Children's Bureau Discretionary Grants

The Children's Bureau (CB) awards discretionary grants to support programs serving children and families. These grants are awarded through a competitive peer-review process to various entities, including State, Tribal, and local agencies; universities; faith- and community-based organizations; and other nonprofit and for-profit groups, to support innovation, knowledge development, and program improvement efforts.  

To find information, products, and tools from a specific grant or view resources by document type or location, visit Child Welfare Information Gateway's CBDG Library. 

Children's Bureau Discretionary Grants Tools and Information

The following resources provide additional information about the discretionary grants process and awards: 

For more information about CB's discretionary grants programs, visit CB's Discretionary Grants Programs webpage.

Featured Grantee Spotlights

Updates and resources from select CB discretionary grant recipients are highlighted below. Subscribe to The Grantee Connection newsletter for quarterly features, which are sent right to your inbox. 


The Children's Bureau issued awards in fiscal years 2018 and 2019 to develop, implement, and evaluate primary prevention strategies to improve the safety, stability, and well-being of all families through a continuum of community-based services and supports.

An Introduction to the Child Welfare Community Collaborations Grantees and Strategies
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (2024)
Read an overview of the Child Welfare Community Collaborations initiative, including its goals, timeline, and technical assistance; a description of each of the 13 grant recipients; and a summary of the project strategies.

Child Welfare Community Collaborations Cross-Site Process Evaluation Design and Methods
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (2024)
Explore the design and methods used for the cross-site process evaluation of the initiative. The brief includes a discussion of the framework and research questions, the data sources and collection methods, and the evaluation team's analysis methods.

Child Welfare Community Collaborations Projects at a Glance
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Planning Research and Evaluation (2024)
Review a high-level description of the 13 projects designed to mobilize communities to develop and evaluate multisystem collaboratives that address local barriers and provide a continuum of services to prevent child abuse and neglect.

Reshaping Child Welfare in the United States to Focus on Strengthening Families Through Primary Prevention of Child Maltreatment and Unnecessary Parent-Child Separation (IM-18-05)
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children's Bureau (2018)
Read a call-to-action for child welfare agencies and grant recipients to focus on primary prevention to improve outcomes for children and their families. It includes information about key partners, major components, and State and local examples of primary prevention programs.

Primary Prevention: Themes From Fiscal Year 2018 Grantee Site Visits
Child Welfare Information Gateway (2020)
Highlights common themes and unique examples gathered by Community Collaborations to Strengthen and Preserve Families grantees during Children's Bureau-led site visits to other jurisdictions with promising approaches to community-based primary prevention.

In fiscal year 2014, the Children's Bureau awarded one 5-year grant, which was extended to fiscal year 2020, to strengthen the capacity of child welfare staff and mental health practitioners serving children and youth moving toward or maintaining permanency in adoptive or guardianship homes.

The National Training Institute (NTI) provides standardized web-based trainings developed by NTI to build the capacity of child welfare and mental health professionals to understand and address the needs of children, youth, and families moving toward or having achieved permanency through adoption or guardianship. The trainings also aim to improve collaboration between service systems with shared language and aligned curricula. The following are the training videos for each audience:

Child Welfare Professionals

Mental Health Professionals

The Children's Bureau awarded a 5-year grant, to develop, implement, and evaluate programs and initiatives to help improve stability, permanency, and well-being for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and Two-Spirit (LGBTQ2S) children and youth in foster care. The resulting National Quality Improvement Center on Tailored Services, Placement Stability, and Permanency for LGBTQ2S Children and Youth in Foster Care (QIC-LGBTQ2S) received a funding extension to disseminate findings and lessons learned to the field.

The QIC-LGBTQ2S' materials are housed on the National SOGIE Center website, which operates as a hub for providers seeking information on serving LGBTQ2S children and youth and their families. QIC-LGBTQ2S resources offer information on collecting SOGIE (sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression) data in systems, free workforce training, and youth and family programs designed and evaluated under the QIC-LGBTQ2S.

The QIC-LGBTQ2S also developed several tip sheets to help child welfare implementers and leaders scale up LGBTQ2S practices in their jurisdictions. The following tip sheets were created in partnership with people with lived experience who helped implement the work of the QIC-LGBTQ2S within their local implementation sites:

The Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development (QIC-WD), a 5-year cooperative agreement funded in 2016, is dedicated to understanding how to improve child welfare workforce outcomes. Through evaluation, the QIC-WD is enhancing what is known about evidence-informed workforce interventions and how they are related to outcomes for children, including interventions related to job redesign, telework, supportive supervision, hiring, organizational culture and climate, and job-related secondary traumatic stress.

The QIC-WD partnered with eight public and Tribal child welfare agencies interested in being on the cutting edge of reform as it relates to workforce issues. Learn more about the eight Title IV-B funded sites. 

