How many children were in foster care on September 30,2005?

513,000


Continuing from my previous posts regarding the statistics of children in foster care I found these numbers(below) on The AFCARS Report.

(I’m not a statistical anyalist by any stretch. I just liked reading the numbers.)

Over 100,000 children in foster care are aged sixteen and above. Most children aged about 16 and above will age out of the foster system or move into adult care.

(Of course, there are exceptions, and many older teenagers will be adopted, but the odds are against them).

Another 290,000 will go back to live with bio-relatives.

According to this same report, only 100,000 of these 500,000 foster children have a goal of adoption. The rest of the children won't ever be considered for adoption - they'll return home, or go to relatives, or move out on their own.

Reunify with Parent(s) or
Principal Caretaker(s) 51% 262,706
Live with Other Relative(s) 4% 21,722
Adoption 20% 100,949
Long Term Foster Care 7% 37,628
Emancipation 6% 31,938
Guardianship 3% 15,653
Case Plan Goal Not Yet Established 8% 42,403

Then look at the ages: There were 29,000 infants in foster care in 2006 - and some of those were adopted. (like by me!) Another 60,000 children were pre-school age.

The ages of the children in foster care:

Less than 1 Year 6% 29,034
1 Year 6% 32,439
2 Years 6% 29,580
3 Years 5% 26,552
4 Years 5% 24,558
5 Years 4% 22,405
6 Years 4% 21,521
7 Years 4% 20,687
8 Years 4% 19,717
9 Years 4% 19,375
10 Years 4% 19,488
11 Years 4% 20,693
12 Years 5% 23,570
13 Years 5% 27,081
14 Years 6% 33,002
15 Years 8% 38,589
16 Years 8% 41,695
17 Years 8% 39,018
18 Years 3% 14,007
19 Years 1% 5,963
20 Years 1% 4,027

As expected, most are teenageers and I would guess the ones that stay in foster care the longest. Almost 40% of children leave foster care within a year. I wish it were a larger number - like 90%.

What were the lengths of stay in foster care?

Mean Months 28.6 Median Months
15.5

Less than 1 Month
5%
26,302

1 to 5 Months
20%
100,275

6 to 11 Months
17%
89,460

12 to 17 Months
12%
63,885

18 to 23 Months
9%
45,912

24 to 29 Months
7%
34,928

30 to 35 Months
5%
24,302

3 to 4 Years
11%
58,341

5 Years or More
14%
69,595

14% stay in foster care over 5 years. I hope they get to stay with the same family, but I'm afraid that isn't always true.

There is a lot of info on this report, but here's the part I find most interesting:

60% of adoptions out of foster care were by the foster parents.

Non-Relative 15% 7,502

Foster Parent 60% 30,683

Step-Parent 0% 56 (too small to count a percent?)

Other Relative 25% 12,759

Read the full report here.