Child welfare financing is an essential building block to the personal stories you will read below and throughout this brief.Without an adequate source of funding that can be used to effectively meet the needs of children and families, child welfare agencies cannot keep families together, reunite children with their families, or support new families formed through adoption or guardianship.This report explores the basics of funding for child welfare services with descriptions of the various funding streams that agencies can use to serve children and families. Child welfare funding is a mix of federal, state, and local dollars, with the exact proportions varying from state to state and county to county.