The 50-State CHARTBOOK on Foster Care is an online resource for child welfare policymakers, researchers, advocates and service providers. Conceived and funded by a grant from The MENTOR Network Charitable Foundation, with support from Boston University, this invaluable resource was created by a team of faculty and researchers at Boston University’s School of Social Work and is an initiative rooted in The Foundation’s mission to support research and innovation in the field of human services.

The site allows users the ability to view profiles of every state and the District of Columbia. The profiles provide a range of data in a chart format including:

• Administrative and demographic information
• Medicaid and child welfare funding
• Foster care and permanency outcomes
• Innovative and noteworthy initiatives
• Therapeutic foster care efforts

The format of the site allows people to pull up two state profiles side by side, sorting based on geography or administrative organization, for example. The section on innovation focuses on key national issues, such as family finding initiatives, cross-system data sharing and efforts to help those aging out of foster care.