IV-B and IV-E programs.57 The majority of States were found to meet legislative 

requirements; however, millions of dollars in disallowances were issued during 

the early years of program reviews (1984–1988).58 Also, funding that had been 

earmarked for a 1980 White House Conference on Children was redirected to the 

States—thus ending the Conference’s 70-year tradition.59 Although efforts to block 

grant title IV-B and IV-E funds failed, title XX (a portion of which States had been 

required to use for prevention and reunification, among other human services) 

was amended in the 1981 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (P.L. 97–35) to create 

the Social Services Block Grant. The funding cap also was cut from $2.9 billion in 
FY 1981 to $2.4 billion for FY 1982, creating further strain on State resources and 

increasing competition for child welfare funding.60

Reagan’s Appointees: Clarence E. Hodges and 

Dodie Truman Livingston

M

President Reagan first nominated Clarence E. Hodges for the position of Commissioner of ACYF and Chief of the Children’s Bureau; he was confirmed in 

December 1981. Former Assistant Director of the Community Services Administration and Director of the Office of Community Action, Hodges’ background 

included experience administering employment and housing assistance 

programs. He also was active in politics, serving as staff assistant to Senator 

Richard G. Lugar (R-IN) and running for the U.S. House of Representatives 

himself in 1980.61

President Ronald Reagan with Clarence E. Hodges, 

Commissioner of ACYF and Chief of the Children’s 

Bureau. (Ronald Reagan Library)

In 1984, Hodges was succeeded by Dodie Truman Livingston, former Special 

Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Special Presidential 

Messages. A writer and researcher by trade, Livingston had a strong personal 

interest in adoption and children’s issues.62
In 1984, Hodges was succeeded by Dodie Truman Livingston, former Special Assistant to the President and 

Director of the Office of Special Presidential Messages. 

(Ronald Reagan Library)

Progress During the Early 1980s

Many of the Children’s Bureau’s functions and resources were moved up and 

out of the Bureau during this period. For example, the Bureau’s highly successful 

publications department was dismantled; by 1983 many of its popular publications were either eliminated or, in the case of Children Today, became products 

of OHDS.63 Nonetheless, program resources such as the Adoption Opportunities, 

Child Welfare Research and Demonstration, and Child Welfare Services and Training grant programs continued to be used to focus attention and advance the field’s 

knowledge and skill in critical areas.

Special Needs Adoption

Adoption continued to be an area of concern throughout the 1980s, and one that 

received bipartisan support. After the first Adoption Week was established in 1976 

by Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, other States and communities 

followed suit.64 In 1984, the U.S. Congress designated the week of November 19–25 
the first National Adoption Week. In his Proclamation, President Reagan called the 

celebration an opportunity to “encourage community acceptance and support for 

adoption and take time to recognize the efforts of the parent groups and agencies 

that assure adoptive placements for waiting children.”65 A few years later, President George H.W. Bush and Mrs. Bush held some of the earliest National Adoption 

Week events at the White House that featured adoptive families.

Meanwhile, Adoption Opportunities grants continued to support demonstration 

programs to remove barriers to adoption for children with special needs. One 

focus was on raising the visibility of waiting children, through efforts such as 

a computerized National Adoption Exchange funded in FY 1983, as well as by 

encouraging television stations and newspapers to feature children in foster care 

awaiting adoptive families.66 Due to a growing awareness of the disproportionate 

number of minority children in the child welfare system, many of these programs 

focused specifically on increasing adoption for minority children. For example, the 

One Church, One Child program was replicated throughout Illinois in 1982–1983 in 

part through support from Children’s Bureau grants.67

Father George Clements founded one Church, One Child 

in Illinois in 1980, a program that received Bureau support. 

The national One Church, One Child program was founded 

in 1988.

More general education and training projects included development of a curriculum on special needs adoption and continued support for parent groups, the 

National Adoption Exchange System, and Regional Resource Centers. In the 1986 

Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (P.L. 99–509), Congress called for the establishment of a National Adoption Information Clearinghouse to collect and disseminate information and data on all aspects of infant adoption and adoption of 

children with special needs.68 From 1986 to 1989, the Bureau funded a consortium 

of nine States that worked together to create effective strategies to increase adoption for waiting children. Recognizing that children and families continue to face 

challenges after adoption is completed, the Bureau also began to support training 

in postadoption services in 1984.69
Family-Based Services

The Bureau used child welfare research and demonstration funds throughout the 

1980s to continue to advance knowledge and implementation of effective family-based services. In 1982, the Bureau awarded a grant to the University of Iowa 

School of Social Work to support a National Resource Center on Family Based Services, which collected and disseminated materials on effective programs, created 

a directory of programs, and provided consultation and technical assistance to 

help States reduce the number of children entering foster care through preventive 

services.70 In 1985, the Bureau funded four additional projects to develop materials and training to help States interpret and implement the “reasonable efforts” 

requirement of P.L. 96–272.71

Child Abuse Treatment and Prevention 

The early 1980s saw growing public concern for the plight of abused and neglected 

children, particularly victims of child sexual abuse. In 1980, NCCAN funded regional institutes to train child protective service workers and other professionals in 

the treatment of child sexual abuse within families.72 The following year, NCCAN 

awarded 24 additional grants for projects addressing sexual abuse and exploitation of children and published a volume of articles on the topic: Sexual Abuse of 

Children: Selected Readings.

73 Meanwhile, State and local child protective systems 

continued to struggle with how best to respond to reports of sexual abuse, in the 

face of challenges that included inconsistent definitions, inherent difficulties 

observing and documenting the abuse, and stigma. In the 1984 Victims of Crime 

Act, Congress included funding to encourage States to improve their handling of 

child abuse cases, with a particular emphasis on child sexual abuse. This funding 

was reauthorized in 1986 in the Children’s Justice and Assistance Act (P.L. 99–401). 

In 1988, the Children’s Justice Act program was incorporated into CAPTA; today the 

Children’s Bureau’s Office on Child Abuse and Neglect (formerly NCCAN) administers the State grants.74

NCCAN also awarded millions of dollars in grants aimed at understanding how 

best to prevent child abuse and neglect in families, supporting efforts ranging 

from primary prevention programs (such as general parent education classes) to 

targeted services for families in crisis.75 In addition to continuing to support the 

development of Parents Anonymous chapters, the Bureau also took an interest in 
the movement to create State Children’s 

Trust Funds. Kansas was the first State 

to pass such legislation in the spring of 

1980, requiring revenues from surcharges placed on marriage licenses to be 

used to support child abuse prevention.76 Other States soon followed: by 

1984, the number of States with Trust 

Funds was up to 15.77 That year, Congress passed the Child Abuse Prevention 

Federal Challenge Grants Act (title IV of 

P.L. 98–473) to encourage more States 

to follow suit. By 1989, all but three 

States had passed Children’s Trust Fund 

legislation.78

In 1982, Congress resolved that June 

6–12 should be designated as the first 

National Child Abuse Prevention Week; 

the following year, President Reagan 

proclaimed April to be the first National 

Child Abuse Prevention Month, a tradition that continues to this day.79 NCCAN 

coordinated activities at the Federal 

level, including creation and dissemination of information and promotional materials. In 1984 for example, posters, bumper stickers, and buttons displayed the 

theme, “Kids—You can’t beat ‘em.” Print, radio, and television PSAs, meanwhile, 

urged viewers to “Take time out. Don’t take it out on your kid.” NCCAN also released Perspectives on Child Abuse and Neglect in the Mid-1980s, a collection of articles 

related to the prevention of child maltreatment.80

In 1981, the National Center on Child Abuse 

and Neglect used the popular Dennis the 

Menace cartoon character in its comic book 

for youth about coping with family stress. 

(DENNIS THE MENACE© 2012 Hank Ketcham 

Enterprises, North America Syndicate)
National Incidence Study on Child Abuse and Neglect,

1979–2010

M 

Among its other requirements, CAPTA mandated “a complete and full study 

and investigation of the national incidence of child abuse and neglect, including 

a determination of the extent to which incidents of child abuse and neglect 

are increasing in number or severity.”81 The first comprehensive study to use 

uniform definitions of abuse and neglect in collecting national data on child 

maltreatment, The National Study of the Incidence and Severity of Child Abuse 

and Neglect, was conducted in 1979–1980 and published by NCCAN in 1981. 

This study, referred to as NIS–1, included data from 26 counties in 10 States.82

A second study, NIS–2, was conducted in 1986–1987 and published in 1988.

These first two studies concluded that most abused and neglected children 

were not reported to child protective services (CPS) agencies. As a result 

NIS–3, conducted in 1993–1995 and released in 1996, included supplementary 

studies on the reporting behaviors of school personnel and on CPS agency policies and practices. The most recent study, NIS–4, was mandated by the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003. Data were collected in 2005–2006, 

based on a nationally representative sample of 122 counties, and the study 

was published in 2010. The NIS–4 was the first to show an overall decrease in 

the incidence of child maltreatment since the prior National Incidence Study.

83

New Approaches to Training and Technical Assistance

In FY 1983, training and technical assistance resources for States were consolidated in 10 ACYF Regional Resource Centers on Children and Youth Services. 

These centers replaced and expanded on the services formerly provided by the 

Children’s Bureau’s resource centers on child abuse and neglect, adoption, and 

child welfare training. Centers were responsible for working collaboratively with 

States and private/grassroots organizations to identify resources, match resources 

to State and local needs, and provide training and technical assistance. The grants 
reflected a new way of thinking about Federal technical assistance centers, as 

grantees were expected to develop alternative sources of funding to sustain the 

projects at the end of their 2-year grants.84

A similar approach was taken in FY 1986, when the Children’s Bureau awarded 

grants to create six new National Resource Centers (NRCs) for Child Welfare Services. An article in the January-February 1986 issue of Children Today announcing 

the grants stated, “In keeping with the Office of Human Development Services’ entrepreneurial emphasis ... the Centers will be expected to seek a great deal of their 

funding from sources other than the Federal account.”85 State agencies, it noted, 

would be expected to pay part of the cost for consultative services in the NRCs’ 

topical areas: family-based services, foster and residential care, legal resources on 

child welfare programs, child welfare program management and administration, 

youth services, and special needs adoption. Three additional resource centers—

one on child welfare services to developmentally disabled children, one on child 

abuse and neglect, and a child abuse clinical resource center—were announced 

later in 1986.86

Meanwhile, child welfare training funds in the mid-1980s were used to address 

requirements of P.L. 96–272. Priority topics included child welfare and the law, 

leadership training for the judiciary, and effective child welfare supervision. Other 

training grants promoted a multidisciplinary approach to the treatment of child 

abuse and neglect. Although P.L. 96–272 also created a title IV-E training program 

to support a substantial percentage of States’ costs for long-term and short-term 

training of child welfare workers, this program was vastly underutilized during 

the 1980s.87

By 1986, the child welfare field recognized that it was facing a staffing crisis; 

agencies were having tremendous difficulty recruiting and retaining trained, 

competent workers. That year, the National Association of Social Workers hosted 

a symposium titled “Professional Social Work Practice in Public Child Welfare,” 

with support from OHDS, and created a task force on the subject. In the next 

several years, the Children’s Bureau began to use training funds more strategically, encouraging universities and child welfare agencies to collaborate on projects 

directly responsive to the field’s most significant needs.88
NCCAN User Manual SeriesM

In 1979–1980, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect launched a new 

series of resources for professional workers and others concerned with the prevention, identification, and treatment of child abuse and neglect. Many volumes in 

the series of 21 publications were addressed to those working in certain professions, such as teaching, 

nursing, mental health, 

law enforcement, child 

protective services, 

and day care. Others 

focused on specific 

topics within the field 

of child maltreatment 

(for example, family violence, child protection 

in military communities, 

or sexual abuse and 

exploitation). All of the 

User Manuals advocated a multidisciplinary 

approach.89

The User Manual series became a popular and enduring publication series. 

Some of the titles were revised in the early 1990s; the latest versions were 

released between 2003 and 2010.90

NCCAN launched a series of User Manuals for child 

welfare professionals in the late 1970s. The latest versions were produced in 2010. (Child Welfare Information 

Gateway)

Data and Information Systems Improve

The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment and Adoption Reform Act of 1978 

required the development of a national adoption and foster care data system, and 

the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 added the requirement 
for States to submit regular statistical reports to HHS.91 In 1982, in response to 

these requirements, the Children’s Bureau first funded the Voluntary Cooperative Information System (VCIS), through a grant to the APWA. From 1982 to 1985, 

VCIS collected aggregate data from the States and published an annual summary 

report. This data’s usefulness was limited by several factors, including variable 

definitions and reporting periods among States, lack of timeliness, and incomplete 

State participation.

In response to concerns expressed by advocacy groups about data quality, Congress passed legislation in 1986 (P.L. 99–509) to require the development of a new 

data collection system that would correct the problems with VCIS. An Advisory 

Committee on Adoption and Foster Care Information was quickly appointed; 

based on its recommendations, the Secretary of HHS submitted a report to Congress on May 26, 1989, outlining a plan for administering and financing the new 

system. The resulting Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System 

(AFCARS) was implemented on October 1, 1994. AFCARS aimed to address concerns about VCIS through the use of mandatory participation, financial penalties, 

and common data definitions and reporting periods. 

In the meantime, a similar evolution was occurring with respect to child abuse 

and neglect data. From 1976 to 1988, these data were collected in the National 

Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Study, through a grant with the American Humane Association.92 The CAPTA amendments of 1988 required the establishment 

of a new national data collection system on reports of (and deaths due to) child 

abuse and neglect. This voluntary system, which came to be known as the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) was to provide both case-level 

and aggregate data. The Children’s Bureau worked in partnership with a State 

Advisory Group to identify common data elements and data collection approaches, ultimately leaving data definitions up to the States (rather than establishing 

uniform data definitions as AFCARS did). The Children’s Bureau then translated 

data collected by States to produce national reports. The system was pilot-tested 

in nine States; the first national report of aggregate data (including data from 47 

States, one territory, and the District of Columbia) was published in 1992 using 

1990 data.
Program and Policy Changes to Address Specific Problems

Enhanced attention to data collection resulted in a deeper understanding of the 

families and children affected by child abuse and neglect, foster care, and adoption. This led to a number of legislative and policy changes during the late 1980s 

and early 1990s.

Independent Living

Better quality data about the children in foster care quickly revealed that a 

growing number of older youth were remaining wards of the State until they 

reached legal age. Unable to return to their families of origin, and in many cases 

considered too old to be adopted, these youth instead “aged out” of the foster care 

system with little preparation or support. While State and local child welfare systems had been aware of this problem for many years, and some had made efforts 

to address it (notably Oregon’s Independent Living Subsidy Program established in 

197393), aggregate data made the problem apparent for the first time on a national 

scale. In 1986, Congress created a Federal program to support independent living 

services within title IV-E through P.L. 99–272. This law required the Children’s Bureau to help States establish initiatives to prepare foster children ages 16 or over 

for a more successful adulthood.94 That year, the Bureau funded seven demonstration grants; three universities also received grants to create training materials 

for foster parents and youth workers.95 The program’s authorization was made 

permanent in 1993 and was later expanded through the Foster Care Independence 

Act of 1999. 

