State Fact Sheets
What data can tell us about foster placements for children and youth
Research is clear that children and youth in foster care have better outcomes when they are placed in the care of families.
This series of state fact sheets is the latest addition to a wide array of research and policy resources provided by the CHAMPS campaign to inform and guide decisions about foster care policy. The fact sheets are a collaboration between CHAMPS and Child Trends, the nation’s leading research organization focused exclusively on children and youth. The fact sheets present data on the different types of placement settings for children in foster care, including placements with relatives, other foster families, or group care. Each state fact sheet provides information about the different types of foster care placement by age, as well as by race and Hispanic origin. [See section below for a description of the methods used in creating the fact sheet.]
We encourage advocates and policymakers to use the data presented here to examine whether their state is doing all it can to ensure that children in foster care are in placements that will help them achieve the best possible outcomes. We offer TIPS FOR ADVOCATES in using the data.
We also encourage advocates and policymakers to see other CHAMPS resources, including the research-to-policy brief: Winning Approaches to Strengthening Family-Based Care.
Fact Sheets
| Alabama
|
Kentucky
|
North_Dakota
|
Methodology
Fact sheet sources include:
Child Trends’ analyses of data from the Adoption and Foster Care Reporting and Analysis System (AFCARS, v. 1) for federal fiscal year 2020. All states report data into AFCARS from their child welfare administrative data systems. Data for the statewide population of children by race and Hispanic origin come from the KIDS COUNT Data Center. Data presented are for children under 18 in foster care at the end of federal fiscal year 2020. Children in informal kinship care are not included in these fact sheets, because they are not considered to be in foster care, and because states do not report data into AFCARS on children in informal kinship care placements. Data on types of foster care placement settings pertain to the child’s placement setting at the end of the fiscal year. Children with missing data on variables of interest are included in the denominators in calculations of percentages. The data used in this publication, Dataset #258, Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (v. 1), were obtained from the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect and have been used in accordance with its Terms of Use Agreement license. The Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, the Children’s Bureau, the original dataset collection personnel or funding source, NDACAN, Cornell University and their agents or employees bear no responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented here.
1 – The percentages in congregate care, relative foster families, and non-relative foster families do not sum to 100 because children in other types of placements (supervised independent living, runaway, trial home visit, and pre-adoptive home) or for whom data on placement types are missing are not shown in this chart.
2 – The categories for race and Hispanic origin are mutually exclusive; if a child is reported to be Hispanic, they are included in the Hispanic category regardless of their race. Other categories exclude Hispanic children.
3 – Children and foster parents were identified as sharing the same race and/or Hispanic ethnicity if the race of at least one foster parent (regardless of Hispanic origin) is the same as that of either foster parent, or if the child and at least one foster parent are both Hispanic. For children and/or foster parents who are multi-racial, we compared each of the multiple racial and/or Hispanic ethnicity designations. If any of these designations was the same for the child and at least one
foster parent, we identified the child as sharing the same race and/or Hispanic ethnicity with their foster parent.
This methods information is included on the final page of each state fact sheet.
Publication Date: June 2022
Get Involved
We invite you to get involved in CHAMPS and be part of building bright futures for kids in foster care.