In 2023, over 50% of hotline referrals were screened out before an investigation. Of the more than two million investigated, 84% were not substantiated—meaning there was no evidence to support the claim. Of substantiated cases, 64% involved neglect, not physical or sexual abuse. The system is overwhelmed by cases that reflect the conditions of living in poverty, making it harder to identify and respond to rare but urgent situations where children are in danger.

Mandatory reporting laws—which require educators, doctors and nurses, police, and a wide range of professionals to report any suspicion of maltreatment—have contributed to this deluge of referrals. But more reporting doesn’t mean more safety. It means more hay on the stack, making the needle—true abuse—harder to find. We must stop confusing volume with effectiveness.

UFA’s Policy Priorities advocate for narrowing the scope of the child welfare system to effectively identify and respond to serious abuse and neglect.

64% of child welfare cases involve neglect, not abuse. Neglect cases are often rooted in poverty-related hardships like food insecurity, inadequate housing, and lack of childcare. Families below the poverty line are 22 times more likely to be investigated than families just above the line. But poverty is not abuse or willful neglect, and it shouldn’t be treated as a crime. When children are placed in foster care, the state begins paying monthly stipends to foster parents—money that could have helped stabilize the child’s original home.

The system too often treats poverty as a parenting failure when what families need are resources, not punishment. Separating children from their families through the foster system causes profound and lasting harm. Even when children are not removed, investigations are invasive and can be traumatic, and families are often subjected to mandatory “services” that are burdensome and fail to address their actual needs.

UFA’s Policy Priorities promote economic security for families traditionally at-risk of child welfare system involvement and community-based supports that are untethered from the child welfare system.

The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, the Due Process Clause, protects the right of children to be raised by their parents free from unwarranted government interference. In practice, the child welfare system frequently violates this right. For example, in “hidden foster care” arrangements, parents are coerced into placing children with relatives under threat of formal removal—without any court involvement.

Even when formal proceedings occur, the scales are stacked against families. Many face under-resourced and overwhelmed public defenders, or appear in court without a lawyer at all. This stands in contrast to the rights guaranteed in the criminal justice system, where legal counsel and due process are foundational. The child welfare system deprives children of their parents with far fewer protections, even though the stakes—the temporary or permanent separation of a family—could not be higher.

UFA’s policy priorities advocate for upholding families’ constitutional rights in all child welfare investigations and judicial proceedings, and in all instances where children are separated from their families.

Children in foster homes are more likely to be victims of substantiated sexual abuse than children in the general population. In group homes, children are more than 28 times more likely to be sexually abused and over ten times more likely to experience physical abuse. A study of foster children in Oregon and Washington found that nearly one-third reported being abused by a foster parent or other adult in the foster home. 

Children placed in foster care in typical cases generally experience worse outcomes across nearly every measure compared to similarly situated children who remain at home. They are four times more likely to attempt suicide and more likely to struggle with mental health. Over 70% of youth in the juvenile justice system have also been involved in foster care. If foster care were a medical treatment, its long-term results would not justify its continued use. We would never accept these outcomes in any other public system—and we shouldn’t accept them here.

When children cannot safely live in their own homes, UFA’s policy priorities advocate for supporting families in making caregiving arrangements that they determine will work best for their circumstances, as an alternative to foster placement.

Each year, around 50,000 children lose their legal ties to their parents through Termination of Parental Rights (TPR). These court decisions leave many children and parents grieving. These aren’t cases of abandonment. Most parents deeply love their children but face systemic barriers to proving their “fitness” fast enough. Once TPR occurs, even if the parent and child desire to be connected, their bond is legally and permanently severed.

Maintaining relationships with family, extended kin, and cultural communities is critical to children’s well-being. But the system continues to underuse kinship foster care and guardianship options that would allow children to remain within their family networks. Instead, it fast-tracks adoptions and creates “legal orphans”—children whose ties to family have been legally erased. Most of these children were not abandoned or unwanted—they were part of families that needed support, not separation.

UFA’s policy priorities advocate to protect children’s rights to lifelong family connections and to end federal incentives that favor foster placement and adoption over other permanency outcomes for children.