United States Children's Bureau
Agency overview | |
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Formed | 1912 |
Headquarters | Washington, DC |
Agency executives |
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Parent agency | United States Department of Health and Human Services |
Website | http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/ |
The United States Children's Bureau is a federal agency organized under the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families. Today, the bureau's operations involve improving child abuse prevention, foster care, and adoption. Historically, its work was much broader, as shown by the 1912 act which created and funded it:
The said bureau shall investigate and report to [the Department of Commerce and Labor] upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people, and shall especially investigate the questions of
employment, legislation affecting children in the several states and territories.[1]
During the height of its influence, the Bureau was directed, managed, and staffed almost entirely by women—a rarity for any federal agency in the early 20th century. It was most influential in bringing the methods of
History
Creation
Most accounts of the Children's Bureau's origins point to three people, Lillian Wald, Edward Thomas Devine, and Florence Kelley, who began to discuss the idea around 1903. Their proposal (with colleagues) to President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 reflected the Progressive Era's generally heightened concern for social welfare issues, as well as the influence of the Settlement movement, of which all three were members.[4]
Also in 1905, the recently formed
The bill establishing the Children's Bureau was passed in 1912 following a lengthy legislative effort, and it was signed by President William Howard Taft on April 9 of that year.[7] The Children's Bureau became the first national government office in the world that focused solely on the well-being of children and their mothers.[8]
Taft appointed Julia Lathrop as the first head of the Bureau. Lathrop, a noted maternalist reformer also active in the Settlement Movement, was the first woman ever to head a government agency in the United States.[9]
At its founding, the bureau was part of the Department of Commerce and Labor; when the two departments' functions were separated in 1913, it became part of the Department of Labor.[10]
1912–1920
The Children's Bureau's first efforts focused on decreasing
The Bureau's commitment to fighting infant mortality resonated with the proliferation of "baby-saving" campaigns throughout the country at this time. The Bureau endorsed activities such as prenatal care, infant health clinics, visiting nurses, public sanitation, certified milk stations, and education of mothers.[12] It proclaimed a "Children's Year" beginning April 6, 1918, to protect children from shortages of milk, food, and public health nurses during World War I. As part of this effort, volunteers weighed and measured millions of children, resulting in the publication of the nation's first age, height, and weight standards.[13]
In its first few years, the Children's Bureau published several pamphlets about prenatal, infant, and child care.[14] These booklets were soon in high demand. By 1929, the Bureau estimated that the information in its pamphlets had benefited one-half of all U.S. babies.[15]
In 1914 Emma Octavia Lundberg became the first Director of the Social Services Division of the Children's Bureau.[16]
In 1916, Congress passed the
1921–1929
In August 1921, Lathrop stepped down as Chief, and Grace Abbott was appointed to succeed her.[19]
The Children's Bureau played a major role in the passage and administration of the Sheppard–Towner Act. This law, passed in 1921, authorized the first federal grants-in-aid for state-level children's health programs. Projects in most states included some or all of the following:
- Midwife training programs, licensing, and enforcement
- Parent education through traveling health demonstrations, health centers, home visits, correspondence courses, and classes
- Establishment of standards and licensing procedures for maternity homes
- Data collection on maternal and infant mortality
The program ended in 1929, having helped an estimated 4 million infants and preschool children and approximately 700,000 pregnant women.[20]
Maternal and infant care and child labor were the Bureau's primary focus during its first two decades. However, other topics of research included
- In 1923, a Children's Bureau-appointed committee established the first-ever standards for effective juvenile courts.[22][23]
- A 1926 bulletin summarizing the history and current state of mothers' aid legislation helped lay the groundwork for the
- The 1920s saw an increased focus on state and county child welfare services. The Bureau published Foster-Home Care for Dependent Children in 1923.[26]
- The Children's Bureau conducted a study of rickets, in partnership with the Yale School of Medicine and the New Haven, Connecticut, Department of Health, that demonstrated the effectiveness of simple prevention methods.[27]
1930–1939
During the early years of the Great Depression, under President Herbert Hoover, the Children's Bureau helped with government efforts to document families' needs and local relief efforts.[28] When Congress established the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) in May 1933, the Children's Bureau helped to collect data for the agency to determine how the appropriations would be spent. The Bureau also worked with the FERA to establish the Child Health Recovery Program, providing emergency food and medical care to children in need.[29]
In December 1934, Katherine Lenroot succeeded Abbott as Chief of the Bureau. She held this position until 1952.[30] Lenroot, Martha May Eliot, and Grace Abbott worked together to create the child-focused sections of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Social Security bill:[31]
- Aid to Dependent Childrenprovided federal matching grants for local and state mothers' aid programs.