Visit the project profiles below for an overview of the site’s workforce and its challenges retaining child welfare workers. Each site profile highlights the intervention selected and implemented to strengthen the workforce and the evaluation that is being conducted to increase the collective understanding of how to improve child welfare workforce outcomes. Each profile also includes a jurisdictional needs assessment and each site’s theory of change and logic model.

Additional QIC-WD Resources

QIC-Takes      
Summarizes key issues, documents what we're seeing in the field, and makes recommendations for future action by child welfare decision makers.

QIC-Tips
Summarizes child welfare workforce-related recommendations made by the QIC-WD. These tips are derived from research or the experience(s) of the QIC and project sites. Most QIC-Tips are written for child welfare leaders, policymakers, and decision makers and are intended to highlight key workforce strategies and provide links to additional, more detailed, resources.

Umbrella Summaries
Highlights findings from the workforce literature to address pertinent child welfare workforce challenges. These summaries provide a synopsis of the published meta-analyses of a specific workforce topic. The research is summarized in a straightforward question-and-answer format.

The CB-funded National Quality Improvement Center for Preventive Services and Interventions in Indian Country, renamed the Center for Native Child and Family Resilience, was created to support child welfare prevention and intervention practices and strategies designed by and for American Indian/Alaska Native populations. It develops and disseminates knowledge of culturally relevant practice models, interventions, and services that contribute to child maltreatment prevention and partners with Tribes and Tribal communities to identify and enhance culturally based programs designed to strengthen community and family resilience.

Five projects partnered with the center to build and enhance their culturally based programs to strengthen community and family resilience. Visit the project profiles to watch videos and access products, such as implementation guides, program manuals, and evaluation reports:

Additional Resources

Catalog of Programs
Center for Native Child and Family Resilience
Search for and view information about community-level research and demonstrations of innovative cultural and practice-based prevention and intervention efforts that are improving the lives of Tribal families and children within Indian Country.

Cultural Guide for the Development of Tribal Child Welfare Products
Running Wolf, Iron Cloud-Koenen, Two Dogs, & Iron Cloud-Two Dogs (2023)
Center for Native Child and Family Resilience
Review guidance designed for organizations, teams, and individuals developing Tribal child welfare products about how to work with communities to develop those products in ways that reflect and embrace Tribal culture and values.

Environmental Scan
Center for Native Child and Family Resilience (2019)
Read about innovative cultural- and practice-based strategies that are improving the lives of Tribal families and children in Indian Country.

Indigenous Ways of Knowing
Center for Native Child and Family Resilience
Watch videos and find research resources on engaging effectively and respectfully with Indigenous communities. The materials discuss four concepts essential to this work: sovereignty, reciprocity, relationship building, and permissions.

Lessons Learned
Center for Native Child and Family Resilience
Learn how adjusting practices, behavior, language, and attitudes improved the results for the center, partners, and the communities it worked with.

Literature Review
Center for Native Child and Family Resilience (2018)
Explore the literature on practices that have been used in Tribal communities to confront and address child maltreatment, with an emphasis on programs and interventions that were Tribally created, Tribally adapted, or showed promise for adaptation.

The Quality Improvement Center on Engaging Youth in Finding Permanency (QIC-EY), a 5-year cooperative agreement funded in 2021, is charged with advancing child welfare programs and practices to ensure they are authentically engaging and empowering children and youth in foster care throughout the United States, especially in relation to permanency decisions. It is expected that the components and impact of the QIC-EY will create intentional policy, practice, and culture shifts that bring about systemic changes in how children and youth are authentically engaged.

The QIC-EY is partnering with seven pilot sites to accomplish its goals.

QIC-EY's Definition of Child and Youth Engagement;

The QIC-EY has defined authentic engagement as actively and intentionally partnering with children and youth about their lives, on their terms, and in ways that make sense to them.

Review the principles and practices the QIC-EY identified that authentically engage children and youth in QIC-EY Lessons Learned: Authentic Engagement of Children and Youth Must Be Reimagined and Clearly Defined.

Additional Resources

QIC-EY NOW
Quality Improvement Center on Engaging Youth in Finding Permanency
Watch and listen to real-life stories, examples, and tips that bring the competencies and characteristics that drive authentic engagement to life. Use this tool to elevate your child and youth engagement skills.

QIC-EY Lessons Learned
Quality Improvement Center on Engaging Youth in Finding Permanency
Explore this series of lessons learned for fundamental insights about engaging children and youth, especially in relation to permanency decisions. 

From Passenger to Pilot: The Importance of Empowering Children and Youth
Quality Improvement Center on Engaging Youth in Finding Permanency (2023)
Listen to youths' perspectives and experiences of the child welfare system, including the trauma, loss, and powerlessness they felt and the potential impact of authentic engagement and listening.

QIC-EY Environmental Scan
Quality Improvement Center on Engaging Youth in Finding Permanency
Read about a scan of the child welfare environment as it relates to engaging children and youth, including strengths and areas needing improvement. The environmental scan contains a literature review, a State survey, and expert interviews.