Research by Author & Topic

Publications by Olivia Golden on Child Welfare

As the director of the District of Columbia’s Child and Family Services Agency, Olivia Golden led reform of a system in federal receivership. Now, in Reforming Child Welfare, she uses her expertise as an administrator, an academic, and an advocate to pinpoint the factors that lead to success. “Writing from the inside,” she maintains, “makes it possible to analyze, in retrospect, what we thought we were doing, what it felt like, and what led us to good or bad choices.” By sharing her personal story, along with her analysis of the research literature and two other case studies in Alabama and Utah, Golden finds fresh insight on improving outcomes for imperiled children and families.

The recent tragic deaths of four sisters in the District of Columbia raise once again the question of why the United States, despite local outrage and national and state efforts, has not reduced child deaths from abuse and neglect. In 2005, some 1,460 children died from one or the other nationwide, virtually unchanged from 2001.

Olivia Golden, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and a former assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, explains, in a New Orleans Times-Picayune commentary, how cost-effective programs like Early Head Start and Head Start can help heal the trauma suffered by babies, toddlers and older children affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Babies, toddlers, and preschoolers were doing badly in New Orleans before Katrina and are vulnerable to emotional and developmental damage afterwards. To heal the damage and narrow the gap in school readiness, these youngsters need high quality early childhood programs that blend health, mental health, and learning, along with support for parents. An ambitious plan to bring back families with young children and give them what they need should be a cornerstone of New Orleans' redevelopment, building on the proven model and national infrastructure offered by Head Start/Early Head Start and drawing in additional local partners and federal funding.

This testimony was presented before the Senate Subcommittee on Education and Early Childhood Development. Senior Fellow and Director of the Assessing the New Federalism project, Olivia Golden, discusses the Head Start program, federal monitoring, and the Government Accountability Office's recent report on a comprehensive approach to identifying and addressing risks. Golden offers perspective on effective strategies for building the strongest possible federal oversight role to support high-quality, fiscally accountable, programmatically successful, and well-managed Head Start programs..