- Maternal and Child Health Care funded clinics, professional education, and medical care for needy children.
- Crippled Children's Services created federal matching grants to help children with physical disabilities.
- Child Welfare Services provided state grants to address the needs of dependent and neglected children.
When the Social Security Act was signed in 1935, the Children's Bureau was granted authority to administer the last three of these programs. (Aid to Dependent Children was administered by the newly established
In the meantime, the Children's Bureau remained active in the campaign against child labor. In 1933, the
1940–1956
Throughout
The Children's Bureau's wartime Emergency Maternity and Infant Care (EMIC) program provided for medical, hospital, and nursing care for wives and babies of men in the four lowest pay grades of the Armed Forces. At the time, EMIC was the largest federally funded medical care program ever undertaken in the United States, serving approximately 1.5 million women and babies between 1943 and 1949.[37]
In 1946, the Children's Bureau was folded into the Social Security Administration[38] as part of a massive postwar reorganization of the federal government. In this reorganization, the Bureau lost authority over all labor-related programs. On September 4, 1951, Martha May Eliot became the Bureau's fourth Chief.
In 1952, the Bureau formed the Special Juvenile Delinquency Project with foundations and other private partners interested in improving the prevention and treatment of delinquency. The Project sponsored public meetings and collaborated on a series of practice guides and professional standards. When the project ended in 1955, the Bureau's work in this area continued through a newly created Division of Juvenile Delinquency Service.[39]
The Children's Bureau's grant-in-aid programs grew significantly in the decade following World War II:
- In maternal and child health, a growing emphasis was placed on preventing premature birthsand preserving these fragile infants' health.
- Bureau-funded programs helped to develop treatment options to keep children with disabilities within their own families, schools, and communities. The Crippled Children's Program expanded its reach to help children with , and other disabilities.
- Beginning in 1946, federal child welfare funds began to support children in foster care. At the same time, a growing emphasis was placed on providing services, including homemaker services, to help keep families together.[40]
1957–1968
President Dwight D. Eisenhower named Katherine Oettinger the fifth Chief of the Children's Bureau on May 17, 1957.[41] Oettinger's tenure as Chief (1957–1968) reflected a growing emphasis on preserving and strengthening families. Under her direction, the Bureau also advocated for greater protection for all parties in an adoption.[42]
It was during this period that the Bureau's first research and demonstration grants in child welfare were authorized. Early topics included methods for meeting the needs of disadvantaged preschool children and their families (a precursor to the
The focus on maternal and infant health programs continued throughout the 1960s.
