The future of child welfare will look toward children’s health: the case of the Kentucky Health Information Data Sharing (KHIDS) project

The child welfare field in the United States aspires to encompass more than child protection and to move toward the promotion of child and family wellness. Scholars and practitioners have long observed that child wellbeing has been the most elusive of the three-part mandate of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. In response, child welfare agencies have increasingly been asking themselves hard questions and testing new approaches to meet the needs of families. This commentary argues that current developments suggest a future where child welfare workers’ activity in the field actively promotes the health of children and is recognized as an asset to pediatricians and healthcare systems. An example is offered to support this prediction in the form of the Kentucky Health Information Data Sharing (KHIDS) project. KHIDS involved an operational linkage between Kentucky’s child welfare information system and its health information exchange to allow child welfare professionals access to information that allows them to more efficiently perform their duties – especially those related to monitoring health care services for children in out of home care. The KHIDS project is a positive sign of things to come for the future of the field.