Children and Family Research Roundup from September and August 2025
Translating the latest research for decision-makers in child and family policy.
From the Director’s Desk
Welcome to the second edition of our monthly Children & Family Research Roundup!
Our goal is to cut the time it takes for the latest academic research to inform practical decisions by leaders in children and family services. We shouldn’t have to wait years for research to influence decisions.
This edition of the Roundup digs through the research from August and September 2025. There were over 200 academic studies on child and family policy published in these two months. That’s a lot for anyone to sift through, even using sophisticated AI models.
We selected a handful of studies that we think you should know about, climbed over the paywall that keeps many studies out of your hands, and summarized what’s actionable and relevant for you to know.
This edition includes studies looking at uptake of professional guidance, home visiting, and participation in research studies, among other topics. We also touch on the latest Child and Family Service Reviews (CSFRs).
This Roundup is not meant to be one-directional, from us to you. If you want to go deeper on any of these studies, point to anything you disagree with, or if there are studies you think we missed, let me know: robin@childwelfarewonk.com.
Let’s get into it!
- Robin Ghertner, MPP, Founding Director of Strategic Policy Intelligence
New Research for Policymakers to Drive Decisions
Many healthcare providers have yet to incorporate professional guidelines for treating youth in foster care.
The American Academy of Pediatrics first published recommendations in 2005 for treating youth in foster care, including practice parameters for primary and behavioral health care, time frames for key visits, procedures, and other important guidelines.
A survey of over 180 pediatric nurse practitioners by VanGraafeiland and colleagues found almost half were not utilizing those recommendations.
Nurse practitioners had widespread knowledge gaps for treating foster youth, particularly on Medicaid rules, trauma screening protocols, and consent procedures.
Practitioners with more knowledge about treating foster youth were better at identifying physical and mental health risk factors.
The general public often does not recognize emotional abuse as harmful, unless it is extreme.
A systematic review by Morgan and colleagues of 39 relevant studies shows public attitudes consistently minimize emotional abuse.
Emotional abuse only registers as "real harm" when it's overt and repetitive.
The prevalence and damage of emotional abuse are under-recognized by the public and under-studied by researchers.
We don’t know enough about whether people are as willing to intervene when witnessing emotional abuse compared to other maltreatment types.
Why these findings matter: We continue to see gaps between best practices and professional guidelines, and how professionals and the general public approach child maltreatment.
But solving the problem isn’t just about more training or awareness. With so many responsibilities placed on them, health care professionals need more support to integrate best practices for serving children involved in child welfare systems.
New Insights on Promising Practices in Child and Family Services
Home visiting programs deliver promising long-term results across multiple protective factors.
A new HHS randomized control trial tracked over 4,000 families for at least 5 years after participating in maternal home visiting programs.
The latest study within the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE) found statistically significant and meaningful benefits in several key areas, including:
Direct interactions between families and home visitors improved:
Children’s social-emotional functioning in home
Mothers’ behavioral health
Parenting behaviors (including maltreatment) and the quality of parent-child interaction
Family economic stability improved from home visiting programs’ support of educational attainment, employment and income stability, and decreasing maternal hardship
Outcomes related to school readiness did not reach statistical significance. This means the evaluation could not confirm that home visiting contributes to later academic success.
Why this matters: This study provides more evidence that early investment to support parents can lead to sustained benefits on child well-being and safety.
It also demonstrates that rigorous evaluations can identify benefits to prevention strategies, increasing the likelihood of their continued funding.
Standardized assessment tools increase identification of neglect and psychological maltreatment.
One standardized tool used by the Swiss child protective system, the Standardised Assessment Tool - Bern/Lucerne, increases identification of neglect relative to other assessment approaches. Portmann and colleagues studied case files in Switzerland and found:
Four-times greater odds of documenting neglect when professionals used the tool.
Other factors also increase documentation: having multiple professionals involved, multiple home visits, and comprehensive risk assessments.
Psychological maltreatment, which goes beyond just emotional abuse, remains hard to diagnose. Wallimann & Lätsch studied over 1,000 children in Swiss schools and found:
Psychological maltreatment is more likely to be prolonged and co-occur with other risk factors, such as sexual abuse and behavioral health issues in the family.
Accurate diagnosis of psychological maltreatment matters for proper treatment.
Why this matters: Though these studies took place outside the U.S., they hold important implications here. Evidence-based assessment tools can help improve identification of specific types of maltreatment, which can lead to better targeted interventions and clinical treatment.
In particular, a 2021 study by Baker and colleagues in the U.S. found that professionals don’t know how to accurately identify psychological maltreatment and recommended better approaches.
Finding sustainable and practical ways to implement assessment tools into practice may improve child and family outcomes.
Researchers have trouble recruiting and keeping participants with experience in child-serving systems, and it affects the quality of the research.
As we saw with the home visiting study above, long-term studies provide critical insights. But when participants with high risk of child welfare system involvement drop out, research findings reflect a narrower population.