The Children's Bureau also contributed to a growing awareness of child abuse, or "battered child syndrome" as it was called in the early 1960s. The Bureau held meetings with experts and drafted a model statute that states could use to require doctors and hospitals to report suspected abuse.[46][48] All states enacted some form of this law by the end of 1967. The Bureau also funded grants to research causes of child abuse and effective prevention methods.[49]
In January 1963, the Children's Bureau was moved from the Social Security Administration to the newly created Welfare Administration, reflecting a growing emphasis on coordination between child welfare services and the ADC program.[50]
In keeping with President Lyndon B. Johnson's priorities, the Bureau's work on juvenile delinquency began to evolve into a focus on prevention and positive youth development. A Youth Services Unit was created in 1966 to encourage more proactive services to help youth transition successfully into adulthood.[51] At the same time, the Children's Bureau continued to study ways to improve the effectiveness of juvenile court systems. In 1967, the Bureau released a revised version of its Standards for Juvenile and Family Courts. These standards, emphasizing the importance of due process for youth offenders, were cited in the groundbreaking in re Gault decision that year.[52]
1969–1979
On September 17, 1969, the Children's Bureau was moved to a new Office of Child Development (OCD) within the
In response to rising numbers of children in foster care, Children's Bureau grants during the 1970s investigated in-home services to strengthen families, family-centered casework, permanency planning, family reunification, the needs of children living with relatives, and how to remove barriers to adoption for children with special needs. The Bureau also examined the impact of workforce issues on the foster care system and supported a growing foster parents' movement through conferences and grants.[54]
In adoption policy, the Children's Bureau's focus shifted from finding children for families to finding parents for children. Increased attention was paid to the growing number of hard-to-place children, including those from minority groups, older children, children with disabilities, and sibling groups. The Bureau supported exploration of nontraditional adoption arrangements, such as cross-cultural, transracial, single-parent, and subsidized adoption.[55]
Passage of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) of 1974 created a National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) within the Children's Bureau. NCCAN centralized and coordinated the Bureau's growing focus on more effective child abuse prevention, research, state reporting laws, and systems.[56]
1980–1992
President Jimmy Carter signed the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act on June 17, 1980. This landmark law assigned the Children's Bureau additional responsibilities, including reporting to Congress on foster care placements, collecting and publishing data on foster care and adoption, and conducting regular audits of state child welfare programs.[57]
During President Ronald Reagan's administration, there was a continued emphasis on family-based services, special needs adoption, and child abuse prevention. Some notable examples of the Bureau's projects during the 1980s include proclamations of the first National Child Abuse Prevention Month and National Adoption Week, establishment of a National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, and creation of the Children's Justice Act program to help states improve their handling of child abuse cases, with a particular emphasis on child sexual abuse.[58]
Both of the Children's Bureau's present-day data collection systems, the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) and the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), were developed during this period.
On April 15, 1991, today's Administration for Children and Families was created within the Department of Health and Human Services, encompassing ACYF and the Children's Bureau. The same year, NCCAN was moved out from within the Children's Bureau and became a separate entity within ACYF.[61]
Chiefs during this period included:
- John Calhoun (1980–81)
- Clarence E. Hodges (1981–84)
- Dodie Truman Livingston (1984–89)
- Wade Horn (1989–93)[62]
1993–present
President Bill Clinton signed the Family Preservation and Support Services Program Act on August 10, 1993, as part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (P.L. 103-66). The family preservation program, administered by the Children's Bureau, authorized services to help families in crisis (such as respite care and intensive in-home assistance), as well as other forms of family support and family reunification.[63] P.L. 103-66 also established the Court Improvement Program, through which the Children's Bureau provides grants to improve state courts' handling of child welfare cases, and provided additional funds for states to improve their child welfare data collection systems.[64]
Growing awareness of the problem of child abuse and neglect, and particularly child deaths, resulted in many enhancements to prevention, investigation, and prosecution efforts. In 1996, the Children's Bureau created a new program, the Community-Based Family Resource and Support grants, to encourage public and private child abuse prevention and treatment programs to work together more effectively.[65]
