Child Welfare and Foster Care Statistics

Our nation’s child wel­fare sys­tem strives to pro­tect chil­dren from mal­treat­ment, sup­port fam­i­lies in cri­sis, keep chil­dren safe­ly with their par­ents when pos­si­ble, pro­vide tem­po­rary out-of-home care for chil­dren when need­ed and ulti­mate­ly ensure that chil­dren have safe, per­ma­nent homes with their fam­i­lies, rel­a­tives, adop­tive par­ents or legal guardians. This post pro­vides the lat­est sta­tis­tics on child wel­fare in the Unit­ed States, focus­ing on fos­ter care sta­tis­tics, from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT^® Data Cen­ter, a robust source of the best avail­able data on child well-being in the nation.

KIDS COUNT includes state-by-state data on child abuse and neglect and chil­dren liv­ing in out-of-home care from the Nation­al Child Abuse and Neglect Data Sys­tem, the fed­er­al Adop­tion and Fos­ter Care Analy­sis and Report­ing Sys­tem, and the Nation­al Youth in Tran­si­tion Data­base. These data help our Foun­da­tion and lead­ers across the coun­try to mon­i­tor trends, assess the child wel­fare sys­tem, and advance poli­cies and prac­tices to improve out­comes for chil­dren, youth and fam­i­lies — par­tic­u­lar­ly for chil­dren of col­or who are over­rep­re­sent­ed in the sys­tem and more like­ly to expe­ri­ence neg­a­tive outcomes.

Stay up to date with the lat­est infor­ma­tion on child wel­fare by sign­ing up for our newslet­ter and explor­ing our child wel­fare and fos­ter care resources

Child Wel­fare by the Numbers

KIDS COUNT offers more than 60 mea­sures of child wel­fare, encom­pass­ing how many chil­dren and youth are in the sys­tem, the rates at which they enter it, their demo­graph­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics (includ­ing race and eth­nic­i­ty when avail­able) and their expe­ri­ences in fos­ter care, exit­ing care, being adopt­ed when applic­a­ble, aging out of the sys­tem and more. In addi­tion to child wel­fare sta­tis­tics at the nation­al and state lev­els, KIDS COUNT also pro­vides data by ter­ri­to­ry, when pos­si­ble. Pol­i­cy­mak­ers, child wel­fare agen­cies and oth­ers have used these data for decades to under­stand how well the sys­tem is meet­ing the needs of vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren, youth and fam­i­lies, and how it can be strength­ened so that all abused and neglect­ed chil­dren can heal and grow up with safe, sta­ble families.

Sta­tis­tics on Emo­tion­al, Behav­ioral and Health Prob­lems Linked to Child Trauma

Chil­dren and youth who expe­ri­ence trau­ma, includ­ing abuse or neglect, are at increased risk for long-term emo­tion­al, behav­ioral and phys­i­cal health prob­lems, among oth­er chal­lenges. KIDS COUNT offers scores of addi­tion­al mea­sures that describe these types of life chal­lenges for chil­dren and youth, rang­ing from high-risk behav­ior, such as juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem involve­ment and sub­stance abuse, to dif­fi­cul­ties with men­tal health, phys­i­cal health and aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance (these data are pro­vid­ed by state and race and eth­nic­i­ty, as well as oth­er break­downs, when pos­si­ble). Impor­tant­ly, the con­se­quences of child mal­treat­ment can be mit­i­gat­ed with equi­table access to trau­ma-informed ser­vices and nur­tur­ing, last­ing fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships and support.

Child Mal­treat­ment Trends

The like­li­hood that a child will be abused or neglect­ed in the Unit­ed States has improved slight­ly in recent years: 8 in every 1,000 kids under 18 were con­firmed vic­tims of mal­treat­ment in 2020 and 2021, after hold­ing steady at 9 per 1,000 from 2015 to 2019. Of approx­i­mate­ly 585,000 vic­tims in 2021, three in four expe­ri­enced neglect, con­sis­tent­ly the most com­mon type of mal­treat­ment. About 1 in 6 (16%) of these chil­dren were phys­i­cal­ly abused, 10% were sex­u­al­ly abused, 6% were emo­tion­al­ly abused and 2% expe­ri­enced med­ical neglect. Young kids are the most at risk, as 70% of ver­i­fied vic­tims were 10 and under in 2021, sim­i­lar to pre­vi­ous years.

