By John Kelly, Image: Screenshot from article, The Imprint, November 1, 2022
The number of youth in foster care dropped below 400,000 for the first time since 2012 last year, according to data released today by the Administration for Children and Families.
There were 391,098 youth in foster care in 2021, according to today’s report from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, which uses a point-in-time count from September 30 of a given year to track the nation’s foster care population. That is a 4% decrease from 2020, an 8% drop from 2019, and an 11% decline from the recent peak of 437,337 in 2018.
The number of youth entering foster care continued to decline in 2021 to 206,812, down about 5% from 2020. That continuing trend suggests that while the social isolation policies that came with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic certainly contributed to fewer investigations of abuse and neglect, there could be other social and systemic factors contributing to decreasing use of foster care.
Comments (0)