In 1995, the Children's Bureau convened an Adoption Program Network to provide input on a new National Adoption Strategic Plan. Around the same time, President Clinton encouraged HHS to develop a plan for doubling the number of adoptions and permanent placements from foster care during the next five years. HHS responded by issuing a report, with the Bureau's assistance, that outlined a series of policy- and practice-related steps toward achieving this goal. These recommendations became the framework for the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA, P.L. 105-89), signed by President Clinton on November 19, 1997. The Children's Bureau was tasked with helping states bring their laws and policies into compliance with this new federal law, which focused on timely permanence, child well-being, and increased accountability of child welfare systems.[66]
ASFA also required HHS to establish outcome measures to track State performance in protecting children. These measures were used in a series of annual reports on national outcomes for child welfare services, first published in 2000. The Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSRs), federal reviews of state child welfare systems based on these outcome measures, began in 2001.[67] Findings from the first round of CFSRs provided more detailed information about states' strengths and needs, enabling the Bureau to create technical assistance and data collection systems more directly focused on areas of greatest need. Some examples include:
- Creation of topical Quality Improvement Centers (QICs) and Regional Implementation Centers, and increasing coordination among its network of National Resource Centers and Clearinghouses.[68]
- Creation of a data collection system to track state independent living services for youth (the National Youth in Transition Database, NYTD, established in October 2010).[69]
- Launch of AdoptUSKids, a comprehensive program to increase adoption opportunities for children in foster care. It includes a national photolisting website, training and technical assistance to states and tribes, and a national recruitment campaign, among other elements.[70]
In 2003, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the first Presidential Proclamation for Child Abuse Prevention Month, OCAN launched a yearlong National Child Abuse Prevention Initiative. Since then, support for child abuse prevention efforts has continued to expand, due in part to growing evidence that home visitation programs can effectively reduce maltreatment and improve outcomes for pregnant mothers and families with young children.[71] In 2011, another child abuse prevention initiative kicked off at the Bureau's first Network for Action meeting.[72]
More recent Children's Bureau initiatives have included the following:
- Since 2000, the Children's Bureau has sponsored conferences and funded discretionary grants on the child welfare staffing crisis. It launched the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute in 2008.[73]
- In 2009, the Bureau funded a new National Resource Center for In-Home Services to support promising practices that can help children remain safely in their homes when their families are involved (or at risk of involvement) with the child welfare system.[74]
- The Bureau held its first Child Welfare Evaluation Summit in 2009 to explore and promote effective approaches for evaluating child welfare systems, projects, and programs.[75]
- In 2010, the Children's Bureau awarded funding to implement the President's Initiative to Reduce Long-Term Foster Care, which seeks to improve outcomes for groups of children who face the greatest barriers to permanency.[76]
- In 2011, the Bureau sponsored a national meeting in partnership with the U.S. Department of Education to improve educational stability and outcomes for children in foster care.[77]
Assistant Secrtaries during this period:[78]
- Laurence J. Love (1993)
- Mary Jo Bane (1993-1996)
- Olivia Golden (1997-2000)
- Diann Dawson (2001)
- Wade Horn (2001-2007)
- Daniel Schneider (2007-2008)
- Curtis Coy (2009)
- David Hansell (2009)
- Carmen Nazario (2009-2010)
- David Hansell (2010-2011)
- George Sheldon (2011-2013)
- Mark Greenberg (2014-2017)
- Naomi Goldstein (2017)
- Amanda Barlow (2017)
- Steven Wagner ( 2017-2018)
- Lynn A. Johnson (2018-2020)
- Ben Goldhaber (2021)
- JooYeun Chang (2021-2022)
- Jennifer Cannistra (2022)
- January Contreras(2022 - 2023)
- Jeff Hild (2023-Present (Feb 2024))
- Jerry Milner (as Acting Commissioner) (2017 - 2020) [79]
Centennial
On April 9, 2012, the Children's Bureau marked its 100th anniversary with a ceremony at the Hubert H. Humphrey Building in Washington, DC. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Acting Assistant Secretary for Children and Families George Sheldon, and Acting Associate Commissioner Joe Bock were among the speakers at the event. Former ACYF Commissioner Carol Wilson Spigner (Carol Williams) was given a Children's Bureau Centennial Award for her "extraordinary vision and leadership in the field of child welfare services."[80]
Publications
In its early years, the Children's Bureau published voluminously on many topics related to children's health and well-being, and it distributed its publications very widely. A full bibliography is impossible here, but an OpenLibrary search by author gives some sense of the range of topics.