Fos­ter Care Statistics

Fos­ter care is meant to pro­vide safe, tem­po­rary liv­ing arrange­ments and sup­port ser­vices for chil­dren who have been removed from their fam­i­lies due to mal­treat­ment, lack of safe­ty or inad­e­quate care. The fol­low­ing selec­tion of fos­ter care sta­tis­tics from KIDS COUNT describes chil­dren who enter care, their demo­graph­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics, their liv­ing arrange­ments dur­ing fos­ter care, where they go when they exit care and the expe­ri­ences of youth who nev­er leave and age out of the sys­tem. These are crit­i­cal indi­ca­tors that can flag areas for sys­tem improve­ment, such as the dis­pro­por­tion­ate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of chil­dren of col­or and the need to bet­ter sup­port old­er youth in fos­ter care.

Learn more about the fos­ter care system

Chil­dren Enter­ing Fos­ter Care

In 2021, 203,770 chil­dren under 18 entered fos­ter care in the Unit­ed States, a rate of 3 per 1,000. The rate of entry has hov­ered at 3 or 4 per 1,000 for two decades. Kids ages 1 to 5 make up the largest share (29% in 2021) of chil­dren enter­ing care. Nation­al data also show that Black and Amer­i­can Indi­an and Alas­ka Native chil­dren con­tin­ue to be over­rep­re­sent­ed among those enter­ing fos­ter care. In 2021, Black chil­dren rep­re­sent­ed 20% of those enter­ing care but only 14% of the total child pop­u­la­tion, while Amer­i­can Indi­an and Alas­ka Native kids made up 2% of those enter­ing care and 1% of the child pop­u­la­tion. The rea­sons for this are com­plex, and efforts to improve racial equi­ty in child wel­fare have been under­way for many years.

Explore more sta­tis­tics on chil­dren enter­ing fos­ter care, includ­ing data by state:

• Chil­dren 0 to 17 enter­ing fos­ter care (num­ber and rate)
• Chil­dren and youth of all ages enter­ing fos­ter care (num­ber only)
• Chil­dren enter­ing fos­ter care by age group
• Chil­dren enter­ing fos­ter care by gender
• Chil­dren enter­ing fos­ter care by race and ethnicity

Chil­dren in Fos­ter Care

Once chil­dren enter fos­ter care, the goal is to either safe­ly reuni­fy them with their par­ents if the fam­i­ly con­cerns are resolved or secure anoth­er per­ma­nent fam­i­ly. A total of 391,641 chil­dren and youth were liv­ing in fos­ter care in 2021, a fig­ure that has been declin­ing since 2017. Sim­i­lar to pre­vi­ous years, 34% of these chil­dren are ages 1 to 5 and 7% are babies. Con­sis­tent with the inequities described above, nation­al data on chil­dren in fos­ter care illus­trate the dis­pro­por­tion­ate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Black and Amer­i­can Indi­an and Alas­ka Native chil­dren, in particular.

Less than half (44% in 2021) of fos­ter chil­dren are placed with non­-rel­a­­tive fos­ter fam­i­lies, a slight decline from pri­or years. In encour­ag­ing news, place­ments with rel­a­tives increased from 25% to 35% dur­ing 2000–2021, while place­ments in group homes or oth­er facil­i­ties were cut in half, from 18% to 9%. Few­er chil­dren are placed in pre-adop­tive homes (4% in 2021) or have tri­al home vis­its (5%), and some old­er youth live inde­pen­dent­ly with super­vi­sion (2%).

Over a third of fos­ter chil­dren and youth expe­ri­ence more than two place­ments each year, mean­ing their liv­ing arrange­ments change at least three times a year. At the state lev­el in 2021, this fig­ure ranged from 24% to 51%. Child wel­fare agen­cies are work­ing to min­i­mize these moves, as they are dis­rup­tive, stress­ful and often trau­ma­tiz­ing. Sta­ble rela­tion­ships and home envi­ron­ments are crit­i­cal for healthy child and youth development.

Access all sta­tis­tics on chil­dren in fos­ter care, includ­ing data by state:

• Chil­dren birth to 17 in fos­ter care (num­ber and rate)
• Chil­dren and youth of all ages in fos­ter care (num­ber only)
• Chil­dren in fos­ter care by age group
• Chil­dren in fos­ter care by race and ethnicity
• Chil­dren in fos­ter care by gender
• Chil­dren in fos­ter care by place­ment type
• Chil­dren in fos­ter care with more than two placements

Sta­tis­tics on chil­dren in fos­ter care wait­ing for adop­tion:

• by amount of time waiting
• by age group
• by race and ethnicity

Relat­ed sta­tis­tics on chil­dren in out-of-home care from KIDS COUNT:

• Chil­dren in kin­ship care
• Chil­dren in the care of grandparents
• Chil­dren liv­ing with nei­ther parent

Learn about kin­ship care.

