Courtney M E
Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA.
Future Child. 1998 Spring;8(1):88-103.
The financing structure of any large public service system both reveals the priorities held by policymakers and drives the delivery of services. Of the $11.2 billion in public funds for child welfare services, somewhat less than half is federal. As this article explains, federal funds for child welfare overwhelmingly go to support out-of-home care (foster care and adoption services), and these costs have risen sharply in recent years. In contrast, federal funding for child protection investigations, prevention programs, and treatment services is more limited, and expenditures have not risen apace with reports of maltreatment. The article compares the high cost of foster care with the lower per capita cost of cash assistance to poor families and the per-case costs of child protection investigations and service provision. Pointing out that the great majority of families served by the child welfare system are poor, the author argues that child welfare and cash assistance should be seen and analyzed as interrelated programs serving poor families. The article examines the varied ways in which the changes in cash assistance programs introduced by the 1996 federal welfare reform law may increase the need for child welfare services and drive up the costs of child protection.
任何大型公共服务系统的融资结构既反映了政策制定者的优先事项，又推动了服务的提供。在用于儿童福利服务的112亿美元公共资金中，略少于一半是联邦资金。正如本文所解释的，用于儿童福利的联邦资金绝大多数用于支持家庭外照料（寄养和收养服务），而且这些成本近年来急剧上升。相比之下，用于儿童保护调查、预防项目和治疗服务的联邦资金更为有限，支出并未随着虐待报告的增加而同步增长。本文将寄养照料的高成本与向贫困家庭提供现金援助的较低人均成本以及儿童保护调查和服务提供的个案成本进行了比较。作者指出，儿童福利系统服务的绝大多数家庭都是贫困家庭，认为儿童福利和现金援助应被视为服务贫困家庭的相互关联的项目。本文探讨了1996年联邦福利改革法引入的现金援助项目变化可能增加儿童福利服务需求并推高儿童保护成本的各种方式。