Some of the Bureau's significant recent publications include the following:
- Child Abuse and Neglect User Manual Series (guides for professionals interested in preventing, identifying, and responding to child maltreatment)
- Child Maltreatment reports (annual reports of national statistics regarding reports of child abuse and neglect)
- AFCARS reports (national adoption and foster care statistics)
- Child Welfare Outcomes reports (annual reports to Congress assessing state performance in operating child protection and child welfare programs)
- Children's Bureau Express (monthly online digest)
See also
- Child Abuse Reform and Enforcement Act- law aiming to "promote the improvement of information on, and protections against, child sexual abuse
- Child Welfare Information Gateway
- Children's Act for Responsible Employment (CARE Act)- a bill (proposed law) to bring parity of labor conditions to minor field workers that are afforded to minors in other occupations.
- Maternalism
- Maternalist Reform
References
- ^ Apr. 9, 1912, ch. 73, §2, 37 Stat. 79
- ^ "Social Security". ssa.gov.
- ^ Kriste Lindenmeyer, "A right to childhood": the U.S. Children's Bureau and child welfare, 1912-46 (University of Illinois Press, 1997), 30.
- ^ Kriste Lindenmeyer, "A right to childhood": The U.S. Children's Bureau and child welfare, 1912-46 (University of Illinois Press, 1997), 9.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood (Washington, DC: Author, 2013)" (PDF). Children's Bureau, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. p. 16.
- ^ Lindenmeyer, 20-24.
- ^ "Public Law 62-116".
- ISBN 9780252065774.
- ISBN 978-0-252-06482-1.
- ^ "Mar. 4, 1913, ch. 141, §§3, 6, 37 Stat. 737, 738".
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). pp. 32–34.
- ^ Lindenmeyer, 49-50.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). p. 42.
- ^ "Children's Bureau Brochures and Booklets for Parents".
- ^ Molly Ladd-Taylor, Raising a Baby the Government Way: Mothers' Letters to the Children's Bureau, 1915-1932, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1986), 2.
- ^ "Columbia University Libraries Finding Aids: Rare Book & Manuscript Library".
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). pp. 39–41.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). p. 40.
- ^ Lindenmeyer, 90-91.
- ^ Lindenmeyer, 104.
- ^ Lindenmeyer, 139.
- ^ Bradbury, Dorothy E. (1956). "Four Decades of Action for Children: A History of the Children's Bureau" (PDF). Washington, DC: Children's Bureau. p. 19.
- ^ "U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children's Bureau, Juvenile-Court Standards" (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1923.
- ^ Emma Octavia Lundberg (1926). "Public Aid to Mothers With Dependent Children: Extent and Fundamental Principles" (PDF). Children's Bureau. Washington, DC.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). p. 53.
- ^ Bradbury, 33–34, 36.
- ^ Bradbury, 26–27.
- ^ Bradbury, 29-31.
- ^ Lindenmeyer, 177-178.
- ^ Robyn Muncy (1994). "Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935". Oxford University Press. p. 151.
- ^ Lindenmeyer, 179-183.
- ^ Lindenmeyer, 193-194.
- ^ Lindenmeyer, 196-198.
- ^ "Standards for Day Care of Children of Working Mothers: Report of the Subcommittee on Standards and Services for Day Care Authorized by the Children's Bureau Conference on Day Care of Children of Working Mothers" (PDF). U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children's Bureau. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1942.
- ^ Lindenmeyer, 223.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). pp. 84–85.
- ^ Bradbury, 65-68.
- ^ "Reorganization Plan No. 2 OF 1946, 11 F.R. 7873, 60 Stat. 1095".
- ^ Bradbury, 78–79 and 88–90.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). pp. 101–103.
- ^ Bradbury, 96.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). p. 108.
- ^ "Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition, History". cornell.edu.
- ^ "Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition, History". cornell.edu.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). p. 110.
- ^ a b "Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition, History". cornell.edu.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). cb100.acf.hhs.gov. p. 111.
- ^ "Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition, History". cornell.edu.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). p. 120.
- ^ "Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition, History". cornell.edu.
