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In 1984, George Orwell defined “doublethink” as holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting them both. In child welfare, for example, we have been told for decades that child welfare systems don’t take away children because their families are poor.

Bill Baccaglini spent 20 years working in New York’s state government before taking the helm in 2003 at the New York Foundling, a 147-year-old nonprofit and one of the city’s longest-running providers of youth and family services.

In my previous column on child welfare finance reform, I wrote about the incentives that push governments toward needlessly tearing apart families. Those incentives exist for everyone from the frontline caseworker to the child welfare agency chief.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, has introduced a bill that would significantly expand a multi-billion dollar federal entitlement program that currently funds only foster care services.

All’s been quiet on the finance front for a while now, but it looks like things are heating back up. As we covered last week, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)

The lead Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee is circulating a draft bill that would for the first time permit states to use federal foster care entitlement dollars on preventing child abuse and keeping families together.

A few weeks back we reported that three groups – Alliance for Children and Families, the National Organization of State Associations for Children (NOSAC), and the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) – are backing a new federal child welfare financing proposal.

The current child welfare financing structure is a complex system consisting of various federal, state, and local funding streams.Federal funds account for approximately half of states’ total reported spending for child welfare services, and that money comes from more than 30 programs.

Note: This story was updated on July 19 Ten years ago, the voice for a philosophical change to federal foster care financing came from conservative politicians and policy shops that paid attention to child welfare.