About Us

The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) and its family of nearly 900 member agencies across the United States reach 9 million children every year. CWLA is more than an organization; it is a national movement for children that is inspired by the heart, driven by best practice, and informed by 85 years of expertise and industry experience. CWLA reshapes priorities, one community at a time, by bringing people together around common goals, sharing ideas that have been shown to work, and facilitating collaboration across sectors and systems. Our overarching goal is Making Children a National Priority—one child, one community, at a time.

CWLA's greatest strength is its members - public and private child-serving agencies from coast to coast. National CWLA programs and expertise reflect the scope of member agency services, spanning adoption, child day care, child protection, children affected by incarceration, family foster care, group residential care, housing and homelessness, kinship care, juvenile justice, mental health, positive youth development, substance abuse prevention and treatment, and a range of community services that strengthen and support parents and families.

As the nationally recognized standard-setter for child welfare services, CWLA provides direct support to agencies that serve children and families, improving the quality of their services. Through its programs, publications, research, conferences, professional development, and consultation, CWLA speaks with authority and candor about the status and the needs of American children, young people, and families. Whereas some CWLA staff members share expertise that strengthens the management and operation of local agencies, others work on Capitol Hill and in the statehouses to promote policies that benefit children and oppose those that could do them harm. Still others work to shape new, more effective approaches to working with children and families, or to promote those that are proven. The result: new resources for proven programs, better coordination of services, more efficient program management, and more effective service delivery.

CWLA joins the FRIENDS team to assist the State CBCAP Lead Agencies in building effective working relationships with the State Child Welfare Agencies with the goal of strengthening overall state efforts to enhance the capacity of families to provide for their children’s needs. Our approach includes:

• Reviewing the Child and Family Service Review (CFSR) reports and Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) and providing state-specific assistance to enhance PIP achievement;

• Assessing the status of the relationship between State Child Welfare and CBCAP Lead Agencies:

• Identifying States where collaboration is working or at least in a “promising beginnings” stage to develop a model approach or “lessons learned”:

• Developing tools/products outlining ways that CBCAP agencies can coordinate with the CFSR/PIP and IV B Plans, and other possible approaches;

• Making products/tools known to child welfare organizations and lead agencies; and

• Providing state-specific assistance in achieving PIP, CFSP, and CAPTA goals through pairing State Child Welfare and CBCAP Lead Agencies in joint meetings, and content-specific work groups. CWLA also will join the FRIENDS team members to provide state-specific assistance through a range of TA offerings.

For more information on CWLA, please see their website.