Federal Data Released Today Shows Foster Care Numbers Dropping After a Six-Year Surge

LOS ANGELES - Oct. 24, 2019 - PRLog -- Today, the federal government released national data on the number of children in foster care.

As The Chronicle of Social Change predicted, the data released by the Children's Bureau today confirms that foster care numbers declined in 2018, for the first time since 2011.

The annual report of the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), which draws data on youth in foster care from each state, found 437,283 youth living in foster care as of September 30, 2018. That total is 3,788 lower than last year's AFCARS report.

"While overall foster care numbers may be slowly declining there are still disturbing state-by-state trends," said Chronicle of Social Change Publisher Daniel Heimpel. "As our recently released reporting project 'Who Cares' shows: some states have seen dramatic rises in black and Native American Children, others underpay relatives who step up as foster parents and while there has been a national movement to stamp out the overuse of group homes some states have seen dramatic spikes in such placements."

Media Note: Review the Who Cares data here: https://www.fostercarecapacity.com/.

Heimpel and Chronicle Editor-in-Chief John Kelly are available for comment in regards to the federal data released today as well as their findings in Who Cares: A National Count of Foster Homes and Families released this month.

To request an interview with a Who Cares representative, contact Jennifer Devlin at 703-876-1714 or via email at Jennifer.devlin@cox.net. A webinar highlighting the data will take place on Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 10am PST/1pm EST.  To register for the webinar go to: http://bit.ly/32Kl3ff.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this release erroneously stated that the surge had lasted seven years rather than six, and that federal state-by-state data was not available.

About the Chronicle of Social Change

The Chronicle of Social Change is a nonprofit, nonpartisan daily news publication dedicated to covering the child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health and educational issues faced by vulnerable children and families. Published by Fostering Media Connections, The Chronicle is one of the most widely read outlets for people working and interacting with these systems, and a key driver of investigative and breaking-news journalism that impacts public policy and practice.

About Fostering Media Connections

Fostering Media Connections (FMC) is a nonprofit news organization that uses a mix of investigative, accountability and solution-oriented journalism to drive reform within the systems that serve vulnerable children, youth and their families. To do this FMC publishes a daily news site, The Chronicle of Social Change, and a print magazine, Fostering Families Today. Both have won numerous journalism awards.