Intended Impact

Our Goal

We will directly support families and youth to address their economic and concrete needs, reducing the risk of child welfare and youth justice involvement. Using a continuous quality improvement approach through strengthening practice, tracking data, and analyzing outcomes, we will demonstrate that investing in economic and concrete resources and supports strengthens financial stability, improves economic mobility, and improves child welfare and youth justice outcomes.

Economic and Concrete Resources and Supports (ECRS)

We aim to connect families to resources and supports including, but not limited to:

  • Public Benefits: Cash assistance, SNAP, SSI/SSD, WIC, low-income energy assistance, Fair Fares

  • Affordable Housing & Support Services: Rental vouchers (city, state, or federal), permanent supportive housing, NYCHA public housing, ACS housing rental subsidy, HPD-financed affordable housing

  • Eviction Prevention: Rent arrears payments, legal services

  • Health Insurance & Navigation: Medicaid and Medicare, Affordable Care Act marketplace plans, Metro Plus

  • Child Care & Pre-K: Childcare vouchers, Head Start, pre-K, childcare navigation services

  • Free Tax Filing & Financial Services: Earned Income Tax Credit, federal and state Child Tax Credit, financial coaching and services

  • Employment Services and Training: Employment and career services, business development, training and education

  • Flexible Funds: Cash and funding for immediate needs not met by other sources (e.g., diapers, crib/furniture, food, clothes)

Four Components of this Initiative

The CFES initiative has four components designed to address families' and young people’s economic needs and reduce the risk of child welfare and youth justice involvement:

  1. Establish Program Infrastructure: Create scalable, sustainable program models that provide lasting access to economic and concrete resources and supports (ECRS) for families and young people during and after system involvement.

  2. Strengthen Organizational Connections: Build connections and navigation supports across human services, housing, workforce, and community-based organizations to create stability and pathways to economic mobility for families and young people.

  3. Increase Shared Capacity: Build workforce knowledge and skills to effectively assess poverty-related needs and connect families to public benefits, housing, and other ECRS.

  4. Address Policy Gaps: Identify and advocate for critical policy and resource investments, including new economic supports, to close systemic gaps and actively support families' financial stability and upward mobility.

Background

This initiative is grounded in the experiences of professionals across the public and nonprofit sectors and the voices of families and young people with lived experience in NYC's child welfare system. It builds on growing evidence showing the connections between poverty and child welfare outcomes [1] and demonstrating that economic support and cash assistance lead to better outcomes within the child welfare system [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10].

The Evidence

Poverty drives child welfare involvement. Economic insecurity and financial stress have been shown to increase the risk of child welfare system involvement [11], including both alleged and substantiated neglect and abuse. Insufficient resources and living in economically struggling neighborhoods can cause parental stress, mental health issues, and strained family dynamics—all of which negatively impact children's well-being [12].  Housing instability is one of the strongest economic predictors of child welfare involvement [13] and foster care entry [13].

Economic supports improve outcomes. Studies show that securing and maintaining economic and concrete supports improves child welfare outcomes [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]:

  • The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is linked to improved maternal mental health, reduced stress-related biomarkers, enhanced family well-being, decreased abusive head trauma in young children, and reduction in foster care entry rates. Each additional $1,000 in per-child refunds leads to fewer maltreatment reports.

  • Access to TANF and SNAP correlates with reductions in child welfare involvement and foster care caseloads [15, 16, 17, 18]. 

  • Young people with stable housing are better able to stay in school, maintain employment [19, 20], and access physical and mental health care and social services [21].

  • 1 Chapin Hall. (2025). A key connection: Economic stability and family well-being. https://www.chapinhall.org/project/a-key-connection-economic-stability-and-family-well-being/

    2   Cancian, M., Cook, S. T., Seki, M., & Wimer, L. (2017). Making parents pay: The unintended consequences of charging parents for foster care. Children & Youth Services Review, 72, 100-110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2016.10.018

    3    Howard, L., Vogel, L. K., Cancian, M., & Noyes, J. L. (2019). Building connections: Using integrated administrative data to identify issues and solutions spanning the child welfare and child support systems. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 5(2), 70-85. https://doi.org/10.7758/RSF.2019.5.2.04

