In 2022, about 368,530 children in the United States were living in foster care. This is a sharp decrease from the previous year, when about 407,318 children were living in foster care nationwide.

In 2021, there were 168,063 white children in foster care in the United States. This is compared to 86,645 Black or African American children and 85,215 Hispanic children who were in foster care.

Foster care in the United States

Foster care is where minors are taken care of in different institutions, such as a group home or private home of a caregiver certified by the state (called a foster parent). The procedure for becoming a foster parent in the United States varies from state to state. It is up to the state to determine the process; however it is overseen by the Department of Child Protective Services. It is sometimes seen as a precursor to adoption, which is different from fostering a child. There are many barriers to fostering and adopting children, such as high costs and long wait times, which can discourage people from doing it.

Who are foster children?

The number of children in foster care in the United States has decreased slightly since 2011. When looked at by age, most of the children in foster care in 2020 were one year old, and slightly more male children were in foster care than female children. Most of the children in foster care were placed into non-relative foster family homes, and in most cases, the primary goal of foster care is to reunify children with their parents or primary caregivers.

The purpose of this data set is to provide information on the total number of admissions, discharges, and children in foster care, the type of care, and total Child Protective Services (CPS) reports indicated during period.

Number of children under age 21 in foster care as of July 1 of each year, by age group. This is a point-in-time, unduplicated count of children under the supervision of county welfare departments and excludes cases under the supervision of county probation departments, out-of-state agencies, state adoptions district offices, and Indian child welfare departments. The total by age group may not add up to total number of children in foster care due to missing values. U.S. totals reflect children in foster care as of Sept. 30 each year. N/A means that data are not available. Note: Although U.S. data are not available for children ages 1-2 and 3-5, data for children ages 1-5, combined, is available on KIDS COUNT. Data Source: Needell, B., et al. (May 2014). Child Welfare Services Reports for California, U.C. Berkeley Center for Social Services Research; U.S. data come from Child Trends analysis of Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System data available through the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect, as cited on KIDS COUNT (May 2014). Retrieved on May 31, 2015.

In 2022, about 25,338 children under one-year-old in the United States were living in foster care. In that same year, about 20,163 children aged 16 years old were living in foster care nationwide.

The purpose of this data set is to provide information on the total number of admissions, discharges, and children in foster care, the type of care, and total Child Protective Services (CPS) reports indicated during period.

Content

The purpose of this data set is to provide information on the total number of admissions, discharges, and children in foster care, the type of care, and total Child Protective Services (CPS) reports indicated during period.

Context

This is a dataset hosted by the State of New York. The state has an open data platform found here and they update their information according the amount of data that is brought in. Explore New York State using Kaggle and all of the data sources available through the State of New York organization page!

• Update Frequency: This dataset is updated annually.

Acknowledgements

This dataset is maintained using Socrata's API and Kaggle's API. Socrata has assisted countless organizations with hosting their open data and has been an integral part of the process of bringing more data to the public.

Cover photo by Aaron Huber on Unsplash
Unsplash Images are distributed under a unique Unsplash License.

In 2022, about 108,877 children in the United States were waiting to be adopted. This is a decrease from a high of 133,682 children who were waiting to be adopted nationwide in 2007.

No. of Children in Foster Care General 2025. Published by Tusla. Available under the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0).Performance metrics for by year No. of Children in Foster Care General...

Number of children under age 21 in foster care as of July 1 of each year, by race/ethnicity. This is a point-in-time, unduplicated count of children under the supervision of county welfare departments and excludes cases under the supervision of county probation departments, out-of-state agencies, state adoptions district offices, and Indian child welfare departments. The total by race/ethnicity may not add up to total number of children in foster care due to missing values. U.S. totals reflect children in foster care as of Sept. 30 each year. N/A means that data are not available. Data Source: As cited on kidsdata.org, Needell, B., et al. (May 2014). Child Welfare Services Reports forCalifornia, U.C. Berkeley Center for Social Services Research; U.S. data come from Child Trends analysis of Adoption and Foster CareAnalysis and Reporting System data available through the National DataArchive on Child Abuse & Neglect, as cited on KIDS COUNT (May 2014). Retrieved on May 31, 2015.

report is produced quarterly and annually as per City Council as per LL20 of 2006. the report covers child protection and foster care.

This dataset summarizes the number of dependent children (less than 18 years old) removed from households due to parental drug abuse. The data indicates if the dependent children were placed in kinship care or not. The total number of children in this data set are provided by the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), which publishes 5 year estimates of the population. The most recent year of entries in this data set may be available before the corresponding ACS population estimates for that year are published. In that case, the data set uses values from the most recently published ACS estimates and notes the year from which those estimates are pulled. These values are updated once the Census Bureau releases the most recent estimates.” *Kinship care refers to the care of children by relatives or, in some jurisdictions, close family friends (often referred to as fictive kin). Relatives are the preferred resource for children who must be removed from their birth parents because it maintains the children's connections with their families. *The Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) definition of parental drug abuse is “Principal caretaker’s compulsive use of drugs that is not of a temporary nature.”

In 2021, about 35,940 children who were adopted in the United States with public agency involvement were adopted by a married couple. In that same year, a further 13,307 children in the country were adopted by a single woman.

No. of Children in Foster Care General in a Private Placement 2025. Published by Tusla. Available under the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0).Performance metrics for by year No. of Children in Foster Care General in a Private Placement...

Excel version of report to City Council required per LL 147

The injuries that led to the child's death may have been sustained prior to DFPS being granted to legal custody. For example, in Fiscal Year 2016 six children died while in DFPS Conservatorship (five while in Foster Care). However, four of these children sustained the injuries that led to their death prior to being placed in DFPS custody.

This chart includes child fatalities investigated and confirmed by Child Protective Investigations, Day Care Investigations, and Residential Child Care Investigations, and Adult Protective Services. Fatality information does not include corrections or updates, if any, that may subsequently be made to DFPS data after fiscal year end.

Only Children in DFPS Legal Responsibility (Conservatorship) are included. You can further filter to see how many were in Foster Care at the time of death.

The Adult Protective Provider Investigations division was tranferred to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) in Fiscal Year 2018.

This dashboard addresses Texas Family Code Section 264.017, Subsection (b) (4) and (5).

This indicator considers the children who are adopted from foster care each year, and then computes the number of children who are adopted less than 24 months from their most recent removal from home. Note that a minority of foster children are adopted; most are reunited with their family, while others exit to guardianship or age out of the system. Length of time to adoption is calculated based on an unduplicated count of children under the supervision of county welfare departments and excludes children under the supervision of county probation departments, out-of-state agencies, state adoptions district offices, and Indian child welfare departments. For percents, LNE (Low Number Event) refers to data that have been suppressed because there were fewer than 40 total cases that year. Data Source: Needell, B., et al. (May 2014). Child Welfare Services Reports forCalifornia, U.C. Berkeley Center for Social Services Research. As cited on kidsdata.org, a program of the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health. Retrieved on May 31, 2015.

No. of Children in Relative Foster Care 2025. Published by Tusla. Available under the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0).Performance metrics for by year No. of Children in Relative Foster Care...

report is produced quarterly and annually as per City Council as per LL20 of 2006. the report covers child protection and foster care.