Abandoned Infants

The crack cocaine and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemics of 

the 1980s, meanwhile, resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of children 

entering foster care and the number of infants born exposed to drugs or HIV. 

Growing numbers of these infants ended up as “boarder babies,” remaining in hospitals beyond the period of medical necessity because their parents could not care 

for them, and it took time for child welfare agencies to locate kin or foster family 

caregivers. As early as 1986, the Children’s Bureau was funding demonstration 

projects to explore solutions under title II of the Children’s Justice and Assistance 

Act (P.L. 99–401)—the Temporary Child Care and Handicapped Children and Crisis 
Nursery Act.96 Some of these programs provided direct services to help families 

care for their medically fragile infants with the aim of preventing maltreatment 

and foster care placement; others recruited specially trained foster families to 

provide medical foster care while pursuing more permanent options. 

Louis Sullivan (left), Secretary, U.S. Department of Health 

and Human Services, and President George H.W. Bush 

(right) hold a 4-month-old baby while visiting DC General 

Hospital’s ward for babies abandoned by drug-addicted 

mothers. (AP Images)

In 1988, Congress passed 

the Abandoned Infants Assistance Act (P.L. 100–505), 

authorizing funding 

for additional program 

demonstrations to prevent 

abandonment of infants; 

address the needs of abandoned infants and young 

children, particularly those 

with AIDS; provide appropriate homes for these 

infants, either with their 

birth families or foster families; and recruit and train 

health and social service 

professionals. The Act was reauthorized in 1991 with several additions, including 

a National Resource Center that still operates today. That year, there were still an 

estimated 10,000 boarder babies in 865 hospitals throughout the United States. 

One quarter of those infants remained in the hospital from 21 days to more than 

100 days beyond medical discharge.97

Administrative Changes Under George H.W. Bush M

On July 26, 1989, Wade Horn, Ph.D., was confirmed by the Senate as Chief 

of the Children’s Bureau and Commissioner of ACYF. Prior to his appointment, 

Dr. Horn had served as director of outpatient psychological services and vice 
chairperson of the department of pediatric psychology at the Children’s National Medical Center. Dr. Horn also was active with the Bush campaign, serving 

on the campaign’s Health Care Advisory Group and the Presidential Transition 

Team at the Department of Health and Human Services.98 Dr. Horn served 

throughout President George H.W. Bush’s term, resigning in 1993. 

On April 15, 1991, the 

U.S. Department of 

Health and Human 

Services underwent a 

major reorganization. 

Child-oriented programs from the Family 

Support Administration, 

the Maternal and Child 

Health Block Grant 

(formerly administered 

by the Public Health 

Service), and the Office 

of Human Development 

Services (including 

ACYF) were consolidated into the newly 

created Administration for Children and Families. The same year, NCCAN was 

moved out from within the Children’s Bureau and became a separate entity 

within ACYF, providing it with greater visibility and control over budget and 

policy initiatives.99 David Lloyd was named director of NCCAN.

Children’s Bureau Chief Wade Horn, Ph.D., joins First 

Lady Barbara Bush at a 1990 luncheon celebrating 

the 25th anniversary of Head Start. (Dr. Wade Horn’s 

Personal Photo)

Child Abuse and Neglect: “A National Emergency”

Despite the significant investment of resources to prevent and treat child abuse 

and neglect since the 1974 creation of NCCAN, the incidence of maltreatment 

remained at epidemic levels, as evidenced by the 1988 NIS–2 report and preliminary reports from NCANDS. In 1990, the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and 
Neglect, which had been established under the 1988 amendments to CAPTA, published its first report: Child Abuse and Neglect: Critical First Steps in Response to a National Emergency.

100 The report expressed the Advisory Board’s conclusion that child 

abuse and neglect had reached critical levels in the United States and its concern 

that “the system the nation has devised to respond to child abuse and neglect is 

failing.”101 The report suggested 31 “critical first steps” to control the emergency, 

which was necessary before the existing child protection system could be replaced 

with a new national strategy. Also in 1990, NCCAN initiated the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN), a consortium of research studies to 

explore the causes and impact of child maltreatment that were carried out over a 

period of more than 20 years.102

The same summer, Secretary of U.S. 

Department of Health and Human 

Services Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., created 

an unprecedented initiative to galvanize 

nationwide efforts to prevent and treat 

child abuse and neglect. The initiative 

included three strategies: (1) increase 

public awareness of the problem, (2) 

promote intra- and interagency coordination of child abuse and neglect activities, and (3) encourage all sectors of 

society to participate. Public awareness 

materials were developed, asking the 

public to “Show You Care”; these were 

released during Child Abuse Prevention 

Month (April) 1992. A December 1991 

meeting, “We Can Make a Difference: 

Strategies for Combating Child Maltreatment,” was held in Washington, DC, 

to develop action plans that could be 

implemented locally.103

A special issue of Children Today, 21, no. 2, 

1992, was a dedicated to the difficult issues 

of child abuse and neglect in foster care. 

(Child Welfare Information Gateway)

The difficult problems of child abuse and neglect and foster care that were present 

at the beginning of this period had not been solved by the early 1990s. However, 
with the Children’s Bureau’s support, tremendous gains had been made in the 

field’s awareness and understanding of issues faced both by families and within 

the service systems created to protect them. Many innovative programs had been 

tested, and legislative groundwork had been laid for further progress to come at 

the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries.

Chapter 6 Notes

1 Children Today 3, no. 2 (1974): 27.

2 Children Today 4, no. 5 (1975): 29.

3 Children Today 4, no. 3 (1975): Inside front cover.

4 Children Today 4, no. 5 (1975): 27.

5 Douglas J. Besharov, in discussion with Jill Rivera Greene, February 2012.

6 Children Today 3, no. 2 (1974): 28.

7 Children Today 4, no. 5 (1975): 28.

8 Children Today 4, no. 3 (1975): 6.

9 Children Today 4, no. 5 (1975): 29.

10 Children Today 4, no. 3 (1975): Inside front cover.

11 Children Today 5, no. 6 (1976): 26.

12 Children Today 4, no. 5 (1975): 27.

13 Children Today 2, no. 4 (1973): 28; Frank Ferro, in discussion with Jill Rivera Greene, March 

2012.

14 Children Today 6, no. 5 (1977): 26.

15 Children Today 6, no. 5 (1977): 27.

16 John Calhoun, “The 1980 Child Welfare Act: A Turning Point for Children and Troubled Families,” Children Today 9, no. 5 (1980): 3.

17 Kermit T. Wiltse, “Foster Care in the 1970s: A Decade of Change,” Children Today 8, no. 3 (1979): 

10–14.

18 Jake Terpstra, in discussion with Jill Rivera Greene, December 2011; Howard Fenton, “Social 

Services Survey,” Children Today 8, no. 2 (1979): 24.

19 Frank Ferro, “Improving the Child Welfare System,” Children Today 5, no. 6 (1976): Inside front 

cover.

20 “Foster Care Studies,” Children Today 6, no. 2 (1977): 29.
21 Children Today 6, no. 2 (1977): 28.

22 Miranda Lynch Thomas, “A Hundred Years of Children’s Bureau Support to the Child Welfare 

Workforce,” Journal of Public Child Welfare 6, no. 4 (2012): 357–75; Children Today 9, no. 1 (1980): 26.

23 Children Today 4, no. 2 (1975): 32.

24 Children Today 5, no. 3 (1976): 36.

25 Blandina Cardenas, “Enhancing Family Awareness,” Children Today 7, no. 2 (1978): Inside front 

cover.

26 Children Today 3, no. 3 (1974): 12.

27 “Home-Based Services,” Children Today 8, no. 6 (1979): 31.

28 Jill Kinney, “Homebuilders: An In-Home Crisis Intervention Program,” Children Today 7, no. 1 

(1978): 15–17.

29 Victor Pike, “Permanent Planning for Foster Children: The Oregon Project,” Children Today 5, 

no. 6 (1976): 22–25, 41.

30 Martha L. Jones, “Developing Training Resources for Permanency Planning,” Children Today 9, 

no. 2 (1980): 25.

31 Ursula M. Gallagher and Sanford N. Katz, “The Model State Subsidized Adoption Act,” Children Today 4, no. 6 (1975): 8–10.

32 Ferro interview; Secretariat to the Association of Administrators of the Interstate Compact 

on the Placement of Children, Guide to the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (Washington, DC: American Public Human Services Association, 2002), http://icpc.aphsa.org/Home/

Doc/Guidebook_2002.pdf. 

33 Dong Soo Kim, “How They Fared in American Homes: A Follow-up Study of Adopted Korean 

Children in the United States,” Children Today 6, no. 2 (1977): 2.

34 Agency for International Development, Operation Babylift Report: Emergency Movement of 

Vietnamese and Cambodian Orphans for Intercountry Adoption, April–June 1975 (Washington, DC: 

printed by author, 1975), as excerpted on The Adoption History Project website, accessed June 

13, 2012, http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/archive/AIDOBR.htm. 

35 Children Today 4, no. 5 (1975): 28.

36 Children Today 9, no. 4 (1980): 27.

37 O. Delmar Weathers, Patricia L. Campiglia, Marvel W. Gayle, and Elaine J. Schwartz, “Update: 

Adoption Opportunities Projects,” Children Today 12, no. 2 (1983): 20.

38 Ibid., 20–23; “Adoption Opportunities,” Children Today 9, no. 2 (1980): 32. 

39 Children Today 11, no. 1 (1982): 28.

40 Steven Unger, ed., The Destruction of American Indian Families (New York: Association on 

American Indian Affairs, 1977), 1, as cited on “History of the Indian Child Welfare Act,” National Indian Child Welfare Association, accessed June 13, 2012, http://www.nicwa.org/Indian_Child_Welfare_Act/history/. 
41 Barbara A. Pine, “Child Welfare Reform and the Political Process,” Social Service Review 60, no. 

3 (1986): 348.

42 U.S. General Accounting Office, Children in Foster Care Institutions: Steps Government Can 

Take to Improve Their Care (Washington, DC: printed by author, 1977), http://www.gao.gov/assets/120/118119.pdf. 

43 Pine, “Child Welfare Reform,” 352–3.

44 John Calhoun, in discussion with Jill Rivera Greene, December 2011; MaryLee Allen, in discussion with Jill Rivera Greene, January 2012; Pine, “Child Welfare Reform,” 349.

45 Children Today 8, no. 4 (1979): 27; Children Today 8, no. 5 (1979): 32.

46 Pine, “Child Welfare Reform,” 353–4; Calhoun and Allen interviews.

47 John Calhoun, “The 1980 Child Welfare Act,” 2–4.

48 Children’s Bureau, “P.L. 96–272: Proposed Program Regulation” (Washington, DC: author, 

1982), http://www.afterschool.ed.gov/programs/cb/laws_policies/policy/pr/pr8201.htm. 

49 Information in this paragraph comes from discussions with Beatrice Moore (March 2012) 

and John Calhoun, both of whom participated in the regional forums. A Second Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, issued as ACYF-PR-82-01 on August 2, 1982 (http://www.afterschool.ed.gov/

programs/cb/laws_policies/policy/pr/pr8201.htm), has a different take on States’ reactions to 

P.L. 96–272 requirements. Although it acknowledges that “there was broad based support for 

the law and its proposed reforms,” it also states: “In general ... State agencies objected to the 

numerous specific requirements in the December 31, 1980 NPRM. States recommended regulatory language that adhered closely to the law, increased State flexibility and programmatic 

discretion, and limited the Federal role to those activities specifically provided for in the law. 

State agencies were also concerned that specific requirements would impose costs that would 

add additional pressure to already overextended State budgets.”

50 Pine, “Child Welfare Reform,” 357.

51 “History of the Implementation of PL 96–272” (notes for a training session conducted October 31, 1995), courtesy of the personal collection of Dan Lewis. 

52 Penny Maza, in discussion with Jill Rivera Greene, December 2011; Pine, “Child Welfare 

Reform,” 356.

53 Children Today 9, no. 2 (1980): 27.

54 “Records of the Children’s Bureau,” National Archives, accessed June 13, 2012, http://www.

archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/102.html#102.1. 

55 “History of the Implementation of PL 96–272.”

56 “Report to Congress on P.L. 96–272, ‘The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980’” 

(Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children, Youth 

and Families, 1984), 6–7, cited in Pine, “Child Welfare Reform,” 357.

57 Ferro interview.

58 “Implementation of P.L. 96–272 (Revised Moynihan Paper),” courtesy of the personal collection of Dan Lewis, n.d., 7–9.
59 Terpstra interview.

60 “Social Services Block Grant Legislative History: Title XX of the Social Security Act,” Child 

Welfare League of America, accessed June 13, 2012, http://www.cwla.org/advocacy/ssbghistory.

htm. 

61 Children Today 11, no. 1 (1982): 27.

62 “FYI/Worth Noting,” Children Today 13, no. 5 (1984): 1.

63 Terpstra, Ferro interviews.

64 “About National Adoption Month,” Child Welfare Information Gateway, accessed June 13, 

2012, http://www.childwelfare.gov/adoption/nam/about.cfm. 

65 Ronald Reagan, “Proclamation 5280 - National Adoption Week, 1984,” accessed June 13, 2012, 

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=39423#axzz1r67D5Vth.

66 Dorcas Hardy, “Adopting Children With Special Needs,” Children Today 12, no. 2 (1983): Inside 

back cover.

67 Anthony J. Veronico, “One Church, One Child,” Children Today 12, no. 2 (1983): 6–10.

68 P.L. 99–509, Approved October 21, 1986 (100 Stat. 1874), Compilation of the Social Security 

Laws (Social Security Online), accessed June 14, 2012, http://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/comp2/

F099-509.html. 

69 “Implementation of P.L. 96–272,” 11.

70 Children Today 11, no. 1 (1982): 29.

71 Children Today 15, no. 6 (1986): 26.

72 Children Today 9, no. 6 (1980): 25.

73 Children Today 10, no. 2 (1981): 27; Children Today 10, no. 6 (1981): 26.

74 Catherine Luby, “Children’s Justice Act” (presentation given June 20, 2011), http://nrccps.org/

wp-content/uploads/Childrens-Justice-Act-CJA-101-Introdution-08112011.pdf. 

75 Children Today 9, no. 3 (1980): 30.

76 Children Today 10, no. 1 (1981): 29.

77 “Worth Noting,” Children Today 13, no. 1 (1984): 1.

78 Children Today 18, no. 5 (1989): 1. 

79 “History of National Child Abuse Prevention Month,” Child Welfare Information Gateway, 

accessed June 14, 2012, http://www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/preventionmonth/history.cfm.

80 “Worth Noting,” Children Today 13, no. 2 (1984): 1.

81 “Public Law 93-247,” accessed June 14, 2012, http://www.brockport.edu/~govdoc/SocPol/

pl93247.pdf. 

82 Children Today 11, no. 1 (1982): 27.
83 Andrea J. Sedlak, Jane Mettenburg, Monica Basena, Ian Petta, Karla McPherson, Angela 

Greene, and Spencer Li, Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS-4): Report 

to Congress, Executive Summary (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010), http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/abuse_neglect/natl_incid/reports/nis_execsumm/nis4_report_exec_summ_pdf_jan2010.pdf. 

