Spring 2026 - Wonk Intelligence Quarterly
Strategic Guidance for Spring 2026
Welcome to Wonk Intelligence Quarterly (WIQ) — a premium strategic intelligence resource for leaders, policymakers, and decision-makers navigating an increasingly complex child and family policy landscape.
Get all future WIQs by becoming a member of Child Welfare Wonk’s premium community, the Wonk Briefing Room.
Each edition identifies the key trends shaping the environment in which you're operating and provides clear guidance on how to navigate it effectively.
Our first WIQ dug into the implications of key constraints leaders face today when making decisions:
Fiscal Federalism: implications for state and federal policy of shifts in federal financing;
State Capacity: how possibilities for reform are shaped by readiness to leverage it; and
Theories of Change: where debate is artificially constrained without galvanizing vision.
This edition surfaces important openings for action and how leaders can move forward on them:
In We Don’t Know Ourselves: Child Welfare’s Knowledge Crisis, Laura Radel shows where we’re missing essential insights leaders need, and how to remedy that;
In The Governance Gap, Doug Steiger examines where current policy holds child welfare accountable to things it can't control, and how to make it more responsive; &
In Child Welfare’s Artemis Moment: Where Are We Going & Why, Zach Laris and Andrés Argüello explore how to move beyond marginal reforms to shape what’s next.
This WIQ won't tell you what to think, but what to think about. This is forward guidance for decision makers in child and family policy navigating a volatile and uncertain policy landscape.
