May Is National Foster Care Month

For 31 days each year, the nation’s atten­tion shifts to focus on the sto­ries of chil­dren and fam­i­lies whose lives have been affect­ed by fos­ter care.

The piv­ot is inten­tion­al — and dates back to 1988 when Pres­i­dent Ronald Rea­gan issued a procla­ma­tion estab­lish­ing May as Nation­al Fos­ter Care Month. Today, this prece­dent endures. It rec­og­nizes the needs of kids and youth in fos­ter care and cel­e­brates the many sup­port­ers who are mak­ing a pow­er­ful and pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in their lives. 

This May, in hon­or of Nation­al Fos­ter Care Month, the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion is shar­ing select facts about fos­ter care in Amer­i­ca. The lat­est research tells us that:

• More than 360,000 chil­dren and youth are in fos­ter care on any giv­en day.
• The major­i­ty of kids in care — 55% — enter the fos­ter care sys­tem due to neglect.
• Young kids under age 6 are the largest group in care (39%), while chil­dren 6 to 10 and 11 to 15 each make up 22% and old­er youth 16 to 20 com­prise 18%, accord­ing to 2023 data. Most states allow young adults to remain in fos­ter care a few years beyond 18. 
• The medi­an length of time chil­dren spend in care is less than 24 months in most (48) states, accord­ing to a recent report from the Admin­is­tra­tion for Chil­dren & Fam­i­lies.
• Kids in care are pre­dom­i­nant­ly white (42%), Black (23%) and Lati­no (22%). How­ev­er, Amer­i­can Indi­an and Alas­ka Native, Black and mul­tira­cial chil­dren con­tin­ue to be dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly rep­re­sent­ed in fos­ter care. For instance, Amer­i­can Indi­an and Alas­ka Native chil­dren have the high­est rate per pop­u­la­tion in fos­ter care, at 13.1 in every 1,000 kids, more than three times the nation­al aver­age of 4.1 per 1,000, fol­lowed by mul­tira­cial (7.3) and Black (7.1) children.
• More than 85,000 chil­dren and youth are wait­ing to be adopted.
• Just under one-third (31%) of kids in care are placed with rel­a­tives, which can help with sta­bil­i­ty and reduce trau­ma. A larg­er share (43%) of kids are placed with non-rel­a­tive fos­ter fam­i­lies. Kids gen­er­al­ly do bet­ter in fam­i­ly set­tings com­pared with group homes and institutions.
• More than half — 53% — of kids in care are seek­ing to reunite with their birth par­ents or pri­ma­ry care­tak­ers, accord­ing to their care plan goals.
• How­ev­er, more than 15,000 young adults eman­ci­pate or ​“age out” of fos­ter care each year with­out reunit­ing with their fam­i­lies or obtain­ing anoth­er per­ma­nent fam­i­ly. These young peo­ple face increased risks of hard­ships such as home­less­ness, unem­ploy­ment, and men­tal and behav­ioral health problems.
• Youth in fos­ter care who are tran­si­tion­ing to adult­hood are up to four times more like­ly to have men­tal health dis­or­ders, such as depres­sion and PTSD, com­pared to the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion with sim­i­lar demo­graph­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics. Among for­mer fos­ter chil­dren, an esti­mat­ed 60% have a life­time preva­lence of a men­tal health condition. 
• Trau­ma-informed care, kin place­ments and sta­ble place­ments can help mit­i­gate the chal­lenges that chil­dren face in fos­ter care. 

For many Amer­i­cans, the focus on fos­ter care does not fade after the month of May. To help sup­port three groups who nav­i­gate the sys­tem every day — kids in care, fos­ter par­ents and child wel­fare pro­fes­sion­als — the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion funds pro­grams and research, tracks data, advo­cates for effec­tive poli­cies and com­piles key resources.

See the resource lists for:

• Kids in fos­ter care
• Fos­ter parents
• Child wel­fare experts

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