84 Children Today 12, no. 1 (1983): 30.

85 Children Today 15, no. 1 (1986): 2. 

86 Children Today 15, no. 4 (1986): 1.

87 Thomas, “A Hundred Years,” 17.

88 Joan Levy Zlotnik, Social Work Education and Public Child Welfare Partnerships: Highlights of a 

Long History (2000) (provided by author); Joan Zlotnik, in discussion with Jill Rivera Greene, 

February 2012; “Implementation of P.L. 96–272,” 16.

89 Children Today 9, no. 5 (1980): 29.

90 “Child Abuse and Neglect User Manual Series,” Child Welfare Information Gateway, accessed 

June 14, 2012, http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/usermanual.cfm. 

91 Information in this and the following paragraph taken from Penelope L. Maza, “The Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System: How We Got Here and Where We Are 

Going,” in Adoption Factbook III, ed. William L. Pierce and Connaught Marshner (Washington, 

DC: National Council for Adoption, 1999), 177–182.

92 Information in this paragraph taken from: David Lloyd, in discussion with Jill Rivera Greene, 

December 2011; N. A. Peddle, C. T. Wang, M. Edwards, J. Gaudiosi, Y. Y. Yuan, and J. Fluke, “The 

Evolution of a National Reporting System on Child Maltreatment: 25 Years of Progress” (presentation, 14th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect, April 2, 2003), http://www.

childwelfare.gov/calendar/cbconference/fourteenth/presentations/fluke/sld001.cfm. 

93 See Brian Simonitch and James L. Anderson, “On Their Own: An Oregon Experiment,” Children Today 8, no. 5 (1979): 28–31.

94 Children’s Defense Fund, “Chronology of Congressional Child Welfare Financing Proposals, 

1980–2003” (Washington, DC: printed by author, 2004), 2.

95 “Implementation of P.L. 96–272,” 13.

96 Lorraine Lima and Jerome Seliger, “Early Intervention Keeps Medically Fragile Babies at 

Home,” Children Today 19, no. 1 (1990): 28–32; Diane M. Yost, Neil J. Hochstadt, and Phyllis 

Charles, “Medical Foster Care: Achieving Permanency for Seriously Ill Children,” Children Today 

17, no. 5 (1988): 22–26.

97 Laura Curran and Jeanne Pietrzak, “AIA Programs: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” The 

Source, Spring 2001, 2–5, http://aia.berkeley.edu/media/pdf/10_year_retrospective_spring_2001.

pdf. 

98 Children Today 18, no. 5 (1989): 1.

99 Implementation of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1988 by the National Center on 

Child Abuse and Neglect, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Select Education, Committee on Educa-
tion and Labor, House of Representatives (May 9, 1991) (statement by Joseph F. Delfico, Director of 

Income Security Issues, Human Resources Division), 3; and follow-up testimony on February 

27, 1992.

100 U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, Child Abuse and Neglect: Critical First Steps 

in Response to a National Emergency (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990), 

http://eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED392557.pdf. 

101 Ibid., vii.

102 Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect, accessed June 14, 2012, http://www.iprc.

unc.edu/longscan/. 

103 “The Secretary’s Initiative on Child Abuse and Neglect,” Children Today 21, no. 2 (1992): 4–7.
Chapter 7

Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of 

Health and Human Services, speaks at the Children’s Bureau 

centennial celebration on April 9, 2012 (Choice Photography) 
Chapter 7

Partnering With Families and Working 

to Improve Outcomes (1993–2012)

Introduction

Passage of the Family Preservation and Support Services Program in 1993 authorized the Children’s Bureau to direct additional resources and support to State and 

local agencies to strengthen and expand front-end preventive services to families; 

improve the functioning of judicial systems; and support an approach to child 

welfare that was increasingly family-centered, community-based, and individualized. Flexibility and coordination became important watchwords in child abuse 

prevention, child protection, foster care, and adoption systems at the local level, 

as well as among Federal, State, Tribal, and local governments. At the Federal level, 

greater attention was paid to improving the administration of child welfare services through enhanced State data systems, training and technical assistance, and 

initiatives to build a more stable and effective child welfare workforce. Technological advances permitted State and Federal officials to gather and analyze increasingly more reliable data about children in the system and how they were faring.

In response to growing congressional concern, efforts to enhance accountability began to focus on improving children’s safety, permanency, and well-being. Child safety became a paramount concern, with increased attention paid to preventing child 

fatalities, including the implementation of citizen review and child death review 

panels. The Bureau continued to seek new ways to increase the number of children 

achieving permanency in a timely manner, through Federal goal-setting and implementation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, as well as through development 

of innovative recruitment strategies to address the disproportionate numbers of 
older children and children of color in foster care. Finally, well-being outcomes such 

as educational success, access to health care, and positive connections to caring 

adults became a greater concern, on behalf of children within the child welfare 

system as well as those who reached adulthood while receiving services.

Strains on the Foster Care System Prompt New Efforts to Help 

States

The inauguration of President William J. Clinton in January 1993 ushered in a new 

era for the Children’s Bureau. The President and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton 

shared a deep interest in the well-being of children and brought a spirit of openness that had not been seen in recent administrations. In a Children Today article in 

1993, President Clinton’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Donna Shalala announced the Department’s three “guiding themes”: addressing the causes 

(not just the consequences) of illness and suffering, fostering independence, and 

improving customer service (including “listening to employees and to customers”).1

On November 19, 1993, Congress confirmed Olivia Golden as the new Commissioner of the Administration for Children, Youth and Families (ACYF).2

 The following 

spring a new position was created—Associate Commissioner for the Children’s 

Bureau—and Carol Williams was appointed to lead the Bureau in this new role.

President Bill Clinton puts his arm around Charday Mays, 

an adopted child, at a November 1998 adoption event in the 

East Room of the White House. (William J. Clinton Presidential 

Library)

These appointed leaders 

assumed responsibility 

for a child welfare system 

that still faced considerable 

challenges. Due to rising 

family poverty rates, fallout 

from the substance abuse 

and AIDS epidemics, and 

increasing teen pregnancy 

rates, among other factors, 

the population of children 

in foster care had been 

growing steadily since 1986 

and would nearly double 
between 1986 and 1995.3

 Workers increasingly carried large, complex caseloads, 

and State and community systems struggled to address these challenges with 

limited resources. States would require resources, support, and flexibility to create 

and disseminate effective new service approaches in the years ahead.

Leadership Under President Clinton M

First Lady Hillary Clinton meets with Olivia Golden, 

Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, 2000. 

(William J. Clinton Presidential Library)

Olivia Golden, Ph.D., was appointed Commissioner of the Administration for 

Children, Youth and Families in November 1993. In that role, she helped lay the 

groundwork for the Adoption 2002 initiative and the Adoption and Safe Families 

Act of 1997. She also 

helped create the Early 

Head Start program 

and the Child Care 

Bureau. Prior to her appointment, Dr. Golden 

served as director of 

programs and policy at 

the Children’s Defense 

Fund. She earned a 

doctorate in public policy from the Kennedy 

School of Government 

at Harvard University. During President 

Clinton’s second term in office, in 1997, Dr. Golden was appointed Assistant 

Secretary for Children and Families.4

When Dr. Golden was appointed Assistant Secretary, Patricia Montoya was 

nominated to fill the position of Commissioner of ACYF and confirmed by the 

Senate on October 21, 1998.5

 Montoya was a registered nurse who worked 

with children and families in pediatric and school health clinics. In 1994, she 

was appointed Regional Director for Health and Human Services in Dallas, TX.6
Carol Williams was the first person to be appointed Associate Commissioner 

of the Children’s Bureau, in 1994. Her prior experience included serving as 

a court-appointed monitor in a class action suit against the District of Columbia Department of Human Services, providing technical assistance to States 

involved in The Casey Foundation Child Welfare Reform Initiative, and directing 

the National Child Welfare Leadership Center. 

While at the Bureau, 

she worked with 

administration officials 

to develop critical child 

welfare legislation, 

including the Adoption 

and Safe Families Act 

of 1997, the Multiethnic 

Placement Act, and the 

John Chaffee Foster 

Care Independence 

Act. She also was a 

driving force behind the 

implementation of the Child and Family Services Reviews and their focus on 

safety, permanency, and well-being outcomes for children and families. Dr. Carol Wilson Spigner (Carol Williams) joined the University of Pennsylvania School 

of Social Policy and Practice upon leaving the Bureau in 1999.7

Dr. Carol Wilson Spigner (Carol Williams) after receiving the Children’s Bureau Centennial Award at the April 

9, 2012 event. (Choice Photography)

Family Preservation and Support Services Program

Less than 1 year after President Clinton’s election, on August 10, 1993, he signed 

the Family Preservation and Support Services Program Act as part of the Omnibus 

Budget Reconciliation Act (P.L. 103–66). This law, the first major revision of title 

IV-B of the Social Security Act since P.L. 96–272 in 1980, was passed in response to 

continuing claims that, due to severely inadequate funding for preventive services, 

Federal financing perpetuated the disincentive to keep children out of foster care. 
The program authorized nearly $1 billion over 5 years to fund services to “promote 

family strength and stability, enhance parental functioning, and protect children.”8 

These included services to help preserve families in crisis (such as counseling, 

respite care, and intensive in-home assistance) as well as other forms of family 

support (including parent support groups, home visits, drop-in family centers, and 

child care). Services to help reunify families after an out-of-home placement, and 

the ability to devote more funds to staff training,9 also were permitted.

Secretary Shalala said this about the program:

We can no longer afford a one-size-fits-all bureaucratic method. We need an 

approach more tailored to the individual needs of each family. An approach that 

respects the sanctity of the family. An approach that keeps families together.

10

One of the most significant provisions of P.L. 103–66 was the requirement for 

States to engage in a broad, community-based planning process to determine a 

mix of services and supports that is “more responsive to the needs of individuals and communities and more sensitive to the context in which they are to be 

delivered.”11 States were encouraged to use the program’s first year for planning. 

Each State’s 5-year plan, which was to be submitted by June 30, 1994, was required 

to include a continuum of services for at-risk children and families, including 

family support and preservation; child abuse prevention, intervention, and treatment; foster care; and independent living services. It also was required to include 

a training plan ensuring sufficient, cross-disciplinary training was provided to 

staff.12 States were encouraged to explore coordination with other related social, 

health, education, and economic service systems. The planning process was to 

include a variety of voices, including representatives of community-based agencies, local government, Tribes, and professional and advocacy organizations, as 

well as parents and consumers of services. This was the first time that States were 

formally urged to plan for services across programs and funding streams, including 

the Independent Living program and the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment 

Act (CAPTA) formula grants.13

The spirit of inclusion extended to the Federal level, as well. As part of its process 

to implement the law, the Children’s Bureau solicited guidance and recommendations, both in written form and through a series of focus groups, from program 
experts, child welfare 

administrators, Tribal representatives, representatives of national advocacy 

groups, and families. Staff 

also initiated enhanced cooperation with other Federal agencies, including collaborating with the Health 

Resources and Services 

Administration (HRSA) and 

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration 

(SAMHSA) on discretionary 

grant announcements for 

FY 1994.14

Donna Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services, 

looks on as President Bill Clinton signs the National Preschool Immunization Week Proclamation on April 9, 1993. 

(William J. Clinton Presidential Library)

Two other provisions of P.L. 103–66 had lasting value. First, the law established 

the Court Improvement Program (CIP). This program (reauthorized in 1997, 2001, 

and 2005) provides grants to improve State courts’ handling of child welfare 

cases. The courts were to use the funds (authorized at $5 million in FY 1995 and 

$10 million in FY 1996–1998) to assess their foster care and adoption laws and 

judicial processes and to develop and implement a plan for system improvement.15 Second, P.L. 103–66 provided additional funding for State expenditures to 

plan, design, or develop statewide automated child welfare information systems 

(SACWIS). Through this provision, States could access 75 percent Federal funding 

for a limited period (initially through FY 1996) to create or enhance such a system. 

In exchange, participating States agreed that the SACWIS would support reporting 

to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) and the 

National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), thus greatly enhancing 

the quality and availability of data within those national systems.16
Impact of Data and Technology M

Advances in technology have had a revolutionary impact on child welfare. 

Once it became possible to collect, store, analyze, and disseminate data on a 

large scale, it also became possible to conduct more and better research and 

to monitor child welfare systems by setting goals and measuring outcomes. 

Data on numbers of children involved with child welfare could be quantified and 

analyzed. Other data helped illuminate workforce issues. All of these advances 

contributed to a significant leap in knowledge about American child welfare.

The Children’s Bureau’s ongoing support for SACWIS development, implementation, and improvement has had far-reaching impact on the Nation’s child 

welfare system. As States’ ability to gather and analyze data became more sophisticated, the Bureau produced more comprehensive and reliable information 

about children and families at a national level. This, in turn, aided Congress in 

passing legislation and authorizing programs to help those who needed it most. 

During the past 20 years, improved data has prompted more effective responses to many issues, including racial disproportionality, the needs of youth aging 

out of foster care, and the co-occurrence of child maltreatment with issues such 

as substance abuse and domestic violence.

Today, the Bureau’s National Resource Center for Child Welfare Data and 

Technology (http://www.nrccwdt.org/) supports State and Tribal child welfare 

agencies and courts in using data and technology to improve outcomes for 

children and families. This includes assistance with data analysis, sharing, and 

management. It also includes training and technical assistance around the use 

of new tools to continue to enhance data accuracy, availability, and usefulness, 

including geographic information systems (GIS), social media, and mobile 

technologies (e.g., tablet PCs and digital pens).
Federal/State Cooperation Expands 

In addition to the funding provided by P.L. 103–66, the first few years of the Clinton 

administration saw several other initiatives to enhance the working relationship 

between the Children’s Bureau and the States. One was the establishment, in FY 

1994, of six national resource centers to promote knowledge-sharing and strengthen the capacity of child welfare agencies. Like the centers originally established in 

1985 and granted continued funding in 1988–1990, these resource centers were focused on particular topic areas (in this case, family-centered practice, permanency 

planning, youth development, legal and court systems, organizational improvement, and abandoned infants assistance).17 Other centers funded around the same 

time focused on respite and crisis care services18 and adoption.19

Also in 1994, Congress authorized a new Child Welfare Waiver Demonstration 

Program as part of the Social Security Amendments of 1994 (P.L. 103–432). This program initially allowed up to 10 States greater flexibility in the use of child welfare 

funding to test innovative approaches to achieving program objectives. The demonstration projects, which were authorized for up to 5 years with the possibility of 

extension, were required to be cost neutral.20 During the program’s first 2 years, 

demonstration projects in Delaware, 

Illinois, Maryland, Indiana, North Carolina, Oregon, and Ohio tested approaches 

such as subsidized guardianship and 

kinship permanence, capped title IV-E 

allocations and flexible funding to local 

agencies, and services to caregivers with 

substance use disorders. The program 

was amended in 1997 to allow up to 10 

States per year to conduct programs 

in FY 1998–2002; later projects have 

explored the use of managed care payment systems, intensive service options, 

postadoption services, Tribal administration of title IV-E funds, and enhanced 

training for child welfare staff.21

The final report from a title IV-E Child 

Welfare Demonstration Project in Minnesota 

that operated from October 2005 through 

September 2010. (Minnesota Department of 

Human Services)
The 1994 Social Security Amendments also reauthorized HHS to review the 

conformity of State child and family service programs with the requirements in 

titles IV-B and IV-E. These reviews had been taking place for years; however, the 

States and Congress were increasingly dissatisfied with the reviews’ strict focus 

on assessing State agencies’ compliance with procedural requirements, without 

regard to child and family outcomes. Under the leadership of Associate Commissioner Williams, Children’s Bureau staff began the long process of developing a 

new system of reviews to meet legislative requirements while providing more 

insight into how children and families were faring. As early as FY 1995, the Bureau 

was conducting pilot tests in several States of the review process that would later 

become known as the Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSRs).22

The Children’s Bureau’s National Resource 

Center for Adoption offers a curriculum on 

MEPA at http://www.nrcadoption.org/resources/mepa/home-3/.

