Foster Care Statistics

Over 400,000 children are in Foster Care in the United States. The children are removed when their families can no longer take care of them.

Current statistics for Foster Youth

415,129 children were in foster care on September 30th, 2014, a 4% increase from 2012

264,746 children entered care - that translates to a child entering care every two minutes in the United States

238,230 children existed foster care

107,918 children waiting to be adopted on September 30th, 2014

60,898 children waiting to be adopted whose parental rights (for all living parents) were terminated

50,644 children adopted with public child welfare agency involvement 

Where are Foster Youth living?

  • 4% Pre-Adoptive Home
  • 29% Foster Family Home (Relative)
  • 46% Foster Family Home (Non-Relative)
  • 6% Group Home
  • 8% Institution
  • 1% Supervised Independent Living
  • 1% Runaway
  • 5% Trail Home Visit

 

How the Children are currently leaving the system

  • 51% Reunification with Parent(s) or Primary Caretaker(s)
  • 7% Living with other Relative(s)
  • 21% Adoption
  • 9% Emancipation
  • 9% Guardianship
  • 2% Transfer to Another Agency
  • 0% (1,138) Runaway
  • 0% (326) Death