The End of an Era? Reflections from the Final Child and Family Services Reviews

This summer provided me with a unique opportunity to participate in what may prove to be the final chapter of one of child welfare's most significant federal quality assurance efforts. In August 2026, I served as a federal reviewer during the Child and Family Services Review (CFSR) in Washington State. Just one month later, I participated in New Hampshire's review. Together, these represented the final two federally led CFSR reviews conducted under the current process.

For me personally, these reviews were more than professional assignments. They marked the culmination of a journey that has spanned nearly every aspect of child welfare practice, leadership, quality assurance, and technology modernization.

For child welfare as a field, however, they mark a moment of uncertainty.

As the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and the Children's Bureau sunset the CFSR process, states and local jurisdictions are left wondering what comes next.

Equally important, we must ask what lessons should not be lost.

A Brief History of the CFSR

The Child and Family Services Review process was established by the Children's Bureau in the early 2000s as a mechanism to evaluate state child welfare systems and promote accountability for outcomes related to safety, permanency, and well-being.

Unlike federal monitoring efforts based solely on administrative data, the CFSR combined quantitative performance measures with qualitative case reviews. Through interviews with children, families, resource caregivers, caseworkers, supervisors, attorneys, judges, providers, and community stakeholders, review teams examined how policy translated into practice.

At the heart of the process was the Onsite Review Instrument (OSRI), a structured tool designed to assess practice areas including family engagement, visitation, case planning, permanency efforts, child well-being, and service provision.

States that did not achieve substantial conformity in identified areas were required to develop Program Improvement Plans (PIPs), creating a roadmap for improvement informed by findings from the review. While often challenging, the process established a direct connection between assessment, accountability, and system change.

For four review rounds, the CFSR served as the nation's most comprehensive effort to understand not only what child welfare systems were achieving, but how those outcomes were being produced.

With the completion of Round 4, that chapter appears to be closing.

Looking Back Through Multiple Lenses

My reflections on the future of federal quality assurance are informed by an unusually broad perspective developed over more than two decades in child welfare leadership, practice, federal review, and technology modernization.

Throughout my career, I have participated in the CFSR process as a frontline worker, supervisor, county director, state executive, federal reviewer, and child welfare technology leader.

As a federal reviewer, I participated in reviews in seven states. As an agency participant, I experienced the process in North Carolina as a worker, supervisor, and county child welfare director, and in Colorado as a State's Associate Director. I also supported a state's child welfare modernization efforts as a Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS) Project Executive, providing insight into how technology systems can support quality assurance, case practice, data analytics, and federal reporting requirements.

Across these experiences, I have observed the CFSR process through the eyes of those being reviewed, those conducting reviews, those responsible for responding to findings, and those designing the technology infrastructure intended to support improvement.

Those experiences reinforced a simple truth: while every state faces unique challenges, none have a monopoly on innovation.

Some of the most effective solutions I have encountered emerged from jurisdictions that were willing to examine their practice honestly, learn from others, and embrace continuous improvement.

That is what made participating in Washington State's August 2026 review and New Hampshire's September 2026 review particularly meaningful. These reviews appear to represent the final federally led CFSRs under a process that, despite its flaws, created unprecedented opportunities for shared learning across the nation.

The Strengths and Challenges of the Process

Few who have participated in a CFSR would describe it as easy.

The process required months of planning, extensive staffing, large-scale coordination, and significant administrative effort. Samples were relatively small and not always representative of broader system performance. States invested enormous resources preparing for reviews, conducting case sampling, arranging interviews, reviewing documentation, and coordinating logistics.

The criticisms were valid.

Yet despite its imperfections, the CFSR accomplished something that no other federal child welfare initiative has fully replicated. It created a structured opportunity to understand what was happening behind the data.

Numbers can tell us whether placements are stable, whether reunifications occur timely, or whether repeat maltreatment rates are improving. They cannot tell us how a family experienced the intervention, how a worker navigated a difficult decision, how a supervisor supported practice, or why one jurisdiction consistently achieved stronger outcomes than another.

The CFSR gave us that opportunity.

As a reviewer, I welcomed the chance to spend time in states, meet professionals dedicated to children and families, and learn firsthand about innovative practices, technology solutions, leadership approaches, and emerging strategies for service delivery.

It was a gift.

To sit across from caseworkers, supervisors, parents, youth, foster parents, judges, attorneys, tribal representatives, providers, and community stakeholders and hear their experiences brought child welfare practice to life in a way that dashboards and performance reports never could.

Learning Across State Lines

Perhaps the greatest benefit of the CFSR process was never the final report.

It was the relationships, conversations, and practical knowledge exchange that occurred throughout the review.

One powerful example emerged during my review work in Washington State.

While reviewing a case involving a child in out-of-home care, I observed the state's use of a dedicated Parent Finder position. The case involved an absent father whose whereabouts were unknown. Rather than relying solely on traditional search methods, staff pursued an intensive engagement effort.

Workers ultimately located the father through extended family connections in a community more than two hours away. They conducted an unannounced visit, established contact, and encouraged his engagement in the child's life and case planning process.

The persistence and creativity demonstrated by the team were impressive.

Several weeks later, in my consulting role with Rosemond HumanTech Solutions, I found myself supporting another jurisdiction struggling with parent engagement and relative involvement when children entered foster care.

Remembering what I had observed in Washington, I contacted a manager I had met during the review. She willingly shared the position description, policy guidance, implementation considerations, and lessons learned.

