I’d like to suggest that in 2026, child welfare professionals move past dead-end policies, practices and circular conversations that deserve a short shelf life. Perhaps we can start the year with our own version of the Serenity Prayer, or New Year’s resolution that applies wisdom, courage and discernment to the decision-making about our future?
We can use the time currently being spent on the unfixable and the unknowable to scale up the promising child safety and family support projects emerging all over the country.
We have a positive starting point and consensus about our purpose; what Simon Sinek calls “the Why” in his much-viewed 2009 TED Talk, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.” The concept included his idea that successful leaders and organizations focus first on their “Why” and then the “How” and “What.”
Our profession has spent significant time on the Why. Good for us. But we also have examples of irrelevant and outdated processes, as well as intriguing ideas that lack depth. The challenge is to align our purpose with how we get things done and what we measure. This should be our focus for 2026.
For the past decade or more, the country’s child welfare system has focused numerous public conversations on its reason for being. Articles, social media posts, conferences, have exhausted the topic. There seems to be little doubt that we’ve elevated our most cherished value — keep kids safe and families strong in their own homes, and communities. Exhaust all possible resources, partnerships and alternative responses to support parents, intervene only when necessary and do the least harm in the process.
Consequently, jurisdictions are leaning into innovative, community-based, family support approaches in hopes of achieving improved safety and family well-being outcomes. Combined with interdisciplinary approaches and inclusive, community-informed practices, we have a promising pathway to the future of our profession. These successful partnerships represent what can happen when there is a change in organizational culture.
But there are examples of where we remain stuck with vestiges of past priorities designed and driven by professional audiences who ignored community input; things that are unfixable. Meanwhile, others continue to monitor and advocate for aspirational ideas for which we have little detail; things that are unknowable. The “unfixable” is epitomized by the federal Child and Family Services Review (CFSR) monitoring process. It is an exercise in overly ambitious federal oversight, attempting to measure underfunded, overly mandated service delivery and policy activities of state agencies and their partners.
How much sense does it make for us to apply standards that literally no system can achieve and that few find useful? We should accept the fact that CFSR standards drive agencies further in the direction of compliance-oriented, costly, time-consuming remedial activities, while doing little to advance and sustain excellence in casework practice. The standards are a checklist, not change, and without change, things drift into irrelevance.
There is no need for more peer gatherings, where we discuss the highly idealized, out-of-touch CFSR measures for service delivery. The CFSR ship keeps sailing with fewer of us on board. The process is wrapped in Sinek’s version of the Why, but it has lost connection to the How and the What, becoming a spirit without a body.
The federal government should incentivize states to develop a mechanism for quality improvement that fits their jurisdictional goals. In the end, that will enhance their standing with local stakeholders, consumers, policymakers and elected officials.
The strongest example of the “unknowable” is abolition, the call to eliminate child welfare altogether. If your instinct is to stop reading because I said that, know that you are reinforcing my point.
Advocates are dogmatic on the Why of this position. They remain adamant and perseverant for their cause. What concerns many of us who have lived through the worst failures of systems or parents, are the vague next steps after the purge. We hear broad generalizations that each family’s challenges are manageable and solvable with a formula of monthly checks and best intentions, as if every situation is ordinary. I admire the sentiment but remain frightened about the dearth of detail on the How and What.
In light of persistently poor child fatality data, stubborn rates of parental substance use disorders and untreated mental health issues, generational poverty, disturbing data on social isolation and loneliness, it seems counterintuitive to make the case to policymakers, or the general public, that we should shut down the only system whose goal it is to protect children and support families. In 2026 we should convince the public that the system desperately needs reshaping, and that our county needs a purposeful family policy. In the meantime, let’s provide examples of protective pathways (the How and What) that have emerged in multiple states.
I’ve spent four decades helping to create community-based family support programs in multiple parts of the country. In the process I’ve seen remarkable work being done by helpers and families. But even in situations where the level of partnership and neighborhood collaboration is exceptionally well developed, there are still large numbers of uncooperative adults who are struggling to keep their kids safe, stable and thriving. They don’t deserve a punitive, overly intrusive response, but their children are entitled to a dedicated system that applies best practices to safety. Kids deserve an entity that explicitly states in its mission safety, permanence and well-being above all else.
So, in 2026, whether it’s the unpassable federal CFSR process or the elimination of the child welfare system, let’s move past the unfixable and the unknowable. They’re not getting us any closer to achieving our current goals.
