Program Data

Program Home Page

The vision of the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families (DCF) is that all children have access to high-quality early care and education. We reinforce that vision with our mission to support low-income working families by sharing the cost of childcare and promoting the social well-being of all children and families through safe, high-quality early education experiences.

The Bureau of Permanence and Out-of-Home Care is responsible for administering the state public-adoption program; providing policy guidance to counties on foster care, kinship care, and other out-of-home care placements; and licensing and monitoring group homes for children, residential care centers for children and youth, child-placing agencies, and shelter care. It also administers the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC), which regulates the safe placement of children across state lines. The purpose of these programs is to promote the health, safety, and well-being of children and families in the child welfare system and achieve permanence for children placed in out-of-home care.

Just as children learn best through play, adults also need to dig, explore and try out different tools. Our team is on a mission to build a “research sandbox” big enough for all of us to find answers to our questions, notice trends, encounter new information we had never considered and dream up opportunities to grow.

YoungStar

YoungStar is Wisconsin's child care quality rating and improvement system. We give parents the tools and information they need to raise happy, healthy kids. We help preschools, home-based programs, learning centers, and other child care providers give children safe, nurturing places to grow.

Child Support

The Wisconsin Child Support Program helps parents get court orders for financial and medical support for their children. It also enforces these support orders when needed and makes sure that all money collected is paid out correctly.

Refugee Assistance

The Bureau of Refugee Programs (BRP) receives grants from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and funds local statewide organizations to provide critical services to refugees. BRP ensures provision and coordination of services that help refugees achieve economic self-sufficiency and social adjustment upon their arrival to the U.S.

Wisconsin Works

The Bureau of Working Families is responsible for administering programs that provide assistance to low-income families in Wisconsin. The most widely known program in the bureau is the Wisconsin Works (W-2) employment program, but there are other vital employment programs within BWF, including the Emergency Assistance (EA), Job Access Loans (JAL), and the Transform Milwaukee Jobs (TMJ) and Transitional Jobs (TJ) subsidized employment programs, as well as a variety of programs in our Refugee Programs section. BWF is also responsible for administering Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) funding.

Child Welfare

The Division of Safety and Permanence (DSP) is responsible for overseeing the statewide child welfare and community-based youth justice systems. The purpose of Wisconsin’s child welfare system is to keep children safe and to support families to provide safe, permanent, and nurturing homes for their children. The vision for Wisconsin’s youth justice system is to serve each youth, individually, within the context of his or her family and culture, to acquire the tools to thrive in adulthood, while protecting public safety.

Youth Justice

The Department of Children and Families (DCF) is the state agency responsible for fiscal and programmatic oversight for the Youth Aids allocation and the community-based youth justice system. No matter which system “door” a youth enters, DCF strives to support a coordinated and comprehensive response to provide the support needed to fulfill its youth driven vision that “all youth have the tools to thrive in adulthood.”