News | September 30, 2020

Child Trafficking, Trauma, and Prevention Are Subjects of Latest Products for Children’s Bureau Grantees

Three resources released this month are the latest in JBA’s work to provide evaluation technical assistance to recipients of Children’s Bureau discretionary grants. Since 1999, JBA has assisted more than 350 grantees working across more than 50 priority areas.

The Final Synthesis of Evaluation Findings: Grants to Address Trafficking Within the Child Welfare Population is the last in a series of reports following nine grantees looking at trafficking and child welfare. It shares the latest findings from these grantees’ projects, including their outputs and short-term and intermediate outcomes, such as improved infrastructure to support coordinated services.

Similarly, a report on Trauma-Informed Innovative Practices: Insights From Children’s Bureau Discretionary Grantees on Addressing Trauma in Child Welfare shares common approaches, successes, and lessons learned from 20 state and local jurisdictions seeking to identify and support children in the child welfare system impacted by trauma. The report examines five core programmatic components:

  • Universal screening
  • Functional assessment
  • Child- and system-level monitoring
  • Service array expansion
  • Data-driven implementation

A third report, Evaluating Prevention Services in Child Welfare: Evaluation Approaches, Challenges, and Solutions, details the research methods and methodological challenges documented in 20 recent studies of child maltreatment prevention programs, along with strategies to address these challenges. It also considers the expected impacts on child welfare systems and services of the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018, which better aligns federal support of child maltreatment prevention efforts with reimbursement policies for agencies delivering services.