Chil­dren Exit­ing Fos­ter Care

The lat­est data show that 214,542 chil­dren and youth exit­ed fos­ter care in 2021 and just under half (47%) were reunit­ed with their par­ent or pri­ma­ry care­tak­er, down from 57% in 2000. Adop­tions from fos­ter care have increased over the last two decades, from 17% of kids going to adop­tive homes in 2000 to 25% in 2021. Chil­dren exit­ing care to live with legal guardians also jumped from 3% to 12% in the same peri­od. Oth­er com­mon out­comes for chil­dren and youth who can­not return to their par­ents include liv­ing with oth­er rel­a­tives (6%) and eman­ci­pa­tion (9%), also known as aging out of fos­ter care.

Of the more than 54,000 kids adopt­ed out of the child wel­fare sys­tem in 2021, over half were young kids ages 1 to 5, con­sis­tent with pre­vi­ous years. Most of these adop­tions are by the fos­ter par­ents (either rel­a­tives or non-rel­a­tives), who cared for the chil­dren while in fos­ter care.

Explore all sta­tis­tics about young peo­ple exit­ing fos­ter care and those who have been adopted:

• Chil­dren exit­ing fos­ter care
  • by age group
  • by race and ethnicity
  • by gen­der
  • by exit reason
• Chil­dren in the child wel­fare sys­tem who have been adopted
  • by age group
  • by pre-adop­tive rela­tion­ship with adop­tive parents
  • by race and ethnicity

Youth Aging Out of Fos­ter Care

More than 19,000 youth left fos­ter care in 2021 with­out reunit­ing with their par­ents or hav­ing anoth­er per­ma­nent fam­i­ly home, a fig­ure that has declined since peak­ing at near­ly 30,000 in 2008. The tran­si­tion to adult­hood is a sig­nif­i­cant and chal­leng­ing devel­op­men­tal phase of life for all young peo­ple, but youth aging out of fos­ter care on their own must face this with­out the sup­port of a sta­ble, lov­ing fam­i­ly. Many also lose access to ser­vices and sup­ports offered through the fos­ter care sys­tem. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, these youth and young adults are more like­ly to expe­ri­ence behav­ioral, men­tal and phys­i­cal health issues, hous­ing prob­lems and home­less­ness, employ­ment and aca­d­e­m­ic dif­fi­cul­ties, ear­ly par­ent­hood, incar­cer­a­tion and oth­er poten­tial­ly life­long adver­si­ties. In line with the racial inequities not­ed ear­li­er, youth of col­or are more like­ly to expe­ri­ence these chal­lenges. The tra­jec­to­ries of these young peo­ple are not guar­an­teed, how­ev­er. They can be pos­i­tive­ly influ­enced by poli­cies and prac­tices that ensure these vul­ner­a­ble youths receive cul­­tur­al­­ly-respon­­sive, trau­­ma-informed tran­si­tion ser­vices and sup­port to nav­i­gate the steps to adult­hood, achieve sta­bil­i­ty and reach their full potential.

Rec­og­niz­ing the impor­tance of focus­ing on this pop­u­la­tion, the Foun­da­tion pro­vides in-depth resources on youth aging out of fos­ter care and 30 indi­ca­tors describ­ing the chal­lenges they face as well as the sup­port they receive, includ­ing aca­d­e­m­ic, employ­ment, health, finan­cial, men­tor­ing and oth­er tran­si­tion services.

Key find­ings among youth tran­si­tion­ing out of fos­ter care:

• One in five report expe­ri­enc­ing home­less­ness between ages 17 and 19, and over one in four (29%) report being home­less from 19 to 21. Among Amer­i­can Indi­an and Alas­ka Native young adults, the fig­ure jumps to almost half (43%) for ages 19 to 21.
• One in five report being incar­cer­at­ed between ages 17 to 19 as well as ages 19 to 21. See data by state and race and ethnicity.
• One in 10 report becom­ing a par­ent between ages 17 to 19 while near­ly one in four (23%) say they became par­ents between ages 19 to 21.
• By age 21, over two-thirds (70%) have a high school diplo­ma or equiv­a­lent. The same is true for 64% of Amer­i­can Indi­an and Alas­ka Native and 78% of Asian Amer­i­can young adults.
• Just 57% report being employed (full- or part-time) at age 21, with this fig­ure rang­ing from 51% for Amer­i­can Indi­an and Alas­ka Native young adults to 63% for Asian Americans.
• From 2015 to 2018, youth ages 14 and old­er became less like­ly to access tran­si­tion ser­vices — of all types — offered via the fed­er­al John H. Chafee Fos­ter Care Inde­pen­dence Pro­gram. In 2018, 40% of young peo­ple received aca­d­e­m­ic sup­port, 16% received men­tor­ing sup­port and 15% received edu­ca­tion finan­cial assis­tance. KIDS COUNT tracks 11 mea­sures for each ser­vice received by race and eth­nic­i­ty (once a new win­dow opens, scroll down to the final statistics).

