Child welfare services are intended to prevent the abuse or neglect of children; to ensure that children have safe, permanent homes; and to promote the well-being of children and their families. Most federal child welfare programs are administered by the Children's Bureau, at the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Funding for ACF programs is primarily provided in the annual appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, HHS, and Education. Several child welfare programs authorized by the Victims of Child Abuse Act are administered by the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) within the Department of Justice (DOJ). Their funding is provided in the annual appropriations bill for the Departments of Commerce and Justice. This report begins with an overview of the purposes for which federal child welfare funds are appropriated. It discusses FY2013 appropriations for those programs, including the effect of the automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration. Additionally, it reviews the President's FY2013 budget request for child welfare programs (first presented in February 2012). This report does not discuss the President's FY2014 budget request for child welfare. By far, the largest share of dedicated federal child welfare funding (roughly 88% in recent years) is provided to states to assist them in supporting, or otherwise administering aid to, children who have been removed from their birth families primarily due to abuse or neglect. This includes funding to support children in foster care, to assist children who leave foster care permanently to live with adoptive families or with a legal guardian, and for services to youth who have aged out of foster care or are expected to age out of foster care. Remaining funds (roughly 12%) support child welfare-related services to children and their families, including children living in their own homes and those in foster care, or are provided to support child welfare-related research and demonstration projects. Under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act, funds are provided to support eligible children in foster care as well as those who leave foster care for permanent homes via adoption or guardianship. Funding under the Title IV-E program is provided to eligible states on a mandatory and open-ended basis, which means the federal government reimburses states for a part of the cost of providing this support (and related child placement, training, data collection, and other program administration costs) for every child meeting the federal Title IV-E eligibility criteria. As discussed below (see " Foster Care "), the overall number of children in foster care, as well as the number of those children who are eligible for Title IV-E support, has been in decline for more than a decade. By contrast, the number of Title IV-E-eligible children leaving foster care for permanent adoptive homes grew significantly during most of that same decade. Accordingly, the share of funding needed to reimburse states for support of children in foster care has been in decline—although it still represents more than half of all federal dedicated child welfare funds—while the share provided to support children in permanent adoptive or guardianship homes has increased to nearly one-third of the total dedicated child welfare funding. (See Figure 1 .) Separately, all states receive formula grant funding under the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program (and related Education and Training Vouchers) to provide services and other support to youth who "age out" (or are expected to age out) of foster care without being placed in a permanent family. In contrast to the overall decline in the number of children who are in foster care, the number of children who age out of foster care without placement in a permanent home (sometimes called "emancipating" from care) grew from roughly 23,000 during FY2004 to more than 29,000 during FY2008 and FY2009 and remained above 26,000 for FY2011 (the most recent year for which national data are available). During that time, the annual funding amount dedicated to providing services to these youth has remained largely unchanged at roughly 2% of overall federal funding provided for child welfare purposes. (See Figure 1 .) The share of dedicated federal child welfare funds provided, by formula, to all states for child welfare-related services to children and families has remained at around 9% to 10%. These include services or activities to strengthen families to prevent child abuse and neglect or to prevent placement of children in foster care; provide and improve screening, investigation, or other responses to child abuse and neglect allegations; enable children in foster care to be reunited with their families; promote adoption and provide adoption support services; improve monthly caseworker visits to children in foster care; and improve court handling of child welfare proceedings. Formula grant funds to states for these purposes are authorized under the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA State Grants and Community-Based Grants), the Children's Justice Act, and Title IV-B of the Social Security Act (including all funding for the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Child Welfare Services program and most, but not all, funding under the Promoting Safe and Stable Families program). (See Figure 1 .) Finally, in recent years, federal child welfare incentive funding for states and competitive child welfare-related grants to eligible entities (including public child welfare agencies, national or community-based service agencies, and research organizations) have risen from roughly 2% of all federal child welfare funding to about 3%. Incentive funds are currently provided to encourage adoptions out of foster care. Competitive grant funds are used to provide project-based child and family services, conduct relevant research, or provide related technical assistance. Funds included in this category of child welfare spending are authorized under (1) Title IV-B of the Social Security Act (i.e., funding for Child Welfare, Research, Training and Demonstrations; Family Connection Grants; certain competitively awarded programs or grants included in the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program ; and the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW)); (2) Title IV-E of the Social Security Act (i.e., Adoption Incentives and Tribal technical assistance and IV-E Implementation grants); (3) the Victims of Child Abuse Act (i.e., Court-Appointed Special Advocates, Children's Advocacy Centers, and Child Abuse Training for Judges and Judicial Practitioner), as well as (4) additional acts authorizing funds for Adoption Opportunities and Abandoned Infants Assistance. (See Figure 1 .) Figure 1 shows changes in the share of dedicated child welfare funding appropriated by general category across FY2004, FY2008, FY2012, and for FY2013 (after application of sequestration). Funding is shown in nominal dollars, which means it has not been adjusted to account for inflation. Funding amounts shown for the Title IV-E program include the definite budget authority provided, including any subsequently lapsed funding (i.e., funding authority that was not needed to pay the federal share of Title IV-E costs and thus was returned to the federal treasury). The share of dedicated child welfare funding appropriated to support children once they have been removed from their birth families—whether in foster care, in permanent adoptive or guardianship homes, or via services to youth in or formerly in foster care—held steady at roughly 88% across all of those years. However, the overall share of federal child welfare funding provided for foster care declined across those years by 10 percentage points (64% to 54%), while the funding provided for children moving to permanent (primarily) adoptive homes increased by a corresponding amount (22% to 32%). The share of total dedicated child welfare funds available for all other purposes, including for services to prevent children's entry to foster care, remained relatively static, while the dollar amount made available for those purposes declined between FY2012 and FY2013. The President signed the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013 ( P.L. 113-6 ) on March 26, 2013. The law provides full-year funding for federal programs for FY2013. The House first passed the full-year funding legislation ( H.R. 933 ) on March 6, 2013. The first House version of the bill was amended and passed by the Senate on March 20, 2013, and one day later (March 21), the House agreed to the bill as amended by the Senate. P.L. 113-6 provided full-year FY2013 funding for federal programs at $7.925 billion. However, the final level of child welfare funding available for FY2013 is affected by both an across-the-board rescission (0.2%) determined necessary to meet the statutory cap on discretionary spending and by the March 1 sequestration order. The sequestration order required a 5.0% reduction in funding for all child welfare programs with discretionary funding and a 5.1% reduction in the limited number of child welfare programs that were subject to sequestration and receive mandatory funding. Those reductions lowered total FY2013 child welfare funding to $7.868 billion. Most federal child welfare programs are subject to sequestration, which means they are non-exempt. This includes all but one of the programs included in the yellow and orange portions shown at the top of Figure 1 . These programs provide funding for formula grants for child and family services under Title IV-B of the Social Security Act (Stephanie Tubbs Jones Child Welfare Services Program and the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program) and under CAPTA, as well as for competitive funding for research, evaluation, and incentives. Additionally, Education and Training Vouchers (ETVs) for youth aging out of foster care were subject to sequestration. ETV funding represents about one-fourth of the total shown in the turquoise portion of Figure 1 .