Benefit assessments in child welfare
Nicola Robinson
NSW Department of Community Services
Contact Email:   Nicola.Robinsoncommunity.nsw.gov.au

Decisions about public funding of child protection and welfare programs require consideration of the relative costs and benefits. Costs often receive greater emphasis than benefits because they are generally easier to express in monetary terms.

This paper aims to enhance the understanding of the range of benefits associated with child protection and welfare programs and the techniques available to place a monetary value on them. A number of valuation techniques are examined and are categorised into market-based techniques, surrogate market techniques and survey-based techniques. Their strengths and weaknesses and the contexts within which each technique would be applicable are discussed. The paper also describes the database of benefit assessments, which facilitates transferring the results of previous benefit assessments to new program proposals. The database clearly outlines the design characteristics and the general social and economic context of the existing studies to ensure the estimates are applicable to the new program.

As accumulated experience in the application of the valuation techniques increases, confidence in both the techniques and the resulting estimates will increase, leading to a better understanding of the benefits of child welfare programs and better informed decisions in child welfare policy making.

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