Child welfare services are intended to prevent the abuse or neglect of children; ensure that children have safe, permanent homes; and promote the well-being of children and their families. As the U.S. Constitution has been interpreted, states have the primary authority to ensure the welfare of children and their families. At the state level, the child welfare "system" consists of public and private child protection and child welfare workers, public and private social services workers, state and local judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement personnel. These agents of various state and local entities assume interrelated roles while carrying out child welfare activities, including promoting child and family well-being through community-based activities; investigating, or otherwise responding to, allegations of child abuse and neglect; providing services to families to ensure children's safety in the home; removing children from their homes when that is necessary for children's safety; supervising and administering payments for children placed in foster care; ensuring regular case review and permanency planning for children in foster care; helping children leave foster care to permanent families via reunification with parents or, when that is not possible, via adoption or legal guardianship; offering post-permanency services and supports to maintain families; and helping older children in foster care, and youth who leave care without placement in a permanent family, to become successful adults. Federal involvement in child welfare is primarily tied to the financial assistance it provides to states and most federal dollars dedicated to child welfare purposes are provided to state child welfare agencies for the provision of foster care. As a condition of receiving these foster care and certain other child welfare program funds, states must typically provide nonfederal resources of between 20% and 50% of the program costs, and they are required to abide by a series of federal child welfare policies. Those policies are designed to ensure the safety and well-being of all children and families served. However, the most specific and extensive federal requirements concern the protection of children in foster care, especially to ensure them a safe and permanent home. Federal child welfare funding is primarily provided as part of the annual appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education and is included in the HHS, Administration for Children and Families (ACF) account. These funds are provided on both a mandatory and a discretionary basis and are administered by the federal Children's Bureau, which is a part of the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF) within the ACF. Separately, discretionary funding for several child welfare programs authorized by the Victims of Child Abuse Act is provided in the annual appropriations bill for the Departments of Commerce and Justice. Those program funds are administered at the federal level in the Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs (OJP). Table 1 summarizes child welfare funding provided in recent years. Apart from the child welfare-specific (dedicated) federal funding shown in Table 1 and provided for programs described in this report, state child welfare agencies tap significant program resources—as much as $5.0 billion—from other federal funding streams. Often these include the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant, the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG), and Medicaid. These federal funding streams have federal statutory goals, or support activities, that overlap with child welfare purposes. However, they are not solely dedicated to child welfare purposes, and states are not necessarily required to use them for those specific purposes. Neither do states need to meet federal requirements specific to the conduct of their child welfare programs as a condition of receiving this "non-dedicated" funding. This report begins with an overview of FY2018 appropriations activities for child welfare programs through mid-January 2018, followed by a discussion of final appropriations actions for FY2017. It then includes a discussion of how annual funding levels are determined for child welfare programs and briefly discusses the effect of sequestration on that child welfare funding. The remainder, and largest part, of the report provides descriptions of each federal child welfare program, including its purpose and recent (FY2013-FY2017) funding levels. FY2018 began on October 1, 2017, but final appropriations levels for that year have not yet been determined. In the meantime, to allow continuation of most federal activities, including for child welfare purposes, three short-term continuing resolutions (CRs) have been enacted. The first (Division D of P.L. 115-56 ) provided funding through December 8, 2017. The second (Division A of P.L. 115-90 ) extended funding for FY2018 through December 22, 2017. The current CR (Division A of P.L. 115-96 ) extends federal funding through January 19, 2018. The FY2018 CRs continue support for each of the child welfare programs that received funding in the previous year (FY2017). (For several of these programs, funding authority otherwise would have expired.) Until a final FY2018 appropriations bill is enacted, the total child welfare funding that will be provided remains uncertain and may be less (or more) than the annualized levels provided in the CR. Accordingly, the CR stipulates that in continuing projects and activities, only the most limited funding actions may be taken. Under the current CR, for each child welfare program that receives discretionary funding, the funding level provided is based on the program's FY2017 appropriation level, reduced by an "across-the-board" amount of 0.6791%. Child welfare funding provided on a discretionary basis for FY2017 totaled close to $597 million. On an annualized basis, a 0.6791% reduction of that overall sum would provide total child welfare discretionary funding of around $593 million (or about 99.3% of the FY2017 total). For those child welfare programs receiving annual appropriated mandatory funding, the CR provides that funding is available to maintain current law program needs under the authority and conditions provided for those programs in FY2017. Principally, those child welfare programs that are partially or entirely funded by appropriated mandatory dollars are the federal Title IV-E foster care, adoption assistance, and kinship guardianship assistance program; the Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF) program; and the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program basic grants. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017 ( P.L. 115-31 ), provides some $8.9 billion for child welfare programs, including an estimated $7.8 billion for foster care, adoption assistance, and kinship guardianship assistance, and $1.1 billion for all other child welfare activities, services, and research. Compared to FY2016 funding levels, HHS estimated support for foster care, adoption assistance, and kinship guardianship would increase for FY2017. Funding provided for all remaining child welfare activities remained generally unchanged from FY2016. Although FY2017 began on October 1, 2016, full-year FY2017 appropriations levels for most federal programs and operations were not enacted until May 5, 2017. To allow for continuation of these activities in the interim, Congress approved three short-term continuing resolutions. The first (Division C of P.L. 114-223 ) provided funding through December 9, 2016. The second continuing resolution (Division A of P.L. 114-254 ) extended funding through April 28, 2017, and the third continuing resolution ( P.L. 115-30 ) extended funding until enactment of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017, on May 5, 2017 ( P.L. 115-31 ). Nearly all child welfare funds are provided (appropriated) in annual appropriations acts. The amount of funding provided for a given program is controlled through the appropriations process, or in the case of programs receiving mandatory funding, via the authorizing legislation. The largest share of federal support for child welfare is provided to maintain children in foster care and for ongoing assistance to children who leave foster care for adoption or kinship guardianship. Funding for these purposes is authorized under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act on a "mandatory" and "open-ended" basis. Under this kind of funding authorization, the federal government is committed to paying a part of the cost of all eligible program expenditures made on behalf of children meeting federal eligibility criteria. Accordingly, the annual appropriation level specified by Congress for IV-E foster care, adoption assistance, and kinship guardianship assistance typically matches the amount of funding the Administration estimates (in its budget request) as necessary for the federal government to meet its commitment under the current program authorizing law. In the event this amount is underestimated, there is typically included in the appropriations act language that authorizes HHS to draw additional funds from the federal Treasury to meet federal program obligations for the year. Alternatively, if the Administration overestimates funding needed this amount will lapse (no longer be available for expenditure from the federal Treasury). Funding for all other child welfare programs is authorized on either a "discretionary" or a "capped mandatory" basis. A capped mandatory funding authorization includes a specific dollar amount written into the authorizing law. The primary child welfare programs with this type of funding authorization are the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program (general program) and the Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF) program. Most child welfare programs have discretionary funding authorizations. For these programs, the level of funding is decided as part of the annual appropriations process. The Stephanie Tubbs Jones Child Welfare Services (CWS) program, Adoption Opportunities, Adoption and Legal Guardianship Incentive Payments, and various grants authorized under the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) are examples of child welfare programs with funding authorized on a discretionary basis. (For a complete list of programs by type of funding authority, see Appendix B .) Sequestration generally means application of an across-the-board spending cut. For nonexempt mandatory programs, it is currently scheduled to apply in every year through FY2025.