Reducing Child Welfare Involvement Through Stronger Prevention and Anti-Poverty Supports

In 2025, CCC and the Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies (COFCCA) surveyed prevention services providers to better understand the challenges facing families involved in the child welfare system and providers’ ability to serve them. Families are referred to optional or mandated preventive services delivered by nonprofit providers during a Child Protective Services (CPS) investigation by the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS).

Despite significant recent child welfare reforms, many children and families still face trauma resulting from child welfare investigations and family separations, with persistent racial inequity. Additionally, available data confirms that CPS investigations continue to disproportionately impact families living in poverty. In NYC, roughly 75% of CPS cases involve allegations of neglect, often compounded by poverty or related to unmet basic needs like food or housing, highlighting how poverty is treated as neglect.

Grounded in input from prevention service providers, this report outlines concrete actions NYC can take to reduce child welfare involvement and strengthen long-term stability for families. Key recommendations include:

• Investing in upstream prevention and services that help avoid allegations of neglect due to unmet basic needs – such as housing, child care, and cash assistance – thereby minimizing Child Protectives Services (CPS) involvement altogether
• Investing in the child welfare workforce to attract and retain talent with loan forgiveness, on time COLAs, and increased salaries
• Connecting families to the supportive benefits and resources they qualify for at intake
• Continuing to monitor and measure the effectiveness of prevention programs (Evidence-Based Models) to determine impact on family stability (reunification, likelihood of subsequent investigation, etc.)

The survey findings make clear that meaningful reductions in child welfare involvement require dedicated strategies and investments that can support families and service providers, alleviate the impacts of child poverty, and address the root causes of why families come into contact with the child welfare system.