Racial Disproportionality 

Prompts a Federal Response: 

The Multiethnic Placement Act

The debate about interracial adoption 

came to a head in the early 1990s. Proponents of the practice were responding 

to the disproportionately high numbers of children of color in foster care 

and their considerably longer average 

length of stay. (According to Voluntary 

Cooperative Information System data, at 

the end of 1994, 45 percent of children 

in out-of-home care and 54 percent 

of those who had been legally freed 

for adoption were African-American.23

By contrast, U.S. Census Bureau data 

for 1990 note that Black Americans 

comprised approximately 12 percent of 

the total population.24) These advocates 

argued that studies of the well-being of children adopted transracially yielded 

consistently positive findings, and children should not be left to languish in foster 

care simply due to an agency preference for racial matching. Although all par-
ties agreed that disproportionality was a serious problem, critics of interracial 

adoption urged stronger recruitment of racially and ethnically diverse foster and 

adoptive parents as a more beneficial solution for children.25

Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum, responding to urging from prospective adoptive parents in his home State of Ohio, succeeded in attaching the Metzenbaum 

Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA) to the Improving America’s Schools Act, a law 

that was already moving through the Senate.26 The law was enacted in 1994 and 

addressed the issue in two ways. First, MEPA codified the application of civil rights 

laws to adoption, prohibiting the delay or denial of a child’s adoptive placement 

solely on the basis of race, color, or national origin of the child or prospective 

parents. It did allow agencies to consider the child’s cultural, ethnic, or racial background when determining the parents’ ability to meet the child’s needs. Second, 

it required “diligent efforts” to recruit and retain foster and adoptive families that 

reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of the children for whom homes are needed. The Children’s Bureau issued detailed guidance to help States and agencies 

implement MEPA.27

Just 2 years later, MEPA was amended by the provisions for Removal of Barriers to 

Interethnic Adoption (IEP) included in the Small Business Job Protection Act (1996). 

The amendments were intended to remove potentially misleading language in 

MEPA’s original provisions and clarify that “discrimination is not to be tolerated,” 

by removing the provision that allowed States to consider the child’s ethnic/cultural background (and the prospective parents’ ability to meet the child’s related 

needs) in placement decisions. IEP also strengthened compliance and enforcement procedures, including the withholding of Federal funds.28 Today, the Children’s Bureau continues to issue guidance and training materials to help State and 

local child welfare agencies understand and carry out their responsibilities under 

MEPA-IEP.29

NCCAN’s Final Years

During most of President Clinton’s first term, the National Center on Child Abuse 

and Neglect (NCCAN) carried out its work as a separate entity within ACYF. The 

U.S. Advisory Board continued to play an important role, through its legislative 
mandate to evaluate the Nation’s efforts to fulfill the purpose of CAPTA and propose recommendations for improvement. Building on the philosophy expressed in 

its 1991 report, the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect issued a report 

in 1993 describing steps to create a comprehensive, neighborhood-based approach 

to preventing child maltreatment.30 Even while that report was in development, 

the Nation’s attention was being captured by a series of shocking news reports 

describing the most tragic consequences of child maltreatment: child deaths. As 

a result, in its 1992 reauthorization of CAPTA, Congress required the U.S. Advisory Board to develop a report on the nature and extent of child abuse and neglect 

fatalities and how these deaths might be prevented.31

After more than 2 years of extensive research, study, and public hearings, the 

Board issued A Nation’s Shame: Fatal Child Abuse and Neglect in the United States in 

1995.32 In addition to an in-depth analysis of current conditions, the report offered 

26 recommendations for addressing 

“deep-seated problems within the 

law enforcement, child protection 

and health agencies and courts that 

comprise the country’s child protection 

system.”33 Among these recommendations were calls for increased attention 

to data collection and research, more 

effective investigation and prosecution 

efforts, enhanced professional training, 

establishment of Child Death Review 

Teams, and more community-based services and primary prevention efforts. 

The U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse 

and Neglect’s report A Nation’s Shame: Fatal 

Child Abuse and Neglect in the United States 

provided 26 recommendations to combat 

child abuse and neglect. (Child Welfare Information Gateway)

Many of these recommendations would 

become areas of focus for discretionary 

grants in the coming years. In FY 1994, 

for example, NCCAN invited proposals 

specifically on the use and effectiveness of risk assessment systems. The 

same year, proposals were invited for 

demonstration projects for professional 
training to encourage efficient, effective child death review.34 Other research and 

demonstration priorities during this period include a cluster of demonstration 

projects on the prevention of child neglect, demonstrations of training and caseload standards for guardians ad litem, and symposia on child abuse and neglect 

prevention and domestic violence.35 The neglect cluster was particularly significant, because it was one of the Bureau’s first attempts to implement an integrated 

evaluation that enabled comparison of results across the projects.36 The Children’s 

Bureau would fund many more clusters with this feature in the years to come.

The reauthorization of CAPTA in 1996 (P.L. 104–235) reflected many of the concerns 

of the time. It added new State requirements to address problems in the child 

protection system, including safeguards against false reports of child abuse and 

neglect, delays in termination of parental rights, and a lack of public oversight 

of child protection. In response to the latter, CAPTA provided for Federal grants 

to establish citizen review panels in each State. These were intended to examine 

the policies and procedures of State and local agencies to determine whether the 

agencies were effectively carrying out their responsibilities for child protection, 

foster care, and child death review.37 Other research priorities following from the 

1996 CAPTA included mandated reporting; unsubstantiated, substantiated, and 

false reports; abuse in substitute care; co-occurrence of child maltreatment and 

substance abuse or domestic violence; differential response systems; and the 

impact of welfare reform on child welfare systems.38

In keeping with the Clinton administration’s emphasis on collaboration and 

integration among child- and family-serving systems, P.L. 104–235 created a new 

program, the Community-Based Family Resource and Support (CBFRS) grants. 

These grants reflected the theory that individual child abuse and neglect prevention programs could not be effective on their own; rather, child abuse prevention 

and treatment programs, both public and private, should work together toward 

common goals. As a result, the CBFRS program required State lead agencies to establish statewide networks for family support programs, to support a coordinated 

continuum of preventive services, and to maximize funding for those services.39

The 1996 CAPTA reauthorization also brought significant changes in how child 

abuse prevention and treatment work was carried out at the Federal level. Perhaps 

in response to the Republican Congress’s push to streamline government, as well 
as the Clinton administration’s emphasis on bringing child abuse prevention and 

child welfare programs into greater alignment, P.L. 104–235 abolished NCCAN as a 

separate entity within ACYF. Instead, it provided the option for an Office on Child 

Abuse and Neglect (OCAN) to be created within the Children’s Bureau, to coordinate the functions required under CAPTA.40

The creation of OCAN became part of a larger reorganization of the Children’s 

Bureau, which was announced in the Federal Register on December 8, 1997.41 OCAN 

was tasked with providing leadership and direction on CAPTA and Children’s 

Justice Act programs, as well as other initiatives related to child abuse and neglect. 

Four additional divisions comprised the new Children’s Bureau: Policy (responsible 

for developing regulations and policy); Program Implementation (operating and 

monitoring programs under titles IV-B and IV-E, as well as the CAPTA Basic State 

Grants); Data, Research and Innovation (establishing research priorities, administering discretionary grant programs, and analyzing and disseminating data from 

AFCARS and NCANDS); and Child Welfare Capacity Building (managing training 

and technical assistance efforts, including the National Resource Centers and 

clearinghouses).

Federal Interagency Work Group on M

Child Abuse and Neglect

The 1996 reauthorization of CAPTA repealed a 1988 requirement to establish 

an Inter-Agency Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect.42 The Task Force 

included representatives of 30 member agencies drawn from the Cabinet 

Departments and the Office of Personnel Management. By statute, the Director 

of NCCAN was the chairperson of the Task Force.

Despite the repeal of this mandate, Task Force members agreed that it was 

important to maintain the connections that had been formed and to continue 

their work. As a result, they changed the name to the Federal Interagency Work 

Group on Child Abuse and Neglect (FEDIAWG) and have continued to meet 

ever since. 
Since 1996, the Office on Child Abuse and Neglect has led and coordinated 

FEDIAWG. The group’s goals include the following: 

• Provide a forum through which staff from relevant Federal agencies can 

communicate and exchange ideas concerning child maltreatment-related 

programs and activities

• Collect information about Federal child maltreatment activities

• Provide a basis for collective action through which funding and resources can 

be maximized

More than 40 Federal agencies are represented on the group, which meets in 

person on a quarterly basis. Subcommittees on domestic violence, prevention, 

and research meet more regularly via conference call. 

Safety and Permanency: Adoption 2002 and the Adoption and Safe 

Families Act of 1997

Increasing adoption was another concern of the revitalized Children’s Bureau. In 

1995, by President Clinton’s proclamation, National Adoption Week was expanded to the full month of November for the first time. First Lady Hillary Clinton 

produced a public service announcement (PSA) about adoption and presided over 

a ceremony at the White House.43 The following month, the Children’s Bureau convened an Adoption Program Network composed of national, State, and local adoption program representatives to provide input on a new National Adoption Strategic Plan. The plan defined a set of strategic goals and measures of success that the 

Bureau hoped would contribute toward overall system reform during the next 5 

years, while allowing States the flexibility to determine how to accomplish those 

goals. In March 1996, the Bureau released the plan at its Permanency Partnership 

Forum and provided an opportunity for State representatives to share their knowledge and ideas.44 A Program Announcement in July of the same year announced 

priority areas for Adoption Opportunities demonstration grants that furthered 

the Strategic Plan’s goals, including strategies to increase adoptive placements for 

minority children and those with developmental disabilities, expand permanency 
options through strategies such as concurrent planning and voluntary relinquishment, and more effectively prepare foster and adoptive parents for transracial and 

transcultural placements.45

Building on this work, President Clinton 

issued an Executive Memorandum on 

Adoption on December 14, 1996. In it, 

he called on HHS to “devise new ways 

to make adoption easier and to move 

more children, more quickly out of 

foster care into permanent homes.”46 To 

do so, he encouraged the Department 

to work with States, communities, and 

children’s advocates to develop a plan 

for doubling the number of adoptions 

and permanent placements during the 

next 5 years (an increase from 27,000 

adoptions and permanent placements 

in 1996 to 54,000 in 2002).

The 2003 National Adoption Month poster, 

part of the annual campaign to raise awareness about the urgent need to find adoptive 

families for children and youth in foster care. 

(AdoptUSKids, Children’s Bureau)

After 60 days of planning, including consultation with more than 600 foster and 

adoptive parents, professionals, policy 

experts, and advocates, the Department 

responded. Its report, Adoption 2002, was 

issued on February 14, 1997, and outlined a series of policy and practice-related 

steps toward achieving the goals. These included:

• State-by-State annual, numerical targets for adoptions and permanent 

placements

• Financial bonuses to States for successful performance

• Enhanced technical assistance

• Guidance clarifying the meaning and implementation of P.L. 96–272’s 

“reasonable efforts” provision
• Model guidelines for States regarding termination of parental rights

• More aggressive implementation of MEPA-IEP

• Annual awards to recognize States, local agencies, courts, private organizations, employers, and others for contributions in support of permanency for children in the child welfare system

This report’s recommendations became the framework for the Adoption and Safe 

Families Act (ASFA, P.L. 105–89),47 some provisions of which also were suggested in 

the 1994 Republican “Contract with America.” Members of both parties participated in drafting the law, which was informed by 11 hearings of the House Committee on Ways and Means during the 104th and 105th Congresses.48 The final law 

was signed by President Clinton on November 19, 1997. 

Surrounded by children, President Clinton signs the 

Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. (William J. Clinton 

Presidential Library)

ASFA reauthorized the 

Family Preservation and 

Support Services Program, 

renaming it the Safe and 

Stable Families Program. 

For the first time, the law 

established that the child’s 

health and safety were to 

be paramount in decisions 

around the child’s placement. Specifically, ASFA’s 

provisions centered on four 

primary goals: 

Achieving timely permanence for children (including the requirement to file a 

petition for termination of parental rights if a child has been in foster care 15 out 

of the most recent 22 months, authorization of adoption incentive payments to 

States, elimination of “long-term foster care” as a permanency option, formal recognition of kinship care, and provision for permanency hearings to be held within 

12 months of a child entering care)
Ensuring child safety (including specifying exceptions to the “reasonable efforts” 

requirements and requiring criminal record checks for prospective kin and nonkin foster parents)

Promoting well-being as a goal of the child welfare system (including requiring 

States to develop standards to ensure quality services to children in foster care 

and to provide health insurance for children with special needs who are adopted 

with an adoption assistance agreement)

Improving accountability (including extending authorization for State child welfare waiver projects and requiring HHS to create outcome measures by which to 

assess States’ performance)

Despite considerable bipartisan support, ASFA was not without controversy, 

primarily centering around the proper balance between child safety and family integrity. Proponents of the law felt that, with P.L. 96–272’s emphasis on “reasonable 

efforts” to preserve families, the balance had shifted too far in the direction of parents’ rights at the risk of children’s well-being. Critics argued that ASFA provided 

the government too much leeway to intervene in capable families and traumatize 

children by removing them from functional homes. ASFA’s provision for “Preservation of Reasonable Parenting” attempted to address this by stating that nothing in 

the Act was intended to disrupt families unnecessarily or dictate how to parent.

The Children’s Bureau was once again tasked with helping States to bring their 

laws and policies into compliance with Federal law, issuing final regulatory guidance for ASFA in January of 2000.49 It also monitored and administered the Adoption Incentive program, which began in FY 1998. By the end of FY 2002, awards 

totaled approximately $160 million.50 All 50 States, the District of Columbia, and 

Puerto Rico have received bonuses for exceeding their baseline number of adoptions for at least 1 year since the program began.51 (It was reauthorized by the 

Adoption Promotion Act of 2003 and again by the Fostering Connections to Success 

and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 with slight changes, including an emphasis 

on older children.) The Children’s Bureau also began administering the Adoption 

Excellence Awards in 1997. This program seeks to recognize States, agencies, organizations, businesses, individuals, and families that have demonstrated excellence 

in providing safe, stable, and nurturing adoptive homes for children in foster care.
Acting Associate Commissioner Joe Bock (left) presents 

an Adoption Excellence Award in 2007 to Mr. and Mrs. 

