ACF Launches New Public Dashboard on State Child Welfare Performance

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today launched a new public dashboard showing state-by-state performance data on critical child safety and permanency outcomes. Publishing the first-ever Child and Family Services Review (CFSR) Data Profile Dashboard demonstrates ACF's progress toward delivering on President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump's Executive Order on Fostering the Future for American Children and Families , which requires an annual public scorecard that measures state child welfare system performance.

Given the Trump Administration's commitment to providing a historic level of transparency for the American people, these initial dashboards will inform better data-driven decisions in child welfare. For the first time, these dashboards give state child welfare agencies the ability to compare progress with each other, which ACF hopes will enable states to identify, collaborate on, and scale best practices to further innovation in child welfare.

"Good data drives better decisions for America's children," said Assistant Secretary Alex J. Adams. "Under the leadership of the President and First Lady Melania Trump, we are delivering radical transparency in child welfare so the federal government, state leaders, advocates, and families can more efficiently work together to ensure children in foster care are safe and growing up in loving homes."

This dashboard represents only the starting point for data visualization as outlined in the Fostering the Future Executive Order, with ACF planning to iterate on the current dashboard to create more user-friendly interfaces with expanded comparison tools. Future modernization efforts will test a more succinct scorecard fully aligned with the goals of the Executive Order for improved outcomes for children and families.

The initial public dashboard presents seven statewide data indicators - two safety indicators examining whether children are protected from abuse and neglect once involved with the child welfare system, and five permanency indicators that evaluate whether children achieve stability and permanency in their living situations. Each indicator uses standardized methodology to ensure fair comparisons across states with different demographics and case characteristics.

Previously, these seven performance indicators were only shared internally within the Children's Bureau and state systems. ACF will update the dashboard bi-annually to provide consistent information of states' progress. As states join ACF's new Program Improvement Plan , additional data on key measures will be updated monthly, allowing meaningful cross-state comparisons.

The CFSR Data Profile Dashboard is available at https://acf.gov/cb/data-research/data-and-statistics-cfsr-statewide-data-indicators .

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