A Wealth of Research and Data on Foster Care

In 2024, an esti­mat­ed 345,059 chil­dren and youth were in fos­ter care – a tem­po­rary liv­ing sit­u­a­tion for chil­dren whose par­ents can­not take care of them and whose need for care has come to the atten­tion of child wel­fare agency staff. While in fos­ter care, chil­dren may live with rel­a­tives, with fos­ter fam­i­lies or in group facilities.

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion pro­vides a range of research, tools and data to improve under­stand­ing about fos­ter care and the child wel­fare system.

Trends in Group Placements

Despite long­stand­ing crit­i­cisms and calls for less restric­tive place­ment set­tings, group care ― also called con­gre­gate care ― is often used to meet the com­plex behav­ioral and men­tal health needs of chil­dren and youth who can­not live at home and serves as an alter­na­tive to short stays in treat­ment facil­i­ties. Using Con­gre­gate Care cap­tures data about these place­ments from 15 states over an eight-year peri­od. The report, by the Cen­ter for State Child Wel­fare Data, found that about 20% of young peo­ple enter­ing the child wel­fare sys­tem will expe­ri­ence at least one group place­ment, and approx­i­mate­ly 75% of these youth will spend their very first night in a group set­ting. A sep­a­rate study by Think of Us cap­tured per­spec­tives, atti­tudes and expe­ri­ences of young peo­ple who were recent­ly placed in con­gre­gate care and found harm­ful effects from these set­tings, includ­ing miss­ing out on nor­mal activ­i­ties, feel­ing a lack of love and becom­ing emo­tion­al­ly shut down or detached.

Learn More About Keep­ing Chil­dren Out of Group Place­ments 

Fos­ter Care’s Influ­ence on Racial and Eth­nic Identity

A recent brief explores how time in fos­ter care can influ­ence young people’s racial and eth­nic iden­ti­ties and rec­om­mends how to sup­port the crit­i­cal process of iden­ti­ty devel­op­ment for these youth. Con­duct­ed by Child Trends and fund­ed by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, the brief builds on a 2022 study and describes inter­views with young peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced the child wel­fare sys­tem. It fur­ther urges lead­ers to ensure that adults work­ing with youth are cul­tur­al­ly competent.

Sur­vey: Pri­or­i­ties for Child Wel­fare Research

A 2020 sur­vey from the Urban Insti­tute high­light­ed gaps in child wel­fare research, cap­tur­ing respons­es from 300 peo­ple involved with child wel­fare sys­tems across the coun­try, includ­ing agency staff, researchers and sys­tem con­stituents such as birth fam­i­lies, fos­ter par­ents and young adults for­mer­ly in fos­ter care. Respon­dents saw the great­est need for research that informs invest­ments in strength­en­ing fam­i­lies before child abuse and neglect can occur. In 2026, the Urban Insti­tute fol­lowed up with a research brief that sum­ma­rizes the lat­est evi­dence on pre­vent­ing child neglect.

Watch: Over­com­ing Chal­lenges to Eval­u­at­ing Child Wel­fare Programs

Spon­sored by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion and pre­sent­ed by the Urban Insti­tute, this 2026 webi­nar high­lights ways to strength­en­ eval­u­a­tions of child wel­fare ser­vices to more rapid­ly and prac­ti­cal­ly doc­u­ment what works. Based on the pub­lished series, From Evi­dence to Impact: Strength­en­ing Eval­u­a­tion in Child Wel­fare Ser­vices, the authors pro­vide insights for plan­ning, design­ing and imple­men­ting effec­tive pro­gram eval­u­a­tions. This is crit­i­cal to under­stand what’s work­ing, for whom and how ser­vices can be improved.

Evi­dence Des­ig­na­tion for ​“Con­nect” Par­ent­ing Skills Program

The Cal­i­for­nia Evi­­dence-Based Clear­ing­house for Child Wel­fare has des­ig­nat­ed Con­nect, a 10-week par­ent­ing skills and sup­port pro­gram,​“Well Sup­port­ed by Research Evi­dence” — its high­est rat­ing avail­able. The pro­gram pro­motes social, emo­tion­al and behav­ioral adjust­ment and attach­ment secu­ri­ty for youth between the ages of 8 and 18.

Webi­nar: Fund­ing Strate­gies to Sup­port Families

This webi­nar explores fund­ing streams and strate­gies that child wel­fare lead­ers can lever­age to sup­port fam­i­lies before they cross paths with the child wel­fare sys­tem. The ses­sion, ​“Fund­ing Strate­gies to Keep Fam­i­lies Sup­port­ed, Con­nect­ed and Safe,” high­lights how lead­ers can col­lab­o­rate with com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions and across gov­ern­ment systems.

Also see the July 2026 report on Financ­ing Strate­gies for State Child Wel­fare Sys­tems, by the Nation­al Con­fer­ence of State Leg­is­la­tures in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Casey Fam­i­ly Programs.

A Tool to Assess the Needs of Youth in Fos­ter Care

Read about the Casey Life Skills assess­ment, pro­duced by Casey Fam­i­ly Pro­grams, which can be used to iden­ti­fy which sources of sup­port and life skills that youth in fos­ter care need. The assess­ment tool is designed for youth ages 14 to 21 and can aid case­work­ers (as well as edu­ca­tors and men­tors) in iden­ti­fy­ing skill gaps ear­ly. In addi­tion, the tool aims to empow­er youth and ensure that indi­vid­ual learn­ing plans remain rel­e­vant as young peo­ple grow — and pro­motes under­stand­ing of the chang­ing strengths, strug­gles and goals of young people.

Build­ing Evi­dence to Advance Equity 

Using data and evi­dence to improve pro­grams is vital for non­prof­its, but real­iz­ing this may be dif­fi­cult as many oper­ate on razor-thin mar­gins. The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion spent sev­en years help­ing non­prof­its advance their use of data to bet­ter serve youth and fam­i­lies of col­or. Among the find­ings from this ini­tia­tive: most non­prof­its were able to strength­en their pro­gram imple­men­ta­tion and devel­op bet­ter-defined cul­tur­al­ly respon­sive services. 

Learn More About Guid­ing Ques­tions to Advance Equi­ty in Eval­u­a­tion and Research

Data on Adop­tions from Fos­ter Care

In 2024, more than one in four (27%) chil­dren who left fos­ter care in the Unit­ed States were adopt­ed by a fam­i­ly. Find all sta­tis­tics on adop­tions from fos­ter care on the KIDS COUNT^® Data Center.

Fos­ter Care Explained

Learn more about fos­ter care, includ­ing what it is, how it works, rel­e­vant data and infor­ma­tion about how to improve the nation’s fos­ter care sys­tem to sup­port bet­ter out­comes for chil­dren and young peo­ple. In addi­tion, find our lat­est wrap up of child wel­fare and fos­ter care sta­tis­tics.

Extend­ed Fos­ter Care Explained

For kids in fos­ter care, inde­pen­dence with­out adult guid­ance is par­tic­u­lar­ly chal­leng­ing, com­ing at a time when they are going through devel­op­men­tal changes, grad­u­at­ing high school and prepar­ing to nav­i­gate high­er edu­ca­tion or enter the work­ing world. Rec­og­niz­ing this, many states offer extend­ed fos­ter care — an approach that allows youth to remain in or re-enter care beyond their 18^th birth­day. This change gives young peo­ple more time to suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gate the crit­i­cal tran­si­tion to adult­hood while also afford­ing the child wel­fare sys­tem more time to secure a lov­ing and per­ma­nent sup­port net­work for each youth in care.

Read About the Sub­stan­tial Evi­dence for Extend­ed Fos­ter Care