The well being of children has long been a policy centerpiece for child advocates. American history reveals that the forerunners of child welfare advocated for societal changes in the name of protection, justice, and stability for parents and children. In 1889 Jane Addams was heavily caught up in the idea of keeping families intact with her active role in the development of the Hull House in Chicago (About, n.d.), created partly to provide daycare for single working mothers.

The issue of child welfare was of particular interest to Addams. She worked to bring about the Juvenile Protective Association, the juvenile psychopathic clinic (later called the Institute for Juvenile Research), and was a key player in America's first juvenile court (About, n.d., para. 3). This pioneer was involved in a great number of firsts in her pursuit of, and passion for change. Thus, the evolutionary process of child welfare is more than a century old, and the notion of change is embedded in its very foundation.

Early in child welfare history the federal government became involved in children's issues. Long before the term permanency planning was coined, public figures placed value on the idea of keeping families together, and asserted the importance upon giving children stable homes. In 1909, just ten years after Hull House came about, the first White House Conference on Children was convened, and the historical debate about what would be in the best interests of children began ("Social Security Administration, n.d.).

The child welfare system in America has long been criticized for failing to meet the needs of abused and neglected children (Cherlin, 1999; Epstein, 1999; Pelton, 1992; Schorr, 2000). The criticisms range from minor idiosyncratic problems to far-reaching systemic problems. The media likely provokes the most vocal critics to take anecdotal cases and argue that children are being hurt and even killed while under state care (Bridges, 2003; Krugman, 1995). Individual cases are indicative of larger problems within the system, but the laws that govern the system are problematic as well.

To make an argument that laws need to be changed can be accomplished, in part, by reviewing existing and previous laws; also the research behind national and state child welfare programs should be assessed. It is argued that a great deal of child welfare research is problematic at best, so much so that it is hard to tell for certain what works and what doesn't work (Disko, 1998; Littell, 2001). And while acknowledging various limitations, that is not to say the research does not have value. Besides, not everything is problematic within the system of child welfare; research exists that supports the system (and the sum of its various parts) as effective (Berrick, Barth, Needell & Jonson-Reid, 1997; Forsythe, 1992; Leon, 2002; Schechter, 2000; Taussig, Clyman & Landsverk, 2001; Walton, 2001).

It is somewhere in between the two extremes, of total failure and absolute success, that the system of child welfare should be analyzed. As a result of this analysis, while mindful of both strengths and weaknesses, it argued that it is time for new laws to be enacted, and old laws to be enforced.

The profession of child welfare is huge and is consumed within a complex maze of public and private organizations, staffed by workers whose education and experience have been questioned (Schorr, 2000). The organizational expanse of child welfare brings with it intrinsic areas of concern. The size of the system alone can induce sociological problems that cause resistance to change, a common dilemma that occurs within bureaucratization (Schaefer & Lamm, 1998).

In the United States federal child welfare policy is administered by the Children's Bureau under the guise of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS); in Florida, state child welfare policy is administered under the Department of Children and Families (DCF). But beyond the agency level, there is of course a larger institution that governs both agencies; it's called the law of the land - federal and state constitutions. Federally, child welfare policy evolves from the Social Security Act of 1935 (Barusch, 2002); in Florida child welfare policy evolves from state statute 39 (Proceedings, 2004).

For fiscal year 2003 the federal government budgeted over $16 billion dollars for the states to use in family assistance programs, of which child welfare service provisions are included ("Social Security," n.d.). In 2001 Title IV-E foster care funding was $5.63 billion for the U.S. ("Title IV-E," n.d.). State funding is contingent upon a multitude of complex mathematical formulas and other factors. Among these factors is that state run child welfare programs must meet federal outcome measures each year in order to obtain ongoing funding ("Social Security Online" n.d.); Florida's child welfare system initially failed in six out of seven mandated areas of performance evaluated by the federal government (DHHS, 2001, Safety, Permanency and Well-being Outcomes sections). Florida also failed in five out of the key "seven systemic factors" in the same evaluation (DHHS, 2001).

It is common for child welfare professionals to highlight the consequences of abuse that is inflicted upon children and the literature supports negative influences (Jennie & Trickett, 2003; Pimlott-Kubiak & Cortina, 2003; Staudt, 2003). The literature also supports the possibility that foster care placement (and child welfare as a whole), can have equally troubling outcomes (Cherlin, 1999). Children in foster care perform lower educationally than non-foster care youth (Blome, 1997; Finkelstein, Wamsley & Miranda, 2002); adopted children have increased behavioral, emotional, and mental health problems (Simmel, Brooks, Barth & Hinshaw, 2001); there is a high correlation between being raised in foster care and homelessness (Roman & Wolfe, 1997; Zlotnick, Robertson & Wright, 1999); the emphasis on finding placements for children detracts from being able to adequately care for them (Whittaker & Maluccio, 2002); the average stay in foster care is three years (Association, 2002) and children in care can expect to be moved as many as six times (Blome, 1997; Staff & Fein, 1995); it is not uncommon for foster children to spend time in and out of jail (Johnson-Reid & Barth, 2000); foster children often are admitted to a placement without getting needed psychotherapy (Schroeder, 1993; Staudt, 2003); there are more kids in need of adoption then then there are adoptive parents (Brooks, James & Barth, 2002); social workers fail to report abuse and children end up injured or dead (Cherlin, 1999; Loewenberg & Dolgoff, 1996 as cited in Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2001) and very little aftercare and follow-up services are provided to youth who leave the foster care system (Reddy & Pfeiffer, 1997). This list is not exhaustive, and could be expanded almost exponentially in review of other literature. The point is, that something needs to change, and the change needs to impact each and every child while also altering the system as a whole. Legislative action could provide the solution.

Another problem with the child welfare system is that it lacks a singular monitoring and policing authority such as an ombudsman program. The data from one study reveal that 15 states have developed such mechanisms (Bearup, 1999). In other words, on a national scale, 70% of state child welfare agencies do not utilize independent ombudsman programs to ensure quality control measures. Currently, Florida utilizes a volunteer oversight group, called the Florida Statewide Advocacy Council (FSAC) to monitor, in part, child welfare services; the state of Florida does not however, have a dedicated ombudsman program designed solely for monitoring child welfare practices. Research on the effectiveness of the FSAC is sparse ("Florida," 2003). 

Foster care is one component of the child welfare system; child protective services (CPS), family preservation and support, adoption, and independent living programs are components as well. The number of children in foster care has historically vacillated. In 1961 there were 245,000 children in care, but by 1999 that number had jumped to 500,000 (Schorr, 2000). One report indicates that in 1994 nearly one million children were residing with a total of 577,000 foster families (DHHS, 1997a). The United States Department of Health and Human Services reported that in a 10-year period the number of children cared for under the foster care system jumped from 340,000 to 520,000 spanning the years from 1988 to 1998. The most recent numbers show that nationally there are over 532,000 youth in the foster care system (DHHS, 2002).

In Florida the number of children in foster care nears 32,000 (DHHS, 2002). Florida's foster care system ranks third largest in the U.S. falling behind New York (second largest), and California who is by far caring for more children than any other state (DHHS, 2002). In any given month there are 1,700 new kids placed into Florida's child welfare system, (DHHS, 2002).

When comparing the number of children in foster care in the U.S. (DHHS, 2002) to the overall population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000a) the ratio