BellStewart, who were honored for their adoption of six 

children from foster care. (Children’s Bureau Express)

Exploring Child Well-Being: NSCAW M

In the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act of 

1996, Congress directed the Secretary of HHS to conduct a national longitudinal study of children who are at risk of abuse or neglect or are in the child welfare system.52 In response, the Children’s Bureau initiated the National Survey 

of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW). 

NSCAW was the first national study to examine child and family well-being 

outcomes in detail and seek to relate those outcomes to families’ experience 

with the child welfare system as well as to family characteristics, community 

environment, and other factors. It provided nationally representative longitudinal data drawn from the first-hand reports of children, parents, and other 

caregivers, as well as reports from caseworkers and teachers and data from 

administrative records.

The study attempted to achieve the following goals: (1) describe the children 

and families who come into contact with the child welfare system, (2) examine 

child and family risk factors, service needs, and services received, (3) describe 
the child welfare system and the experience of children and families involved 

in the system, (4) examine outcomes for these children and families, and (5) 

describe the interaction of the child welfare system and services with other 

service systems. Data were collected in five waves between 1999 and 2007. 

In 2008, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) commissioned 

the study of a new cohort of approximately 5,900 children, acknowledging 

that both family characteristics and child welfare systems have likely changed 

considerably since baseline data were collected for the first cohort nearly 10 

years earlier.53 The baseline for NSCAW II was completed in August 2009, and 

follow-up began in October of the same year.

Increased Accountability: Child Welfare Outcomes and the Child 

and Family Services Reviews

The Children’s Bureau had been mandated to create a new State monitoring system since 1994, but ASFA specifically required HHS to establish outcome measures 

to track State performance in protecting children. To do so, the Children’s Bureau 

began by establishing an advisory group that included representatives from State, 

Tribal, county, and municipal child welfare agencies; private nonprofit child and 

family services agencies; State legislatures; Governors’ offices; juvenile and family 

courts; and local child advocacy organizations.54 During the fall of 1998, this group 

engaged in a series of discussions that resulted in the creation of four guiding 

principles for selection of the outcome measures and assessment of States. A preliminary list of outcomes and measures was then published in the Federal Register

for public comment on February 2, 1999. After analysis of the comments received, 

the Bureau published a final list of seven measures reflecting child safety, permanency, and well-being on August 20, 1999.

These measures were used in the first of a series of annual reports required by 

ASFA: Child Welfare Outcomes 1998, published in 2000. This report was the first 

ever to report outcomes in child welfare on a national scale. It was intended to 

establish the baseline performance of each State. To do so, Child Welfare Outcomes 

1998 included data compiled from NCANDS and AFCARS. State participation was 

incomplete, but all 50 States submitted data on at least some elements.
Final regulations for the child welfare review process, which had been modeled 

on a system first developed in Alabama55 and pilot-tested in several States, were 

issued on January 25, 2000.56 The Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSRs) began 

in 2001. Reviews assessed State child welfare services for substantial conformity 

with the outcome measures as well as seven systemic factors (including functions 

such as data systems and training) and consisted of three stages:

• States conducted a Statewide Assessment of their own services and 

outcomes, based on data and input from stakeholders.

• A team of Federal staff and personnel from other States reviewed data 

and conducted onsite visits to review cases and interview stakeholders. 

A final report summarized findings regarding conformity with outcomes, systemic factors, and national standards.

• States developed Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) for each 

outcome and systemic factor with which they were not in substantial 

conformity.

After the first round of 52 reviews, 

conducted 2001–2004, no State was 

found to be in substantial conformity 

with all of the seven outcome areas or 

seven systemic factors. Between 2004 

and 2007, States implemented their PIPs 

to make improvements in areas that 

were not in conformity with required 

standards. A second round of reviews 

was conducted between 2007 and 2010.57

Analyses of the second round of CFSR 

results showed that 10 States met the 

requirement for one of the seven safety, 

permanency, and well-being outcome 

goals (the goal pertaining to meeting 

children’s educational needs), and the 

majority of States were in conformity 

with six of the seven systemic goals.58

Child Welfare Outcomes, which debuted in 

2000, reporting outcomes for 1998, was the 

first-ever report of outcomes in child welfare. 

(Children’s Bureau)
In 2011, the Children’s Bureau reassessed how the reviews were conducted to 

identify system improvements and ensure consistency with recent amendments to 

Federal child welfare law. The Bureau solicited input from the field via a request for 

comments published in the April 5, 2011, edition of the Federal Register; in-person 

consultations in four ACF Regions and in the Bureau’s Washington, DC, offices; 

and several Tribal Roundtables.59 The Bureau synthesized comments from States, 

national organizations, advocacy groups, and individuals in preparation for a third 

round of reviews.

New Resources for Youth Aging Out of Foster Care

How youth who “aged out” of foster care fared as adults was a subject of increasing concern throughout the 1990s. A number of studies published during this 

period demonstrated continuing difficulties faced by foster youth when they left 

the system at age 18, including IV-E Independent Living Programs: A Decade in Review, 

published by the Children’s Bureau.60 Many youth exiting foster care had considerable difficulty maintaining jobs, achieving financial independence, securing 

affordable housing, and accessing health care. 

In response, two important pieces of legislation around the turn of the century 

enhanced resources and strengthened State accountability to help older youth 

leaving foster care achieve self-sufficiency. The Chafee Foster Care Independence Program (CFCIP) was created by the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 

(P.L. 106–169). This program doubled the funding available under the Federal 

Independent Living Program originally created in 1986, providing flexible grants 

to States and Tribes to support older foster youth in a wide variety of ways, 

including help with education, employment, financial management, housing, 

emotional support, and connections to caring adults. These services, including 

assistance with room and board, also were required to be offered for the first 

time to youth ages 18–21 who had aged out of the foster care system.61 A few 

years later, the CFCIP was expanded further under title II of the Promoting Safe 

and Stable Families Amendments of 2001 (P.L. 107–133). This law created the 

Education and Training Vouchers for Youths Aging Out of Foster Care Program, 

which authorizes payments to States for postsecondary education and training 

for youth who have aged out of foster care.62
The CFCIP also required the Children’s Bureau to create a data collection system to 

track State Independent Living services for youth and to develop outcome measures 

that could be used to assess States’ performance in operating their Independent 

Living programs. After years of consultation with stakeholders and pilot-testing in 

several States, the Bureau published a proposed rule for the data collection system in 

the Federal Register on July 14, 2006.63 The final rule for the National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD) was published February 26, 2008, and data collection began in 

October 2010. Outcomes measured by the initiative include financial self-sufficiency, 

experience with homelessness, educational attainment, positive connections with 

adults, high-risk behavior, and access to health insurance. Part of the CFCIP funding 

also supported an independent, experimental-design evaluation to determine how 

effectively programs funded through the CFCIP supported these outcomes.64

Children’s Bureau Express Online Digest M

The Children’s Bureau’s long history of publishing research and information for 

child welfare professionals took a big step into the digital age with the debut 

of Children’s Bureau Express in March of 2000. Available via web or email, Children’s Bureau Express was a monthly digest of news and information published 

jointly by the Bureau’s National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect 

Information and its National Adoption Information Clearinghouse.

Published continuously 

since its release, CBX

(as it is known today) 

is now a publication 

of Child Welfare Information Gateway and 

reaches an audience 

of more than 20,000 

subscribers monthly.

The Children’s Bureau launched its online news digest, 

Children’s Bureau Express, in 2000 (https://cbexpress.

acf.hhs.gov).
The Bush Administration: New Priorities, New Leaders

The George W. Bush administration brought new priorities—particularly healthy 

marriage, fatherhood, and support for faith-based community agencies. However, 

it also saw the continuation of investment in promoting child safety and increasing the number of adoptions from foster care. 

President Bush nominated Joan Eschenbach Ohl to be Commissioner of ACYF on 

June 30, 2001. She was sworn in on February 6, 2002. Prior to joining ACYF, Ohl 

spent 4 years as West Virginia’s cabinet Secretary of the Department of Health 

and Human Resources. In that role, she emphasized effective and efficient programs, fiscal accountability, and personnel development. She successfully implemented the State’s welfare reform program and numerous child care quality 

improvement measures.65

Susan Orr, Ph.D., was 

named Associate Commissioner of the Children’s 

Bureau in 2001. She had 

previously served at ACYF 

during the Clinton administration, 1992–1998, as special assistant to the commissioner and as a child 

welfare program specialist 

at the National Center on 

Child Abuse and Neglect. In 

October 2007, Orr left the 

Children’s Bureau to accept 

an appointment as Director 

of the Office of Population Affairs in the Office of Public Health and Science.66

Joan Eschenbach Ohl was appointed Commissioner of 

ACYF in 2002 by President George W. Bush. Ohl was one of 

many speakers at the Children’s Bureau’s centennial event 

on April 9, 2012. (Choice Photography)

Following Dr. Orr’s resignation, Christine Calpin, former Associate Director of the 

Child Care Bureau, was appointed Associate Commissioner. Prior to working at the 

Child Care Bureau, Calpin served for 4 years on the U.S. House Committee on Ways 

and Means as lead Congressional staffer, where she focused on welfare, child care, 
and child protection issues. She also worked for 5 years for the Congressional 

Research Service, specializing in welfare and child protection issues.67

Supporting Systems Change: A New Training and Technical 

Assistance Strategy 

Before the CFSRs were implemented, the Bureau’s technical assistance was conducted at the request of the States, around specific issues they identified. However, once findings from the first round of CFSRs provided more detailed information 

about States’ needs, the Children’s Bureau directed that future technical assistance should focus more strategically on those areas most in need of improvement. The review findings demonstrated the complex challenges faced by State 

child welfare programs and suggested the need for more integrated technical 

assistance to help States meet their PIP goals and achieve true systems change.68

Quality Improvement Centers (QICs) were one new strategy. The QICs began as 

a pilot initiative in 2001 to promote development of evidence-based knowledge 

about effective child welfare practice and systemic change and to disseminate this 

information in a way that informed and altered practice at the direct service level.69 The QIC is a decentralized approach—it moves responsibility for determining 

areas of focus, reviewing applications, and monitoring grant operations from the 

Federal staff level to a more localized level. Local-level grantors were believed to 

have more hands-on knowledge of where services were needed, the ability to provide onsite monitoring and technical assistance more efficiently, and the potential 

to form professional networks that will outlast Federal funding.

The first QICs (four in child protective services, or CPS, and one in adoption) were 

funded in fiscal year 2001. Each QIC convened a regional advisory group, conducted a needs assessment and literature review, determined its own topic for 

research and demonstration projects, awarded grant funds, provided technical 

assistance to grantees, conducted an evaluation of its grant projects, and disseminated research findings. Topical focuses of the CPS QICs included culturally 

appropriate interventions for families of color involved with CPS due to neglect, 

families struggling with child maltreatment and substance abuse, and effective 

supervision. (One QIC did not receive continued funding after the first year.) Based 

on the success of these initial projects, additional QICs were funded on the follow-
ing topics: Privatization of Child Welfare Services (FY 2005), Nonresident Fathers 

(2006),70 Differential Response in Child Protective Services (2008), Early Childhood 

(2009), and Representation of Children in the Child Welfare System (2009).71

The Children’s Bureau also began working as early as 2000 to increase collaboration among its network of National Resource Centers and Clearinghouses (the 

Training & Technical Assistance (T&TA) Network). In June of 2004, the Bureau 

announced its intention to fund seven new cooperative agreements for National 

Resource Centers and implement a more formalized, coordinated training and 

technical assistance strategy.72 In doing so, the Bureau modified the management 

of the National Resource Centers in four ways:

• Implementation of a single point of entry

• Creation of a T&TA Coordination Committee (known today as the Training and Technical Assistance Coordination Center, or TTACC)

• Close coordination with other technical assistance providers

• Evaluating technical assistance efforts

The topical focuses of the newly funded Resource Centers included organizational 

improvement, child protective services, family-centered practice and permanency planning, data and technology, legal and judicial issues, special needs 

adoption, and youth development. All of the centers were to support a focus on 

family-centered, community-based, and individualized services. They were tasked 

with providing leadership to the field and building knowledge by seeking out and 

disseminating information about evidence-based practice. Special attention was 

to be given to helping States improve conformity with outcomes and systemic 

factors identified in the CFSRs and other monitoring reviews.

The latest phase in technical assistance provision was initiated in 2008, when the 

Children’s Bureau funded five Regional Implementation Centers focused on implementing strategies to achieve sustainable, systemic change and improve outcomes for children and families. The Implementation Centers expand the T&TA 

Network’s ability to provide in-depth and long-term consultation and support to 

States and Tribes. In addition to working with the T&TA Network, each center has 

formal partnerships with States and Tribes in its regions to execute programs that 
use strategies to achieve sustainable, systemic change for greater safety, permanency, and well-being for families.73

Child Welfare Information Gateway M

After more than a decade of focus on coordination across all aspects of child welfare service, the 

Children’s Bureau created a new information service 

spanning the full spectrum of child welfare topics 

on June 20, 2006, with the launch of Child Welfare 

Information Gateway.74 Child Welfare Information 

Gateway consolidated and expanded on the Bureau’s 

two federally mandated clearinghouses—the National 

Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information and the National 

Adoption Information Clearinghouse—which had formerly represented different aspects of the child welfare system with some overlap.

Today, Child Welfare Information Gateway promotes the safety, permanency, 

and well-being of children, youth, and families by connecting child welfare, 

adoption, and related professionals as well as the general public to information, resources, and tools. It provides access to print and electronic publications, websites, databases, and online learning tools for improving child 

welfare practice, including resources for professionals to share with families. 
In 2006, the Children’s Bureau consolidated and expanded its federally 

mandated clearinghouses, combining the National Clearinghouse on Child 

Abuse and Neglect Information with the National Adoption Information 

Clearinghouse to create Child Welfare Information Gateway (https://www.

childwelfare.gov).

Addressing the Workforce Crisis

By 2000, it was apparent that efforts to date had failed to resolve the staffing crisis 

plaguing child welfare agencies since the mid-1980s. That year, the Children’s 

Bureau sponsored a National Child Welfare Training Conference, bringing together university and agency partners to explore effective practices in building a 

competent workforce, and launched an Online Network of Child Welfare Training 

Resources.75 Private child welfare organizations, including the American Public 

Human Services Association (APHSA), Alliance for Children and Families, and the 

Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) played a critical role during the early 

years of the new century by helping to sustain attention to the issue through their 

initiatives and research, including a collaborative public/private staff survey conducted in the fall of 2000.76 In 2001, CWLA hosted its own conference on the topic, 

“Finding Better Ways,” including workshops on topics such as enhancing worker 

retention and effective training to improve job performance.77

The United States General Accounting Office (GAO) conducted a study of child welfare staff recruitment and retention between March 2002 and January 2003, at the 

request of Representative Pete Stark (D-CA) and Representative James Greenwood 

(R-PA).78 HHS Could Play a Greater Role in Helping Child Welfare Agencies Recruit and 

Retain Staff, published in March 2003, identified the challenges agencies faced in 
recruiting and retaining staff. More importantly, it suggested that those challenges 

were affecting safety and permanency outcomes for children in foster care, based 

on findings from the first 27 CFSRs. Noting that HHS was not currently targeting 

staff recruitment and retention as a priority issue, the GAO recommended that the 

Secretary take further action to help child welfare agencies address the problem.

