Most accounts of the Children's Bureau's origins point to three people, Lillian Wald, Edward Thomas Devine, and Florence Kelley, who began to discuss the idea around 1903.
Their proposal (with colleagues) to President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 reflected the Progressive Era's generally heightened concern for social welfare issues, as well as the influence of the Settlement movement, of which all three were members.
[4] Also in 1905, the recently formed National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) agreed to make the establishment of a federal children's bureau its primary legislative goal.
[6] The bill establishing the Children's Bureau was passed in 1912 following a lengthy legislative effort, and it was signed by President William Howard Taft on April 9 of that year.
Lathrop, a noted maternalist reformer also active in the Settlement Movement, was the first woman ever to head a government agency in the United States.
The Bureau endorsed activities such as prenatal care, infant health clinics, visiting nurses, public sanitation, certified milk stations, and education of mothers.
As part of this effort, volunteers weighed and measured millions of children, resulting in the publication of the nation's first age, height, and weight standards.
[16] National Baby Week was first observed in March 1916, at the joint suggestion of the Children's Bureau and the General Federation of Women's Clubs.
Chief Lathrop hired noted child-labor reformer Grace Abbott to lead the Bureau's newly created Child Labor Division in April 1917; however, the law was short-lived.
Projects in most states included some or all of the following: The program ended in 1929, having helped an estimated 4 million infants and preschool children and approximately 700,000 pregnant women.
[29] When Congress established the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) in May 1933, the Children's Bureau helped to collect data for the agency to determine how the appropriations would be spent.
The Bureau also worked with the FERA to establish the Child Health Recovery Program, providing emergency food and medical care to children in need.
In 1933, the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) opened the door for the Bureau to establish industry-specific child labor codes and the first federal minimum age for full-time employment.
At the time, EMIC was the largest federally funded medical care program ever undertaken in the United States, serving approximately 1.5 million women and babies between 1943 and 1949.
[44] In 1962, amendments to the Social Security Act authorized the Children's Bureau to make its first child welfare training grants to institutions of higher education.
[46] The Children's Bureau provided early national leadership in the diagnosis and treatment of phenylketonuria (PKU) to prevent mental retardation.
[47] Other special health care projects during this period included prosthetics research, epilepsy treatment, and dissemination of vaccines for polio and other childhood diseases.
The Bureau held meetings with experts and drafted a model statute that states could use to require doctors and hospitals to report suspected abuse.
[51] In keeping with President Lyndon B. Johnson's priorities, the Bureau's work on juvenile delinquency began to evolve into a focus on prevention and positive youth development.
NCCAN centralized and coordinated the Bureau's growing focus on more effective child abuse prevention, research, state reporting laws, and systems.
[60] Enhanced data collection resulted in a deeper understanding of the families and children affected by child abuse and neglect, foster care, and adoption.
This led to legislative and policy changes during the late 1980s and early 1990s, including the establishment of a federal program to support independent living services for youth aging out of the foster care system without permanent families.
Around the same time, President Clinton encouraged HHS to develop a plan for doubling the number of adoptions and permanent placements from foster care during the next five years.
HHS responded by issuing a report, with the Bureau's assistance, that outlined a series of policy- and practice-related steps toward achieving this goal.
[67] Assistant Secretaries during this period:[68] ASFA also required HHS to establish outcome measures to track State performance in protecting children.
[69] Findings from the first round of CFSRs provided more detailed information about states' strengths and needs, enabling the Bureau to create technical assistance and data collection systems more directly focused on areas of greatest need.
Since then, support for child abuse prevention efforts has continued to expand, due in part to growing evidence that home visitation programs can effectively reduce maltreatment and improve outcomes for pregnant mothers and families with young children.