Oth­er Sta­tis­tics Linked to Child­hood Adver­si­ty and Trauma

When kids expe­ri­ence trau­ma — such as abuse, neglect or even hard­ships dur­ing fos­ter care — these events can dis­rupt healthy devel­op­ment and cause last­ing consequences.

KIDS COUNT offers an array of state-lev­el sta­tis­tics on these issues, with much of it avail­able by race and oth­er demo­graph­ic fac­tors. This includ­es data on:

• Safe­ty and risky behav­iors, such as youth resid­ing in juve­nile deten­tion facil­i­ties, and teens abus­ing alco­hol or using cig­a­rettes, mar­i­jua­na and oth­er drugs
• Men­tal and phys­i­cal health, such as young adults feel­ing depressed or hope­less, and health con­di­tions (e.g., obe­si­ty, asth­ma and spe­cial health care needs)
• Aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment and relat­ed issues; for exam­ple, test scores, house­hold inter­net access, school dis­ci­pline, stu­dents miss­ing school, stu­dents not com­plet­ing high school, teens nei­ther work­ing nor in school and much more 
• Youth and young adult well-being, which spans 60 mea­sures in areas like employ­ment, pover­ty, edu­ca­tion, health, and fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty issues

Learn More About Child Wel­fare in the Unit­ed States

Reports and Resources on Child Wel­fare and Fos­ter Care

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion has been pub­lish­ing resources and devel­op­ing new solu­tions to sup­port vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren and fam­i­lies for more than two decades. Resources like the fol­low­ing reports help child wel­fare agen­cies, pol­i­cy­mak­ers and advo­cates improve the child wel­fare system:

• Thriv­ing Fam­i­lies, Safer Chil­dren: This arti­cle describes a first-of-its-kind nation­al effort sup­port­ed by the Foun­da­tion and oth­er part­ners to rethink state and local child wel­fare sys­tems. The effort uses a pub­lic health frame­work to advance approach­es that cre­at­e con­di­tions for strong, thriv­ing families.
• Inte­grat­ing Pos­i­tive Youth Devel­op­ment and Racial Equi­ty, Inclu­sion and Belong­ing Approach­es Across the Child Wel­fare and Jus­tice Sys­tems: Devel­oped in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Child Trends and Child Focus, this report includes the STRENGTH frame­work, which builds on young adults’ assets, address­es their devel­op­men­tal needs and resource intro­duces a frame­work that builds on young adults’ assets, address­es their devel­op­men­tal needs and advances com­­mu­ni­­ty-based solu­tions that reduce or avoid fam­i­ly separations.
• Six Strate­gies for Keep­ing Fam­i­lies Sup­port­ed, Con­nect­ed and Safe: This brief shares six piv­otal strate­gies for coor­di­nat­ing and fund­ing com­mu­ni­ty efforts to sup­port fam­i­lies at risk of enter­ing the child wel­fare system.
• Meck­len­burg Coun­ty: Remak­ing a Child Wel­fare Sys­tem: This report looks at reform efforts in one North Car­oli­na coun­ty and explores how local child wel­fare lead­ers adopt­ed changes aimed at keep­ing more fam­i­lies togeth­er safe­ly while improv­ing the well-being of chil­dren and youth.
• From COVID-19 Response to Com­pre­hen­sive Change: This piece This brief high­lights his­tor­i­cal fed­er­al child wel­fare pol­i­cy achieve­ments and urges pol­i­cy­mak­ers to cham­pi­on new reforms that pro­mote last­ing ben­e­fits for all young peo­ple in and tran­si­tion­ing from fos­ter care.

Stay Con­nect­ed and Do a Deep Dive With Our Resources

Sign up for the Casey Foun­da­tion’s newslet­ter to get the lat­est reports, data and news on child wel­fare in the Unit­ed States, access KIDS COUNT data on child wel­fare and learn about pub­li­ca­tions, webi­na­rs, pod­casts, blog posts oth­er resources. Cov­ered top­ics include:

• Fos­ter care
• Child wel­fare
• Adop­tion
• Child pro­tec­tion
• Fam­i­ly First Pre­ven­tion Ser­vices Act
• Kin­ship care
• Guardian­ship
• Per­ma­nence
• Racial equi­ty and inclusion
• Youth in tran­si­tion (aging out)
• Chang­ing Child Pop­u­la­tion of the U.S.

See cur­rent trends in child well-being in the U.S in the 2024 Data Book