The Children’s Bureau concurred with many of the study findings and responded 

by using its Discretionary Grant funds to implement several new initiatives during 

the next decade. In 2003 the Bureau funded a cluster of eight 5-year grants to explore “Developing Models of Effective Child Welfare Staff Recruitment and Retention Training.” The grants, all of which involved strong agency-university partnerships, developed, implemented, evaluated, and disseminated strategies to address 

difficulties in recruiting, screening, selecting, and retaining qualified workers.79

Several follow-up papers synthesized the grants’ evaluation findings and lessons 

learned. In 2005, the Bureau sponsored a Child Welfare Workforce Development 

and Workplace Enhancement Institute,80 and its clearinghouses jointly launched 

Child Welfare Workforce and Training Resources, a comprehensive database of research, curricula, and other training resources.81 This section was followed in 2007 

by Child Welfare Workforce Connection, a closed online community of practice to 

foster discussion and collaboration among professionals concerned with workforce issues.82

The Children’s Bureau established the 

National Child Welfare Workforce Institute 

(NCWWI) in 2008.

In 2008, the Bureau launched its 

latest project to build capacity of the 

child welfare workforce and cultivate 

leadership at multiple levels within 

child welfare agencies. The funding 

announcement resulted in the creation 

of the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (NCWWI), a member 

of the Bureau’s T&TA Network that 

serves as a workforce resource to other 

members.83 Faculty from the universities funded for the 2003 grants comprise the NCWWI staff, so they have a strong 

history of collaboration. The Institute’s activities include Leadership Academies 

for Managers and Supervisors, child welfare traineeship programs at universi-
ties offering M.S.W. and B.S.W. degrees, development of peer-to-peer networks, 

and dissemination of resources at the national level. Around the same time, the 

Bureau funded five additional workforce grant projects to implement targeted 

workforce development interventions and traineeships; NCWWI is tasked with 

conducting a cross-site evaluation of these regionally based projects.

Legislation Promotes Child and Family Safety and Well-Being

Congress reauthorized a number of important programs during the Bush administration, providing continued support and, often, new emphases to critical Children’s Bureau programs.

The Promoting Safe and Stable Families Amendments (P.L. 107–133), enacted 

January 17, 2002, reauthorized the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program. 

This law reflected the Bush administration’s emphasis on the importance of the 

nuclear family by adding activities that strengthen parental relationships and 

promote healthy marriages to the list of allowable activities. Postadoption and 

post-reunification services also were authorized under the law, as were programs 

for mentoring children of incarcerated parents. Finally, P.L. 107–133 amended the 

Foster Care Independent Living Program to provide for educational and training 

vouchers for youth aging out of care.84

The Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003 (P.L. 108–36), which reauthorized several Bureau programs, including CAPTA, Adoption Opportunities, and the 

Abandoned Infants Assistance Act, reflected some groups’ concerns that child 

welfare agencies were still too quick to remove children from their birth families. 

Enacted on June 25, 2003, it included provisions requiring that CPS workers be 

trained regarding their legal duties to protect the rights and safety of both children and families, and it required workers to advise individuals of the allegations 

against them at the initial contact.85

P.L. 108–36 also reauthorized the CBFRS program, which was renamed Community-Based Grants for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (or CBCAP, as it is 

commonly called). This program continued its emphasis on supporting community-based prevention initiatives and coordination at the State level. It also required 

State lead agencies to demonstrate a commitment to parent leadership and 
involvement.86 Other new requirements of P.L. 108–36 included policies to address 

the needs of infants identified as being affected by prenatal drug exposure, procedures for referring children under age 3 who are involved in a substantiated case 

of abuse or neglect to early intervention services, policies to facilitate interjurisdictional adoptions, expansion of postadoption services, and the requirement for 

a study of successful adoption outcomes. 

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 increased protections for 

children against sexual exploitation and abuse by, among other things, requiring 

fingerprint checks for all prospective foster and adoptive families and requiring 

HHS to create a national central registry of substantiated cases of child abuse and 

neglect.87

Child Abuse Prevention Initiative

In 2003, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the first Presidential Proclamation for Child Abuse Prevention Month, OCAN launched the National Child Abuse 

Prevention Initiative as a year-long effort. The theme of the 14th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect was devoted to prevention, and OCAN and its 

National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information partnered with 

Prevent Child Abuse America and the child abuse prevention community to produce a variety of tools and resources to support national, State, and local public 

awareness activities.88 The same year, OCAN released its Emerging Practices in the 

Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect report, the product of a 2-year effort to generate new information about effective and innovative prevention programs.89 OCAN 

received nominations of programs and initiatives from across the country; these 

were reviewed and evaluated by an Advisory Group of experts. The report presented outcomes of the nomination process along with a literature review.

When the U.S. Surgeon General named 2005 the Year of the Healthy Child, there 

was renewed commitment to make child abuse prevention a national priority. As 

a result, OCAN focused on making safe children and healthy families a shared responsibility, a theme that also was incorporated into its 15th National Conference. 

The theme expanded in 2007, when OCAN’s resource guide and the 16th National 

Conference encouraged communities to work together to promote healthy families. At the same time, OCAN invited 26 national organizations to be national child 
abuse prevention partners, 

so the message could reach 

a wider audience.90

Support for child abuse 

prevention efforts expanded due in part to the 

growing body of evidence 

(including the Emerging 

Practices project) suggesting that home visitation 

programs for pregnant 

mothers and families 

with young children can 

reduce the incidence of 

maltreatment and improve child and family outcomes. In 2003, the Children’s 

Bureau awarded funds for eight sites nationwide to replicate and evaluate the 

University of Maryland’s Family Connections program.91 In 2007, the Children’s 

Bureau funded three additional grantees to implement and evaluate nurse home 

visitation services, and in 2008, it funded 17 cooperative agreements to generate 

knowledge about the use of evidence-based home visiting programs to prevent 

child abuse and neglect.92

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 included a provision to 

create the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, which 

is being implemented by the Health Resources and Services Administration in 

partnership with ACF.93 Today, the Child Abuse Prevention Initiative continues 

to be an opportunity to create strong communities to support families and keep 

children safe. 

The Children’s Bureau’s Office on Child Abuse and Neglect 

produces annual resource guides filled with resources and 

information to support service providers in their work with 

families, caregivers, and children.

Legislation to Promote Adoption and Permanency

Significant adoption laws during the first decade of the 21st century included:

• The Adoption Promotion Act of 2003 (P.L. 108–145) reauthorized the 

Federal Adoption Incentives with an emphasis on children ages 9 and 
older.94 This law also required the Children’s Bureau to produce a report 

to Congress on adoption and other permanency outcomes for older 

youth in foster care, which was published in 2005.95

• The Safe and Timely Interstate Placement of Foster Children Act (P.L. 

109–239), enacted on July 3, 2006, sought to expedite interstate placements by establishing time limits for interstate home study requests 

and offering incentives for timeliness.96 It also provided for a number 

of additional protections for children in out-of-State foster care placements, such as provision of children’s health and education records to 

foster parents and increased frequency of caseworker visits.

• The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act 

of 2008 (P.L. 110–351) reflected the importance of preserving family 

connections for children in the foster care system and the growing 

support for kinship care as a permanency option.97 For the first time, 

guardianship assistance payments were authorized under title IV-E for 

children of whom a relative was willing to take legal guardianship. This 

allows children to maintain connections with biological parents while 

living safely with family. To ensure children’s safety, relatives and other 

adults living in the home must pass fingerprint-based criminal records 

and child abuse registry checks before receiving payments. Independent 

living services for foster youth entering into kinship guardianship or 

adoption after age 16 also are authorized under this law. Connections to 

kin are further supported through grants supporting kinship navigator 

programs, family-finding efforts, family group decision-making meetings, and residential family treatment programs. 

Another significant change in this law was the opportunity for federally recognized Indian Tribes, Tribal organizations, and Tribal consortia to directly operate 

a title IV-E program for the first time. The Bureau helped implement this requirement by conducting numerous outreach activities to Tribes, creating a National 

Resource Center for Tribes, and providing one-time grants of up to $300,000 for 

Tribes to develop a title IV-E plan.98
Launching a National Recruitment Strategy

In July 2002, the Children’s Bureau and the National Adoption Center joined with 

other corporate and nonprofit partners to launch an innovative national approach 

to increase adoption opportunities for children in foster care. The next generation of the Bureau’s National Adoption Exchange, the AdoptUSKids website was 

the first national, online 

photolisting site to feature 

photographs and biographies of children in the 

foster care system.99 That 

fall, the Children’s Bureau 

awarded $22 million over 

5 years to the Adoption 

Exchange Association to 

maintain the AdoptUSKids 

website and support recruitment of adoptive families through a comprehensive program of activities, 

including:

• Training and technical assistance to States and Tribes

• A national recruitment campaign and regional recruitment response 

teams

• Creation and support of adoptive parent groups, including respite care 

programs

• Research to identify barriers to the adoption process

• Efforts to enhance collaboration between agencies and individuals seeking families for children100

President George W. Bush signs H.R. 2873, reauthorizing 

the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Amendments of 

2001. (Paul Morse, George W. Bush Presidential Library and 

Museum)

The AdoptUSKids national public awareness campaign was first launched in 

2004, through a partnership with the Ad Council. Television, print, and radio PSAs 

encouraged prospective parents to realize, “You don’t have to be perfect to be a 
perfect parent.”101 Subsequent campaigns have continued that theme, with a specific focus on various groups, including youth, sibling groups, African Americans, 

and Latino children and parents.102 A Spanish version of the AdoptUSKids website 

(www.adopte1.org) also was released in April 2005.103

In 2008, the Children’s Bureau’s Adoption Opportunities program provided 

discretionary funds to eight grantees 

to address the diligent recruitment of 

families for children in the foster care 

system. Grantees were tasked with developing and implementing a comprehensive, multifaceted recruitment program for kinship, foster, concurrent, and 

adoptive families, with the ultimate goal 

of improving permanency outcomes 

for children and youth. Some of the 

strategies grantees are testing include 

increasing the number of dually licensed homes, intensive individualized 

recruitment, involvement of neighborhood partners, and multiformat training 

for staff and resource families.104

AdoptUSKids and related activities have 

proven highly successful. In February 2009, the Children’s Bureau announced that more than 10,000 of the 24,000 

children who had been listed on the website since the site was launched had 

been placed for adoption. More than 60 percent of those children were at least 10 

years old, 47 percent were African American, and 20 percent were siblings adopted 

together.105 Less than 2 years later, the total number of featured children who had 

been adopted reached 15,000.106

AdoptUSKids and the Ad Council partnered 

in 2004 to launch a national awareness campaign aimed at recruiting adoptive families. 

(The Children’s Bureau and AdoptUSKids) 
Hurricanes Prompt Disaster Recovery Resources M

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana, 

resulting in the costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States and 

wreaking havoc on the city’s most vulnerable children and families. Countless 

children lost their homes, schools, and neighborhoods; many also lost or were 

separated from family members. Close to 2,000 of the State’s 5,000 foster children were displaced.107 Less than 1 month later, the area was hit with a second 

hurricane; Rita made landfall on September 24.

During the chaotic period that followed, children and families in the child 

welfare system faced additional losses, including loss of records, access to 

needed services, and information about placements and case plans. HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt declared a public health emergency in five southern States 

on August 31, and the Children’s Bureau, along with its many partner agencies 

within HHS, rushed to respond.108

Almost immediately, Dr. Wade Horn, Assistant Secretary of ACF, issued an 

Information Memorandum outlining flexibility in the title IV-E program to help 

States serving children and families affected by the hurricanes. The flexibility 

could be used in areas such as recruiting foster parents, making foster care 

maintenance payments, and reviewing cases.109 In November, the Children’s 

Bureau awarded $2.8 million to its National Resource Centers to help States 

rebuild child welfare and family court services disrupted by the hurricanes 

through strategies such as coordinating services for foster children evacuated 

from other States, locating and reuniting families, reestablishing and sharing 

records, and reinstating information systems.110 

One year after Katrina, in August 2006, the Bureau sponsored a Hurricane 

Summit to focus on disaster preparedness and management.111 Around the 

same time, it issued updated guidance to States in developing child welfare 

disaster plans (originally disseminated in 1995). The Children’s Bureau also 

asked States to voluntarily submit copies of their own disaster plans for review.112 Today the National Resource Centers and the Bureau’s Child Welfare 

Information Gateway continue to offer technical assistance and resources on 

disaster planning, to help States better prepare for and weather future crises.
President Obama Supports Recession Help for Struggling Families

President Barack Obama assumed office in January 2009 amidst a growing economic crisis. Christine Calpin resigned as Associate Commissioner, and Joe Bock, 

who had served as Deputy Associate Commissioner since 2002, was named Acting 

Associate Commissioner.113 In February 2010, Bryan Samuels was confirmed as 

Commissioner of ACYF.114 Samuels brought a strong background of serving children and youth to this position, having served as Chief of Staff for Chicago Public 

Schools and as Director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, 

as well as having grown up in a residential school for disadvantaged children.

The Obama administration 

has acted quickly with 

legislation to protect the 

well-being of children in 

foster care and ensure the 

continued operation of critical child welfare programs 

during this challenging 

time. Several of the laws 

provide additional financial 

supports to foster children. 

The American Recovery 

and Reinvestment Act of 

2009 (P.L. 111–5) increased 

funding for the title IV-E 

adoption and foster care assistance program during the recession.115 The Patient 

Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111–148), enacted March 23, 2010, required 

States to extend Medicaid coverage up to age 26 for youth who age out of the foster care system beginning in 2014.116 The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (enacted 

December 13, 2010) ensured children in foster care automatically qualify for free 

meals in Department of Agriculture child nutrition programs.117

In 2010, Brian Samuels was appointed Commissioner of 

ACYF by President Barack Obama. Commissioner Samuels 

speaks at the Children’s Bureau’s centennial celebration on 

April 9, 2012. (Choice Photography)

Other bills reauthorized and enhanced existing child welfare programs, including 

the CAPTA Reauthorization Act of 2010 (P.L. 111–320), which was signed on December 20, 2010.118 In addition to reauthorizing funds for discretionary and State 
grants at current levels, this law provided for new studies and reports to Congress 

on topics such as shaken baby syndrome, program collaboration, and effectiveness 

of citizen review panels. It also supported child welfare systems improvement, 

such as by encouraging family participation in case planning and placement 

decisions and requiring enhanced data reporting by States. The Child and Family 

Services Improvement and Innovation Act reauthorized title IV-B programs with 

particular attention to issues such as children’s emotional health, trauma, and the 

use of psychotropic medications; faster permanency for younger children; standardization of State data reporting; and caseworker visit standards.119

Current Children’s Bureau Grants and Initiatives 

The Children’s Bureau has continued to support innovation and improvement of 

child welfare systems through its discretionary grant funds. In 2009, the Bureau 

funded a new National Resource Center for In-Home Services to support promising practices that can help children remain safely in their homes when their families are at risk of involvement or actually involved with the child welfare system. 

