Future challenges and opportunities in child welfare.

The advent of a new century stimulates a need in people to review the past and a readiness to contemplate future challenges and opportunities in one's area of interest. Those concerned with child welfare share this preoccupation. Looking back just a century ago, we see children riding orphan trains, no "safety net" for families, and child protection being addressed by voluntary organizations such as Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Few then would have predicted the changes to and challenges in child welfare today. Given the developments of the past 100 years, it is natural for us to wonder what lies ahead in the next 100. What are the challenges facing the field? What resources need to be strengthened or developed to meet those challenges? Are there ways in which the field needs to think more creatively? Are there innovations or reforms that should be considered? In what direction is the field heading-and is this where we want to be going? Child Welfare sought answers to these questions from leaders in the field, who were invited to share their reflections and recommendations about the future of child and family welfare as we enter the 21st century Their responses are compiled in this special issue. This issue of Child Welfare also commemorates the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Child Welfare League of America, which from its inception has steadfastly served as an advocate for children and families in need. Overview The responses to Child Welfare's invitation were thoughtful and provocative, and the articles selected from them for this issue cover a range of topics: policy challenges, the future of family preservation, reforming child protective services, the future of residential group care, necessary paradigm shifts for child welfare workers and children, and child welfare education and training. The final article in this volume presents brief summaries of selected recent readings pertaining to the future of child and family welfare. An appendix provides contact information for the federally funded national resource centers in child welfare. The scope of child welfare is so broad that numerous other themes could have-and would have-been included in this special issue were it not for the limitations of space, including the focus on service outcomes, the impact of managed care, changes in federal and state legislation, the phenomenon of family violence, and the role and use of technology and data collection systems. Other pertinent topics have already been addressed in prior special issues of Child Welfare, most notably special-needs adoption [Sullivan & Freundlich 1999], family foster care [Barbell & Wright 19991, children with parents in prison [Seymour & Finney Hairston 1998], HIV /AIDS [Anderson et al. 1998], positive youth development [Nixon 1997], services for African American families and children [Jackson & Brissett-Chapman 1997], kinship care [Wilson & Chipungu 19961, and child day care [Hershfield & Selman 1995]. Policy Challenges Recent changes in federal law-particularly the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Act of 1996 [P.L. 104-1931 and the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 [P.L. 105-891-are challenging the current foundations of child welfare policy. In "Policy Challenges for Child Welfare in the New Century," Brenda G. McGowan and Elaine M. Walsh review these changes and their potentially negative impact on the stability of the child welfare system and the welfare of vulnerable children and families, especially the increasing number living in poverty and those with chronic personal or family problems. They delineate a number of opportunities to bring about positive change: increasing the involvement of child welfare professionals in presenting their views accurately and widely in the media, tracking the impact of recent legislative changes on the child welfare system (notably the potentially damaging effects of welfare reform), arguing more forcefully for the dual objectives of family preservation and child protection, and providing poor families with the opportunity to live in supportive and healthy communities. …