Kiel and colleagues looked at data from a long-term study of the development trajectory of victims of child maltreatment in Germany, including over 800 participants.
They specifically looked at patterns in who dropped out of the study - their responses were not included in the final study findings. Three groups stood out to be more likely to drop out:
Families with maltreatment histories
Families with lower-income
Children with externalizing behaviors such as aggression, conduct problems, and hyperactivity.
Why this matters: Though it’s another international study, the same risks apply to U.S. research. Children and families most affected by child welfare systems are least likely to stay in studies that inform child welfare policy.
The research you rely upon may not be based on the right populations, which can skew their results.
That’s one of the reasons we started the Roundup, to help you figure out which findings are based on the best possible data.
Researchers need to look to strategies to improve participation, such as compensation, transportation, childcare, and flexibility in data collection.
Data Corner: New Data Sources to Know
In 2025, new Child and Family Service Review (CFSR) reports were issued for 5 states that highlight some of the predominant and persistent challenges in child welfare practices, as well as some promising improvements.
CFSRs in Brief: CFSRs are periodic, state-by-state assessments of child welfare services and outcomes and provide a helpful window into the landscape of child welfare services across the country.
Purpose of CFSRs: The Children’s Bureau conducts them to assess state child welfare systems against federal requirements, document child welfare services used by families, and assist states in achieving positive outcomes for children and families.
Though not every state has a review every year, the reports released in 2025 may give us some indication of where the field stands, and what lies ahead.
Strengths:
Out-of-home placements with relatives and sibling groups remain strong.
Indicators of maltreatment while in care improved in several states.
Timely needs assessments for foster youth, especially educational needs, showed improvement.
Quality assurance and community responsiveness were identified as strengths in multiple states.
Challenges:
Service gaps for root causes of maltreatment such as substance use, domestic violence, and mental health issues.
Workforce challenges such as high turnover and inadequate training affect investigation and permanency timelines.
Child and family court delays exacerbate child welfare system challenges.
Why this matters: These findings aren’t necessarily new. But when CFSRs produce the same findings year after year, it signals that different approaches are needed to address shortcomings.
Service gaps are different from knowledge gaps. If we know what does and does not work, it is about making sure there is adequate funding, workforce, and cross-system coordination to ensure success.
What’s Your Take?
We want to know what stands out to you from this month’s research roundup, and why.
Who do you wish had access to this information? Are there types of organizations, policymakers, or advocates that would benefit from any of these insights?
Based on any of the insights shared, what shifts in child and family policy would you recommend to state or federal policy makers?
What studies did we miss?
Send your thoughts to robin@childwelfarewonk.com.
Studies discussed in this roundup
Baker, A. J. L., Brassard, M. R., & Rosenzweig, J. (2021). Psychological maltreatment: Definition and reporting barriers among American professionals in the field of child abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect, 114, 104941. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2021.104941
Keil, J., Breuer, J., Küchler, R., Bracher, A. J., Schulz, C. C., Açıl, D., Bergmann, S., Alexander, N., Stalder, T., Miller, R., Licata-Dandel, M., Mall, V., Augustin, M., Wenzel, A. S., Von Polier, G., Radeloff, D., Von Klitzing, K., & White, L. O. (2025). Lost Narratives: Identifying Predictors of Attrition and Differences in Recruitment Effort in a Longitudinal Study on Child Maltreatment. Child Maltreatment, 10775595251352425. https://doi.org/10.1177/10775595251352425
Morgan, A. J., Tsiamis, E., Tan, C., & Chen, Q. (2025). Public Knowledge and Attitudes About the Nature and Impact of Child Emotional Abuse: A Systematic Review. Child Maltreatment, 10775595251362111. https://doi.org/10.1177/10775595251362111
Portilla, J. A., Faucetta, K., Saunders, K., & Taub, A. (2025). Beyond the Early Years: The Long-Term Effects of Home Visiting on Mothers, Families, and Children. Results from the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (No. OPRE Report 2025-052). Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://acf.gov/opre/report/beyond-early-years-long-term-effects-home-visiting-mothers-families-and-children
Portmann, R., Kaiser, S., Quehenberger, J., Lätsch, D., & Jud, A. (2025). Documentation of child neglect: Do assessment tools make a difference? Child Abuse & Neglect, 167, 107592. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2025.107592
VanGraafeiland, B., Quick, C., Martinez, V. C., Cwynar, C. M., Helman, J., Mudd, S., Wilson, S., & Halasz, T. (2025). Assessing Knowledge of Nurse Practitioners on Youth in Foster Care: Results of Nationwide Survey. Journal of Pediatric Health Care. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedhc.2025.08.001
Wallimann, M. S., & Lätsch, D. C. (2025). Psychological maltreatment: Discovering its different subtypes and related developmental risk factors. Child Abuse & Neglect, 167, 107544.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2025.107544