What made this story particularly compelling was the origin of the Parent Finder role itself.

The position had been created as a direct result of Washington's Program Improvement Plan following findings from its Round 3 CFSR review.

In other words, a federal review identified a challenge. A state developed an innovative response. That innovation was refined through implementation. Years later, it was shared across state lines and may ultimately improve outcomes for children and families elsewhere.

That is the kind of systems learning that is difficult to measure, but immensely valuable.

It also highlights something often overlooked about the CFSR process. Beyond accountability, the reviews created a national learning network. They enabled practitioners, managers, and leaders to observe innovations firsthand and then replicate successful approaches within their own jurisdictions.

If the CFSR is ending, we should ask ourselves whether we are also at risk of losing the infrastructure that made these exchanges possible.

What Happens Now?

The federal government has announced a new initiative, A Home for Every Child, which focuses on recruiting and licensing foster homes in numbers that more closely match the population of children in out-of-home care.

This is unquestionably an important objective. Across the country, jurisdictions continue to struggle with placement shortages and the need for family-based care options.

However, it remains unclear how this effort connects to the established Program Improvement Plan framework that relied upon findings generated through the CFSR and OSRI processes.

The previous approach linked administrative data, qualitative case reviews, stakeholder interviews, systemic factors, and improvement planning into a single accountability structure. While imperfect, it created a common language and a shared methodology that allowed states to compare performance, identify emerging practices, and learn from one another.

Without a similar qualitative review process, several important questions emerge:

• How will the federal government assess practice quality beyond administrative metrics?

• How will states identify emerging challenges before they become systemic problems?

• How will innovative practices be documented and shared across jurisdictions?

• What mechanisms will exist for meaningful cross-state learning?

• How will states continue to benchmark practice performance against one another?

• Where will lessons learned be collected, synthesized, and disseminated?

• How will agencies hear directly from the children, families, and stakeholders most affected by their services?

Perhaps the Child Welfare Information Gateway will play a larger role. Yet even that platform appears to be evolving, creating additional uncertainty about where future knowledge exchange may occur.

The future challenge may not simply be whether reviews continue.

It may be whether states can effectively connect qualitative practice information with increasingly sophisticated data and technology systems. Administrative data can identify trends and performance patterns. Modern CCWIS platforms can surface information faster than ever before. Yet neither replaces the insights gained through direct engagement with children, families, caregivers, workers, supervisors, and community partners.

The real opportunity lies in integrating data, technology, and qualitative review into a unified continuous improvement strategy.

The Work Ahead

The conclusion of the CFSR era should not signal the end of rigorous practice evaluation.

If anything, it should challenge states and local jurisdictions to strengthen their own Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) and Quality Assurance (QA) infrastructures and develop new approaches to learning, accountability, and improvement.

At Rosemond HumanTech Solutions, we believe the future of quality improvement requires more than compliance. It requires meaningful review processes that connect data to practice, amplify the voices of children and families, identify systemic barriers, and translate findings into actionable solutions.

Drawing upon experience spanning federal reviews, state and county leadership, frontline practice, and child welfare technology modernization, Rosemond HumanTech Solutions offers a unique perspective on building the next generation of quality improvement systems.

We understand the pressures facing agencies because we have sat in nearly every seat at the table. We have been the workers whose cases were reviewed, the supervisors preparing for interviews, the agency leaders responding to findings, the federal reviewers evaluating practice, and the technology leaders responsible for building systems that support accountability and improvement.

As jurisdictions navigate a post-CFSR environment, Rosemond HumanTech Solutions assists agencies in designing and implementing comprehensive CQI and QA frameworks that integrate qualitative case reviews, stakeholder feedback, performance analytics, workforce development, technology solutions, implementation planning, and organizational change management.

Our work is grounded in the belief that improvement occurs when agencies move beyond measuring compliance and begin understanding the experiences of children, families, caregivers, and frontline staff. Whether assisting jurisdictions with case review methodologies, QA redesign, CQI implementation, CCWIS modernization, strategic planning, workforce development, stakeholder engagement, peer review processes, or technology-enabled quality monitoring, our goal is always the same: helping agencies transform findings into meaningful action.

Most importantly, we help agencies create systems where learning is continuous, improvement is intentional, innovation is shared, and outcomes improve for children and families.

A Question for the Future

For more than twenty years, the federal government helped create an expectation that child welfare practice would be examined, challenged, measured, and improved.

If the CFSR era is truly ending, perhaps the most important question is no longer what Washington will require.

Perhaps the more important question is what we, as a profession, will require of ourselves.

How are practitioners, supervisors, managers, executives, courts, community partners, and policymakers redefining their role in ensuring that practice remains visible, measurable, and continuously improving through robust CQI and QA processes?

Will agencies continue to invest in qualitative case reviews when they are no longer federally required? Will leaders create opportunities to hear directly from children, families, and stakeholders? Will states find new ways to learn from one another, share innovations, and solve common challenges together?

Or will we allow one of the field's most important opportunities for collective learning to disappear?

As federal oversight evolves, the mission remains unchanged: ensuring that children are safe, families are supported, relationships are strengthened, and systems continuously improve.

The CFSR process was never perfect.

But for more than two decades, it challenged us to look beyond the numbers and examine the realities of practice.

As that era comes to a close, the responsibility for continuous improvement increasingly belongs to all of us.

The future of child welfare may depend on how we answer that challenge.