    4    Wells, K., & Guo, S. (2006). Welfare reform and child welfare outcomes: A multiple cohort study. Children & Youth Services Review, 28(8), 941-960. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2005.10.009

    5    Kang, J., Romich, J. L., Hook, J. L., Lee, J. S., & Marcenko, M. (2016). Dual-system families: Cash assistance sequences of households involved with child welfare. Journal of Public Child Welfare, 10(4), 352-375. https://doi.org/10.1080/15548732.2016.1205542

    6    Berger, L. M., Font, S. A., Slack, K. S., & Waldfogel, J. (2017). Income and child maltreatment in unmarried families: Evidence from the earned income tax credit. Review of Economics of the Household, 15(4), 1345-1372. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-016-9346-9

    7    Biehl, A. M., & Hill, B. (2018). Foster care and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Review of Economics of the Household, 16(3), 661-680. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-017-9381-1 

    8    Kovski, N. L., Hill, H. D., Mooney, S. J., Rivara, F. P., Morgan, E. R., & Rowhani-Rahbar, A. (2022). Association of state-level earned income tax credits with rates of reported child maltreatment, 2004–2017. Child Maltreatment, 27(3), 325-333.

    9    Klevens, J., Schmidt, B., Luo, F., Xu, L., Ports, K. A., & Lee, R. D. (2017). Effect of the Earned Income Tax credit on hospital admissions for pediatric abusive head trauma, 1995-2013. Public Health Reports, 132(4), 505-511. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0033354917710905

    10  Rostad, W. L., Ports, K. A., Tang, S., & Klevens, J. (2020). Reducing the number of children entering foster care: Effects of state earned income tax credits. Child Maltreatment, 25(4), 393- 397. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559519900922 

    11   Patel, Urvi and Shrivastava, Aditi. (2023). Research Reinforces: Providing Cash to Families in Poverty Reduces Risk of Family Involvement in Child Welfare. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 

    12  Conger, R. D., Ge, X., Elder Jr, G. H., Lorenz, F. O., & Simons, R. L. (1994). Economic stress, coercive family process, and developmental problems of adolescents. Child Development, 65(2), 541-561. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1994.tb00768.x 

    13  Conrad-Hiebner, A., & Byram, E. (2020). The temporal impact of economic insecurity on child maltreatment: A systematic review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 21(1), 157-178. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838018756122 

    14  Fowler, P. J., Henry, D. B., Schoeny, M., Landsverk, J., Chavira, D., & Taylor, J. J. (2013). Inadequate housing among families under investigation for child abuse and neglect: Prevalence from a national probability sample. American Journal of Community Psychology, 52(1), 106-114. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-013-9580-8 

    15  Austin, A. E., Shanahan, M. E., Frank, M., Naumann, R. B., Reyes, H. L. M., Corbie, G., & Ammerman, A. S. (2023). Association of state expansion of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program eligibility with rates of Child Protective Services–investigated reports. JAMA Pediatrics, e225348. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2022.5348 

    16  Bullinger, L. R., Fleckman, J. M., & Fong, K. (2021). Proximity to SNAP-authorized retailers and child maltreatment reports. Economics & Human Biology, 42, 101015.

    17  Johnson-Motoyama, M., Ginther, D. K., Oslund, P., Jorgenson, L., Chung, Y., Phillips, R., Beer, O. W., Davis, S., & Sattler, P. L. (2022). Association between state Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program policies, child protective services involvement, and foster care in the US, 2004-2016. JAMA Network Open, 5(7), 1-12.

    18  Lee, B. J., & Mackey-Bilaver, L. (2007). Effects of WIC and food stamp program participation on child outcomes. Children & Youth Services Review, 29(4), 501-517.

    19  Johnson, G., Natalier, K., Mendes, P., Liddiard, M., Thoresen, S., Hollows, A., & Bailey, N. (2010). Pathways from out-of-home care. AHURI Final Report No.147. Melbourne, Australia: Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.

    20 Sommer, H., Wu, L., & Mauldon, J. (2009). California Connected by 25: Efforts to Address the Housing Needs of Transitioning Foster Youth. Berkeley, CA: CC251 Systems Change Assessment Team.

    21  Wade, J., & Dixon, J. (2006). Making a home, finding a job: investigating early housing and employment outcomes for young people leaving care. Child and Family Social Work, 11, 199-208