Child Welfare System – Nebraska

Child welfare overhaul still bumpy, By Martha Stoddard, July 24, 2011, Omaha World-Herald: “Before turning over major responsibility for Nebraska’s child welfare system to private contractors, state officials said the change would help abused and neglected children. Fewer children would be torn from their homes. Fewer would become wards of the state. Children would not be bounced from foster home to foster home. Families would be reunified or children adopted sooner. What’s more, those benefits could be gained with existing state dollars. Yet 20 months into the reform, the costs to the state have escalated, instability within the system has grown and benefits have been mixed, at best…”