In its first year, the NRC convened a national advisory board of experts, hosted 

a national meeting, conducted outreach to Tribes, and completed a nationwide 

assessment of promising and evidence-based practices in in-home services.120

Also in 2009, the Children’s Bureau funded the National Resource Center for Tribes 

to help Tribal communities strengthen child welfare systems and services and to 

connect Tribes with training and resources and with each other. The NRC is also 

charged with helping Tribes access technical assistance from the rest of the T&TA 

Network.121

In keeping with its emphasis on evidence-based practice, the Bureau also held 

its first Child Welfare Evaluation Summit May 27–29, 2009. Its purpose was to explore the current state of evaluation practice in the field of child welfare and to 

promote cohesive, strategic, and sound approaches for evaluating child welfare 

systems, projects, and programs.122 A second summit was held August 29–31, 

2011.123 In November 2011, the Bureau sponsored a national meeting in partnership with the U.S. Department of Education to improve educational stability 

and outcomes for children in foster care by bringing State administrative teams 
together to develop action plans.124 Other recent discretionary grants have funded research and demonstration programs on diligent recruitment of families for 

children in foster care, the use of family-group decision making, and the integration of trauma-informed practice in CPS delivery.125 

In 2010, the Children’s Bureau awarded funding to implement the President’s 

Initiative to Reduce Long-Term Foster Care, which seeks to improve outcomes 

for groups of children who face the greatest barriers to permanency. During the 

grants’ 5-year term, the Bureau will invest $100 million in individual projects, 

technical assistance, and site-specific and cross-site evaluation to test innovative 

approaches and develop knowledge about what works to help children and youth 

in foster care achieve permanency. The six grantees were announced in February 

2011, along with a change of the program’s name to the Permanency Innovations 

Initiative.126

Meanwhile, the Bureau’s most recent child abuse prevention initiative kicked off 

in June 2011, at the first Network for Action Meeting. Jointly sponsored by OCAN, 

the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Violence Prevention’s 

Knowledge to Action Child 

Maltreatment Prevention 

Consortium Leadership 

Group, the FRIENDS National Resource Center, and 

other national prevention 

organizations, the meeting 

and network are driven by 

three specific goals: to create a shared vision for the 

future, to engage in shared 

action, and to develop and 

strengthen prevention 

networks at the State and 

Federal levels.127

Attendees at the 18th National Conference on Child Abuse 

and Neglect in April 2012, sponsored by OCAN. (Paltech 

staff member Diane Mentzer)
The Children’s Bureau’s Centennial and Beyond

On April 9, 2012, the Children’s Bureau kicked off a yearlong celebration of its 

100th anniversary with a ceremony at the Hubert H. Humphrey Building in 

Washington, DC. The event included remarks by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, 

Acting Assistant Secretary for Children and Families George Sheldon, and Acting 

Associate Commissioner Joe Bock. Other featured speakers included Dr. Olivia 

Golden, former Assistant Secretary of ACF; Joan E. Ohl, former Commissioner, 

ACYF; Mary Williams, president of the National Association of Public Child Welfare 

Administrators; and ACYF Commissioner Bryan Samuels.128 Former ACYF Commissioner Carol Wilson Spigner (Carol Williams) received the Children’s Bureau 

Centennial Award for extraordinary vision and leadership in the field of child 

welfare services. 

Special invited guests at the centennial celebration included (left to right) Mary Williams, Dr. Olivia Golden, Commissioner Bryan Samuels, and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. 

(Choice Photography)

This celebration was 

marked by a distinguished 

gathering of leaders from 

the Bureau’s recent history. The past two decades 

have been a period of 

tremendous changes, 

including a far greater 

number of laws enacted 

regarding child protection, 

foster care, and adoption 

than during any other 

period. These laws and 

resulting programmatic 

changes reflect society’s 

increased knowledge and 

understanding of the 

plight of struggling children and families, thanks in part to the Bureau’s support 

of groundbreaking research and State data system improvement. They arise 

from an unprecedented level of concern within Congress regarding the outcomes experienced by children involved with the child welfare system. In these 

and many other ways, today’s Children’s Bureau is a testament to the pioneering 
work of all preceding Bureau leaders and staff, whose unwavering dedication to 

improving the lives of children and families helped make today’s progress—and 

our visions for an even greater tomorrow—a reality.

The centennial celebration included entertainment by the 

Washington Youth Choir. (Choice Photography)

Chapter 7 Notes

1 Donna Shalala, “Giving Pediatric Immunizations the Priority They Deserve,” Children Today

22, no. 1 (1993): 1.

2 “Statement on the Nomination of Preston M. Taylor (Senate - November 19, 1993),” Congressional Record, 103rd Congress, via THOMAS, Library of Congress, accessed June 15, 2012. 

3 Andrew L. Yarrow, History of U.S. Children’s Policy, 1900–Present (Washington, DC: First Focus, 

2009), 25, http://firstfocus.net/sites/default/files/r.2009-5.1.yarrow.pdf.

4 Olivia Golden, in discussion with Jill Rivera Greene, December 2011; “Olivia Golden,” Urban 

Institute, accessed June 15, 2012, http://www.urban.org/about/OliviaGolden.cfm. 

5 “Confirmations,” Congressional Record, 105th Congress, October 21, 1998, via THOMAS, Library of Congress, accessed June 15, 2012. 

6 Testimony of the Nominee for Commissioner of Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, 

Patricia Montoya; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Before the Senate Finance Committee; September 24, 1998, Assistant Secretary for Legislation, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human 

Services, accessed June 15, 2012, http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/t980924b.html. 

7 Carol Wilson Spigner, in discussion with Jill Rivera Greene, December 2011; “Carol Wilson 

Spigner, MSW, DSW,” Penn School of Social Policy and Practice, last updated 2010, http://www.

sp2.upenn.edu/people/faculty/spigner/index.html. 
8 Children’s Bureau, ACYF-PI-94-01, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/laws_policies/policy/

pi/1994/pi9401.htm. 

9 Miranda Lynch Thomas, “A Hundred Years of Children’s Bureau Support to the Child Welfare 

Workforce,” Journal of Public Child Welfare 6, no. 4 (2012): 357–75.

10 Donna Shalala, “Remarks About Clinton Administration’s Initiatives for Children and Families,” Children Today 22, no. 3 (1993): 5.

11 Children’s Bureau, ACYF-PI-94-01.

12 Thomas, “A Hundred Years,” 18.

13 Spigner interview; “Family Preservation and Support Services Program: Proposed Rule,” 

Federal Register 59, no. 191 (October 4, 1994), http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1994-10-04/

html/94-24325.htm. 

14 Children’s Bureau, ACYF-PI-94-01.

15 “Court Improvement Program,” Children’s Bureau, last updated April 21, 2010, http://www.

acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/programs_fund/state_tribal/ct_imprv.htm. 

16 Penelope L. Maza, “The Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System: How We 

Got Here and Where We Are Going,” in Adoption Factbook III, ed. William L. Pierce and Connaught Marshner (Washington, DC: National Council for Adoption, 1999), 179.

17 “Availability of Financial Assistance and Request for Applications,” Federal Register 59, no. 122 

(June 27, 1994), http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1994-06-27/html/94-15454.htm. 

18 Children Today 23, no. 3 (1994): 1.

19 “Availability of Financial Assistance and Request for Applications.” 

20 Children’s Defense Fund, Chronology of Congressional Child Welfare Financing Proposals, 1980–

2003 (Washington, DC: printed by author, 2004), 2.

21 Children’s Bureau, Summary Table of the Title IV-E Child Welfare Waiver Demonstrations as of 

February 2012 (Washington, DC: printed by author, 2012), http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/

programs_fund/cwwaiver/2012/summary_table2012.pdf.

22 “Child Welfare Waiver Demonstrations Pursuant to Section 1130 of the Social Security Act 

(the Act); Titles IV-E and IV-B of the Act; PL 103-432,” Federal Register 60, no. 115 (June 15, 1995), 

31478, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1995-06-15/pdf/95-14711.pdf. 

23 Children’s Bureau, A Guide to the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994, as Amended by the Interethnic 

Adoption Provisions of 1996 (Washington, DC: printed by author, 1998), http://www.acf.hhs.gov/

sites/default/files/cb/mepa_powerpoint.pdf. 

24 U.S. Census Bureau, 1990 Census of Population: General Population Characteristics, United States

(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, n.d.), 3, http://www.census.gov/prod/

cen1990/cp1/cp-1-1.pdf. 

25 Children’s Bureau, Guide to the Multiethnic Placement Act.
26 “Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA),” Adoption.com, reprinted from Christine Adamec and 

William Pierce, Ph.D. The Encyclopedia of Adoption, 2nd Edition (New York: Facts on File, 2000), 

http://encyclopedia.adoption.com/entry/Multiethnic-Placement-Act-MEPA/233/1.html. 

27 Children’s Bureau, Guide to the Multiethnic Placement Act.

28 Ibid.

29 See http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/resource/mept-powerpoint. 

30 U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, Neighbors Helping Neighbors: A New National 

Strategy for the Protection of Children (Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1993), 

http://library.childwelfare.gov/cwig/ws/library/docs/gateway/Record?w=NATIVE%28%-

27SIMPLE_SRCH+ph+is+%27%27neighbors+helping+neighbors%27%27%27%29&upp=0&rpp=25&order=native%28%27year%2FDescend%27%29&r=1&m=2&. 

31 “Fiscal Year 1994 National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect Discretionary Funds Program; 

Availability of Funds and Request for Applications,” Federal Register 59, no. 50 (March 15, 1994), 

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1994-03-15/html/94-5822.htm. 

32 U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, A Nation’s Shame: Fatal Child Abuse and 

Neglect in the United States (Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, 1995), 

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1994-03-15/html/94-5822.htm. 

33 Ibid., xxvii.

34 “Fiscal Year 1994 National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect Discretionary Funds Program; 

Availability of Funds and Request for Applications.” 

35 “Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention and Treatment; Proposed Research and Demonstration 

Priorities for Fiscal Years 1995 and 1996,” Federal Register 59, no. 205 (October 25, 1994), http://

www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1994-10-25/html/94-26356.htm. 

36 Spigner interview.

37 Child Welfare Information Gateway, Major Federal Legislation Concerned With Child Protection, 

Child Welfare, and Adoption (Washington, DC: printed by author, 2011), 17–18, http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/otherpubs/majorfedlegis.pdf. 

38 “Children’s Bureau/National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect Proposed Research Priorities 

for Fiscal Years 1997–2001,” Federal Register 62, no. 29 (February 12, 1997), 6546–9, http://www.

gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1997-02-12/pdf/97-3469.pdf. 

39 Children’s Bureau, ACYF-CB-PI-02-04, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/laws_policies/

policy/pi/2002/pi0204.htm. 

40 Catherine Nolan, in discussion with Jill Rivera Greene, March 2012.

41 Information in this paragraph taken from “Administration on Children, Youth and Families; 

Statement of Organization, Function, and Delegations of Authority,” Federal Register 62, no. 235 

(December 8, 1997), 64592–3, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1997-12-08/pdf/97-31964.pdf. 

42 Information for this box taken from “Federal Interagency Work Group on Child Abuse & 

Neglect,” Children’s Bureau, last updated December 9, 2011, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/

cb/fediawg/; and Nolan interview.
43 “National Adoption Month,” Children Today 24, no. 1 (1996): 3.

44 Spaulding for Children, “A National Adoption Strategic Plan,” The Roundtable 10, no. 2 (1996): 

1–5, http://www.nrcadoption.org/pdfs/roundtable/V10N2-1996.pdf. 

45 “Adoption Opportunities Program; Announcement of Availability of Financial Assistance and 

Request for Applications,” Federal Register 61, no. 133 (July 10, 1996), 36427, http://www.gpo.gov/

fdsys/pkg/FR-1996-07-10/pdf/96-17284.pdf. 

46 This quote and information for this and the following paragraph taken from: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Adoption 2002: A Response to the Presidential Executive 

Memorandum on Adoption Issued December 14, 1996 (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 1997).

47 Information for this and the following three paragraphs (unless otherwise noted) taken 

from Olivia Golden and Jennifer Macomber, “Framework Paper: The Adoption and Safe Families Act,” in Intentions and Results: A Look Back at the Adoption and Safe Families Act (Washington, 

DC: Center for the Study of Social Policy and Urban Institute, 2009): 8–34, http://www.urban.

org/UploadedPDF/1001351_safe_families_act.pdf. 

48 Cassie Statuto Bevan, “Adoption and Safe Families Act: No Second Chances?” in Intentions and Results: A Look Back at the Adoption and Safe Families Act (Washington, DC: Center for 

the Study of Social Policy and Urban Institute, 2009): 53, http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/1001351_safe_families_act.pdf.

49 Golden and Macomber, “Framework Paper,” 10.

50 Children’s Bureau, Adoption Incentives Earning History by State: FY 1998–FY 2010, (Washington, 

DC: printed by author, n.d.), http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/programs_fund/adopt_incentive_history.pdf. 

51 Children’s Bureau, Report to Congress on Adoption and Other Permanency Outcomes for Children in 

Foster Care: Focus on Older Children (Washington, DC: printed by author, 2005), http://www.acf.

hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/congress_adopt/index.htm.

52 Information for this and the following two paragraphs taken from “Overview, National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being,” Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, accessed June 18, 2012, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/

opre/abuse_neglect/nscaw/nscaw_overview.html#overview. 

53 “National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being,” RTI International, accessed June 18, 

2012, http://www.rti.org/page.cfm?objectid=D688C979-8B27-456E-AD0AF638862E7365. 

54 Information for this and the following paragraph taken from Children’s Bureau, Child Welfare 

Outcomes 1998: Annual Report (Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, 2000), 

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cwo98/cwo98.pdf. 

55 Golden interview.

56 “Title IV-E Foster Care Eligibility Reviews and Child and Family Services State Plan Reviews,” 

Federal Register 65, no. 16 (January 25, 2000): 4020–93, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2000-

01-25/pdf/00-1122.pdf. 
57 “Children’s Bureau Child and Family Services Reviews Fact Sheet,” Children’s Bureau, 

accessed June 18, 2012, http://www.afterschool.ed.gov/programs/cb/cwmonitoring/recruit/

cfsrfactsheet.htm. 

58 Children’s Bureau, Federal Child and Family Services Reviews Aggregate Report: Round 2, Fiscal 

Years 2007-2010, (Washington, DC: Author, 2011), accessed July 12, 2012, http://www.acf.hhs.

gov/programs/cb/cwmonitoring/results/fcfsr_report.pdf.

59 “Federal Monitoring of Child and Family Service Programs; Request for Public Comment and 

Consultation Meetings,” Federal Register 76, no. 65 (April 5, 2011): 18677–9, http://www.gpo.gov/

fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-04-05/pdf/2011-8044.pdf. 

60 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and 

Families, Title IV-E Independent Living Programs: A Decade in Review (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999).

61 Lisa Bell, Information Packet: Transition to Independent Living (New York: National Resource 

Center for Foster Care and Permanency Planning, 2002), http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/

nrcfcpp/downloads/information_packets/transition_to_independent_living-pkt.pdf. 

