The Children's Service Needs Assessment Project had its origin in a 1977 Washington State legislative Budget Committee performance audit of the adoption program and the state child care system. The audit called for comparable information about children across programs administered by the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). In 1979 the legislature authorized a four-year research project to collect this information for use in planning programs, monitoring performance, and assessing the degree to which the child care system is appropriately serving children.