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ Children's Bureau, "The Children's Bureau's Job Today" (1969)
- ^ "Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition, History". cornell.edu.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). pp. 131–132.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). p. 133.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). pp. 144–146.
- ^ Barbara A. Pine, "Child Welfare Reform and the Political Process," Social Service Review 60, no. 3 (1986).
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). pp. 164–166.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). pp. 169–170.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). pp. 171–172.
- ^ Implementation of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1988 by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Select Education, Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives (May 9, 1991) (statement by Joseph F. Delfico, Director of Income Security Issues, Human Resources Division), 3; and follow-up testimony on February 27, 1992.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). cb100.acf.hhs.gov. Retrieved 2019-06-10.
- ^ "ACYF-PI-94-01" (PDF). Children's Bureau.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). p. 187.
- ^ "ACYF-CB-PI-02-04". Children's Bureau.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). pp. 195–198.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). pp. 200–201.
- ^ "Training & Technical Assistance". hhs.gov.
- ^ "NYTD". hhs.gov.
- ^ "AdoptUSKids". adoptuskids.org.
- ^ [2][dead link]
- ^ "Children's Bureau Express". hhs.gov.
- ^ "Children's Bureau Express". hhs.gov.
- ^ "Children's Bureau Express". hhs.gov.
- ^ "Children's Bureau Express". hhs.gov.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). p. 219.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). p. 218.
- ^ "ACF leadership". Retrieved 27 February 2024.
- ^ "The Family Justice Group". Retrieved 27 February 2024.
- ^ "The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood" (PDF). p. 220.
Further reading
- Abel, Emily K. "Benevolence and social control: Advice from the Children's Bureau in the early twentieth century." The Social Service Review (1994): 1-19. in JSTOR
- Abel, Emily K. "Correspondence between Julia C. Lathrop, Chief of the Children's Bureau, and a working-class woman, 1914-1915." Journal of Women's History 5#1 (1993): 79-88. online
- Almgren, Gunnar, Susan P. Kemp, and Alison Eisinger. "The legacy of Hull House and the Children's Bureau in the American mortality transition." Social Service Review 74.1 (2000): 1-27. in JSTOR
- Bradbury, Dorothy E. (1962). "Five Decades of Action for Children: A History of the Children's Bureau" (PDF). Washington, DC: Children's Bureau; Not online
- Bradbury, Dorothy E. (1956). "Four Decades of Action for Children: A History of the Children's Bureau" (PDF). Washington, DC: Children's Bureau.
- Bremner, Robert H., ed. (1974). Children and Youth in America: A Documentary History. Harvard UP. ISBN 9780674116139. 5 vol of primary sources
- Children's Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Children's Bureau Legacy: Ensuring the Right to Childhood (Washington, DC: 2013)
- Kemp, Susan P., et al. "Serving the "whole child": Prevention practice and the US children's bureau." Smith College Studies in Social Work 71.3 (2001): 475-499.
- Ladd-Taylor, Molly. Raising a baby the government way: mothers' letters to the Children's Bureau, 1915-1932 (Rutgers University Press, 1986).
- Lieberman, Alice, & Kristine Nelson (eds). Women and Children First: The Contribution of the Children's Bureau to Social Work Education (Alexandria, VA: Council on Social Work Education, 2013)
- Briar-Lawson, Katharine, Mary McCarthy, & Nancy Dickinson. The Children's Bureau: Shaping a Century of Child Welfare Practices, Programs, and Policies (Washington, DC: NASW, 2013)
- Lindenmeyer, Kriste. A Right to Childhood: The U.S. Children's Bureau and Child Welfare, 1912-46 (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1997).
- Ladd-Taylor, Molly. Raising a Baby the Government Way: Mothers' Letters to the Children's Bureau 1915-1932 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1986).
- Gordon, Linda. Pitied But Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare, 1890–1935 (New York: Free Press, 1994). Details reform efforts of the period, including the Children's Bureau and its long-term impacts.
- Special Issue on the Centennial of the Children's Bureau, Journal of Family Strengths (2012)