Need for foster parents

We've had a few questions submitted from readers this week, and I would like to address one of those questions. Stephanie asked how many foster parents there are and if there's a need for more foster parents.


Thanks for the great question Stephanie! First I want to talk about the Child Welfare Information Gateway. They are a government organization that track all that information. The most recent data is from 2012, and at the end of the year there were 399,546 children in foster care. Throughout the year many children came into the program, and many were able to get out of the program and find a permanent home. There were about 254 thousand who entered the foster care program, and 241 thousand who left the program both through finding permanent homes, and becoming old enough to leave the program. That is a lot of children.


Within the foster care program the preferred placement is with relatives of the child. That being said, most of the time children are placed on nonrelative foster homes.

As this chart shows, most children are not placed with relatives. Only slightly over one quarter of all children in the foster program are placed with relatives. And only 6% are in the process of returning home through trial home visits. These children are returned home, but the State continues to supervise the child. After six months the child is considered to have left the foster care program.


Knowing that most children are placed in nonrelative families, we can see that there is a need for foster parents. There is a need for families to open their homes to take in these children. A quick google search shows that cities all around the country are asking for more families to join the foster program and take children into their homes. Most of the relative foster families only foster for that related child, and don't foster any more after that.


There are about 188,000 nonrelated foster families in the U.S. . But from the nonrelative families, many of these families end up adopting their foster child, and leaving the program, and others leave the program for a variety of reasons. Because of this there is a rather high turnover rate among foster parents, and retention is hard.


Because of the high turnover rate, there is always a great need for foster parents. These children need stable, safe homes to live in. If you know someone, or you yourself are interested you can learn more about joining the program at http://adoptuskids.org.










Sources:
Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2013). Foster care statistics 2012. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children’s Bureau.


"Foster Care." Foster Care. American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, May 2005. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.


"How Many Children Are in Foster Care in the U.S.? In My State?" Home. