Administrative Structure of States

There are two types of state structures which reflect how a state provides oversight and services to child welfare services. They are commonly referred to as (a) state supervised and county operated and (b) state operated. The majority of states are type (b) in which the state government employs and supervises the staff who provide the services. For those states that are type (a), the local government (county, district or city) employs the staff and provides the services while the state monitors compliance. In both types, the state is responsible for legislative and policy development as well as compliance with federal requirements.

For child welfare programs like ICAMA, working with states that provide services directly (type b) has one less layer of accountability to work through on such things as gathering information, achieving consensus on policy/practice issues and problem solving. Both types experience communication gaps and philosophical differences from office to office.

This chart lists special exceptions to type (b).