Foster care is designed as a temporary safe haven for children who are facing unsafe environments due to reasons like abuse, neglect, or abandonment. The federal foster care program, officially known as title IV-E, provides funding for locally managed services across the United States, including 50 states, Washington, DC, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and tribal territories with approved title IV-E plans.
Recent data from 2021 indicates that approximately 606,031 children experienced the US foster care system within a single year. This statistic, derived from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), includes children who were already in care at the beginning of the federal fiscal year (starting October 1, 2020) and those who entered the system in the subsequent 12 months. Looking at a snapshot on September 30, 2021, the last day of the fiscal year, there were about 391,098 kids in foster care.
AFCARS, established by the Department of Health and Human Services, plays a crucial role in gathering comprehensive foster care and adoption data from all title IV-E jurisdictions. This system meticulously tracks children’s journeys into and out of foster care, adoptions, and the number of children awaiting adoption.
The program also provides figures on children who are waiting to be adopted because their parents’ parental rights have been terminated. As of the end of fiscal year 2021, this number stood at 64,985.
Trends in Foster Care Numbers
Interestingly, over the past two decades, there has been a general downward trend in the number of children in foster care each year. The exception to this decline was a five-year period between 2013 and 2018, where numbers saw an increase.
