The Long View: Has Anything Really Improved for Children and Families Involved with Child Welfare over 3 Decades?

The overall poor health status and outcomes of children and youth in foster care have been documented in multiple studies over the last 3 decades. During this time, knowledge about brain development, positive parenting, resilience, traumatic stress, and epigenetics has exploded, resulting in demands for child welfare to become trauma-informed, child-centered, and developmentally focused. This special issue affords us the opportunity to reflect on: what’s better or not after 30 years; whether legislation and financing are aligned with child welfare’s goals of safety, permanency and well-being; and what remains to be done to improve the outcomes of children and youth in foster care or otherwise involved with child welfare