62 “The John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program,” Children’s Bureau, accessed June 

18, 2012, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/programs_fund/state_tribal/jh_chafee.htm. 

63 “Chafee National Youth in Transition Database,” Federal Register 71, no. 135 (July 14, 2006): 

40346–82, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2006-07-14/pdf/06-6005.pdf. 

64 “About NYTD,” Children’s Bureau, accessed June 18, 2012, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/

cb/systems/nytd/about_nytd.htm. 

65 Biography of Joan E. Ohl, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, last updated November 10, 2003, http://www.hhs.gov/about/bios/acyf.html. 

66 “Children’s Bureau Associate Commissioner Change,” Children’s Bureau Express 8, no. 10 

(2007), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=89&articleID=1443. 

67 “Children’s Bureau Welcomes New Acting Associate Commissioner,” Children’s Bureau Express 

9, no. 1 (2008), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=91&articleID=1468. 

68 Spigner interview.

69 Information in this and the following paragraph (unless otherwise noted) taken from 

James Bell Associates, The Children’s Bureau Quality Improvement Centers 2001–2007: Final Report, Executive Summary (Arlington, VA: printed by author, 2008), ii–iv, http://

library.childwelfare.gov/cbgrants/ws/library/docs/cb_grants/Blob/62384.pdf?w=NATIVE%28%27DOCS_DE2+ph+is+%27%27Quality+Improvement+Center%27%27+AND+-

AUTHORS+ph+like+%27%27James+Bell%27%27%27%29&upp=0&rpp=25&order=native%28%27year%2FDescend%27%29&r=1&m=1. 

70 “Quality Improvement Centers Update,” Children’s Bureau Express 8, no. 2 (2007), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=81&articleID=1280. 

71 “Quality Improvement Centers,” Children’s Bureau, last updated April 30, 2012, http://www.

acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/tta/index.htm#qips. 
72 Information for this and the following paragraph taken from “National Child Welfare Resource Centers Cooperative Agreements,” Federal Register 69, no. 122 (June 25, 2004): 35860–918, 

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2004-06-25/pdf/04-14170.pdf. 

73 “Implementation Centers Offer New Services to States and Tribes,” Children’s Bureau Express 

10, no. 1 (2009), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=102&articleID=2511. 

74 “Child Welfare Information Gateway Now Open!” Children’s Bureau Express 7, no. 6 (2006), 

https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=76&articleID=1180. 

75 Joan Levy Zlotnik, Social Work Education and Public Child Welfare Partnerships: Highlights of a 

Long History (2000) (provided by author); and “New Child Welfare Training Resource Available Online,” Children’s Bureau Express 1, no. 6 (2000), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.

cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=9§ionid=6&articleid=167. 

76 “State of the Child Welfare Workforce Examined,” Children’s Bureau Express 2, no. 4 (2001), 

https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=19&articleID=290. 

77 “News From the Child Welfare Training Resources (CWTR) Online Network: CWLA Releases 

Documents on Workforce Issues,” Children’s Bureau Express 3, no. 1 (2002), https://cbexpress.acf.

hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=25&articleID=388. 

78 U.S. General Accounting Office, HHS Could Play a Greater Role in Helping Child Welfare Agencies 

Recruit and Retain Staff (Washington, DC: printed by author, 2003), http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-357. 

79 Thomas, “A Hundred Years,” 19; “Developing Models for Workforce Recruitment and 

Retention,” Children’s Bureau Express 9, no. 6 (2008), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.

cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=96&articleID=2110. 

80 Thomas, “A Hundred Years,” 19.

81 “Online Resource for Child Welfare Training,” Children’s Bureau Express 6, no. 1 (2005), https://

cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=61&articleID=920. 

82 “Online Community for Workforce and Training,” Children’s Bureau Express 8, no. 1 (2007), 

https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=80&articleID=1259. 

83 Information about NCWWI taken from “Workforce Institute Launches With Ambitious Program,” Children’s Bureau Express 9, no. 10 (December 2008/January 2009), https://cbexpress.acf.

hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=101&articleID=2479. 

84 “Reauthorized Safe and Stable Families Program Adds Emphasis on Marriage, Education 

for Foster Youth,” Children’s Bureau Express 3, no. 2 (2002), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.

cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=26&articleID=425. 

85 “Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003 Signed Into Law,” Children’s Bureau Express 

4, no. 6 (2003), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=44&articleID=685. 
86 Children’s Bureau, ACYF-CB-PI-10-06, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/laws_policies/

policy/pi/2010/pi1006.htm#background. 

87 Child Welfare Information Gateway, Major Federal Legislation, 9–10.

88 “History of Child Abuse Prevention Month,” Child Welfare Information Gateway, accessed 

June 18, 2012, http://www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/preventionmonth/history.cfm. 

89 David Thomas, Christine Leicht, Candy Hughes, Amy Madigan, and Kathy Dowell, Emerging 

Practices in the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (Washington, DC: Children’s Bureau, 2003), 

http://www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/programs/whatworks/report/. 

90 “History of Child Abuse Prevention Month.”

91 “Replicating Effective Prevention: Children’s Bureau Grantees,” Children’s Bureau Express 

10, no. 3 (2009), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=104&articleID=2576. 

92 “History of Child Abuse Prevention Month.”

93 “ACF Grants Available,” Children’s Bureau Express 11, no. 6 (2010), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.

gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=118&articleID=2919. 

94 “President Signs Adoption Promotion Act of 2003,” Children’s Bureau Express 4, no. 10 

(2003/2004), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=48&articleID=758. 

95 Children’s Bureau, Report to Congress on Adoption.

96 Children’s Bureau, Major Federal Legislation, 10–11.

97 Information about P.L. 110–351 taken from Children’s Bureau, Major Federal Legislation, 6–7.

98 “From the Acting Associate Commissioner’s Office,” Children’s Bureau 10, no. 3 (2009), https://

cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=104&articleID=2563. 

99 “HHS and National Adoption Center Launch AdoptUSKids Website,” Children’s Bureau Express 

3, no. 7 (2002), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=32&articleID=537. 

100 “HHS Selects Adoption Exchange Association to Administer AdoptUSKids Initiative,” Children’s Bureau Express 3, no. 9 (2002), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.

viewArticles&issueid=35&articleID=562. 

101 “National Campaign Urges Americans to Adopt,” Children’s Bureau Express 5, no. 5 (2004), 

https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=54&articleID=819. 

102 “ACF Launches Spanish-Language Recruitment Campaign,” Children’s Bureau Express 6, no. 4 

(2005), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=64&articleID=957; “New Ad Campaign Promotes Youth Adoptions,” Children’s Bureau Express 7, no. 5 

(2006), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=75&articleID=1165; “New PSA Campaign Recruits Families for African-American Children,” Children’s 

Bureau Express 10, no. 9 (2009), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=111&articleID=2735; “New PSAs Spotlight Adoption of Siblings,” Children’s 
Bureau Express 11, no. 10 (2010/2011), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.

viewArticles&issueid=122&articleID=3020. 

103 “Adopte1.org,” Children’s Bureau Express 6, no. 4 (2005), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.

cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=64&articleID=2294. 

104 “The Diligent Recruitment Grantees,” Children’s Bureau Express 11, no. 9 (2010), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=121&articleID=3018. 

105 “AdoptUsKids Website Adoptions Exceed 10,000,” Children’s Bureau Express 10, no. 1 (2009), 

https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=102§ionid=1&articleid=2509. 

106 “AdoptUSKids Reports 15,000+ Children Adopted,” Children’s Bureau Express 12, no. 2 (2011), 

https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=124§ionid=1&articleid=3101. 

107 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Federal Action Needed to Ensure States Have Plans to 

Safeguard Children in the Child Welfare System Displaced by Disasters (Washington, DC: printed by 

author, 2006), 27, http://www.gao.gov/assets/260/250968.pdf. 

108 “Hurricane Impact and Response for Children and Families,” Children’s Bureau Express 6, no. 

8 (2005), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=68&articleID=1026. 

109 Ibid.

110 “Update on Hurricane Aid and Resources From HHS,” Children’s Bureau Express 6, no. 9 

(2005), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=69&articleID=1046. 

111 “Child Welfare 1 Year After Katrina,” Children’s Bureau Express 7, no. 7 (2006), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=77&articleID=1196. 

112 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Federal Action Needed, 38–39.

113 “From the Associate Commissioner’s Office,” Children’s Bureau Express 10, no. 1 (2009), https://

cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=102§ionid=1&articleid=2508. 

114 “Samuels Confirmed as ACYF Commissioner,” Children’s Bureau Express 11, no. 2 (2010), 

https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=114&articleID=2837. 

115 Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, “Presidential Proclamation—National 

Foster Care Month,” news release, April 29, 2011, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/04/29/presidential-proclamation-national-foster-care-month. 

116 Child Welfare Information Gateway, Major Federal Legislation, 5–6.

117 “School Lunches for Children in Foster Care,” Children’s Bureau Express 12, no. 2 (2011), 

https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=124&articleID=3103. 

118 Information about P.L. 111–320 taken from Child Welfare Information Gateway, Major Federal 

Legislation, 4–5.
119 Children’s Bureau, ACYF-CB-IM-11-06, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/laws_policies/

policy/im/2011/im1106.pdf. 

120 “The National Resource Center for In-Home Services,” Children’s Bureau Express 11, no. 10 

(2010/2011), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=122&articleID=3044. 

121 National Resource Center for Tribes, Findings From the NRC4Tribes Technical Needs Assessment

(2011), http://www.nrc4tribes.org/announcements/needs.

122 “Children’s Bureau Hosts the National Child Welfare Evaluation Summit,” Children’s Bureau 

Express 10, no. 6 (2009), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=107&articleID=2650. 

123 “The 2nd National Child Welfare Evaluation Summit,” Children’s Bureau Express 12, no. 8 

(2011), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=130&articleID=3294. 

124 “Child Welfare, Education and the Courts: A Collaboration to Strengthen Educational 

Successes of Children and Youth in Foster Care,” National Resource Center for Permanency 

and Family Connections, accessed June 19, 2012, http://www.nrcpfc.org/education_summit/

about_meeting.html. 

125 “Discretionary Grant Forecasts,” Children’s Bureau Express 13, no. 1 (2012), https://cbexpress.

acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=132&articleID=3415. 

126 “Kick-Off for the Permanency Innovations Initiative,” Children’s Bureau Express 12, no. 1 

(2011), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=123&articleID=3087. 

127 “Preventing Child Maltreatment and Promoting Well-Being: Network for Action,” Children’s 

Bureau Express 12, no. 8 (2011), https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=130&articleID=3297.

128 “Centennial Commemoration—Special Event,” Children’s Bureau Centennial, accessed June 

19, 2012, https://cb100.acf.hhs.gov/conferences.
Afterword

The Children’s Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood illustrates the Bureau’s 

longstanding history, achievements, and legacy of commitment to our Nation’s 

children, youth, and families. While this publication focuses on the significant 

contributions made by the Children’s Bureau over the past century, it also speaks 

to our vision for the future of child welfare. 

For several years prior to the Children’s Bureau’s centennial anniversary, I thought 

about how we would celebrate this momentous occasion. The Bureau planned a 

year-long series of activities to reflect on our accomplishments, challenges, and 

future visions. To prepare for this celebration, the Bureau engaged a group of 

stakeholders who represented various disciplines in the child welfare field. This 

esteemed group developed several recommendations for activities to commemorate the 100th anniversary. There was overwhelming agreement that the Children’s Bureau’s centennial was a prime opportunity to deepen its commitment to 

leadership and advocacy for the safety, permanency, and well-being of children, 

youth, and families. One of the specific recommendations made by the group was 

the creation of a 2nd-century roadmap to reflect the status of the field, identify 

emerging issues and challenges, and develop a shared vision for the next 100 

years.

Based on the group’s recommendation, a separate workgroup was formed to 

implement a collaborative Voices to Vision Initiative, focused on informing the 

Children’s Bureau’s future planning and creating a shared vision for the future of 

child welfare. The workgroup included practitioners and experts in child welfare 

and related fields, youth, families, and Tribes who worked together to identify 

emerging themes and provided ideas toward a long-term vision for child welfare. 
A number of ideas were presented for achieving overarching goals to shift the way 

in which child welfare services are provided, including community mobilization; 

building and supporting a skilled and stable child welfare workforce; improving 

collaboration among Federal, Tribal, State, and county systems for a more integrated approach; and more robust leadership to set a national agenda for children and 

families.

There have been numerous influences on the Children’s Bureau’s mission over the 

past 100 years, many of which can be seen in this publication. Our history, current 

practices, and the critical thinking and outstanding recommendations of stakeholders across the country have given the Bureau the momentum to look forward 

to the next century with renewed vision for improving outcomes, programs, and 

policies for our Nation’s children and families. 

Joseph J. Bock

Acting Associate Commissioner

Children’s Bureau
Acknowledgments

Staff of ICF International—notably, Mary Sullivan, Pamela Day, Patricia Brincefield, 

and Leslie Siegmund—provided the initial vision and ongoing direction for the 

book’s form and content, as well as essential feedback on early drafts. Jill Rivera 

Greene, freelance writer and editor, brought their vision to life during months of 

extensive research and writing. She was assisted in research tasks by ICF Librarians John Vogel and Thomas Herndon, as well as consultant Charlene Ingram. 

Photo research consultants Lisa Durham and Tish King collected a vast library of 

historical and present-day images—far more than could be included in the final 

product, but all of which enlivened and informed the writing. The cover was designed by Abol Bahadori, based on a 1931 White House conference graphic created 

and hand cut by silhouette artist Eveline Maydell.

The following individuals generously agreed to be interviewed for the book, and 

their insights augmented and invigorated the Children’s Bureau’s history in a way 

that would not otherwise have been possible: MaryLee Allen, Douglas J. Besharov, 

Jack Calhoun, Frank Ferro, Olivia Golden, Ph.D., Dan Lewis, David W. Lloyd, Penelope L. Maza, Ph.D., Beatrice Moore, Catherine M. Nolan, M.S.W., A.C.S.W., Carol 

Wilson Spigner, D.S.W., Jake Terpstra, M.S.W., and Joan Levy Zlotnik, Ph.D., A.C.S.W.

A debt of gratitude is owed to the Maternal & Child Health Library at Georgetown 

University, whose digitized collection of Children’s Bureau historical publications 

was a tremendous resource during the writing of this book. Similarly, the writer’s 

task would have been infinitely more difficult without Kriste Lindenmeyer’s comprehensive early history, ‘A Right to Childhood,’: The U.S. Children’s Bureau and Child 

Welfare, 1912–45.
Staff at the U.S. Government Printing Office lent their considerable talents to the 

book’s design, development, and e-book distribution.

Finally, many thanks are due to Children’s Bureau staff members who contributed 

content, offered guidance, and reviewed drafts of the book. We would be remiss if 

we did not mention by name Federal Project Officer LaChundra Lindsey and Acting 

Associate Commissioner Joe Bock. Just as important, though, are the unnamed 

staff members who carry on the legacy described in these pages, working tirelessly to ensure safety, well-being, and permanency for America’s children and 

families, today and into the future.