Improving Social Service Program, Training, & Technical Assistance Information Would Help Address Long-Standing Service-Level & Workforce Challenges

In response to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) survey, state child welfare agencies identified three primary challenges as most important to resolve to improve outcomes for children under their supervision:

• Providing an adequate level of services for children and families
   
• Recruiting and retaining caseworkers
   
• Finding appropriate homes for certain children

State officials also identified three challenges of increasing concern over the next five years:

• Children's growing exposure to illegal drugs
   
• Increased demand to provide services for children with special needs
   
• Changing demographic trends or cultural sensitivities in providing services for some groups of children in the states child welfare systems

GAO recommended that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) develop a strategy to centralize federal program information, record all technical assistance to states in its Technical Assistance Tracking Internet System, and ensure that these data are complete, accurate, and timely. HHS agreed that data should be complete, accurate, and timely, but disagreed that centralized program information and recording all technical assistance would adequately address states child welfare challenges or improve their ability to more effectively allocate technical assistance to states. GAO continues to support these recommendations.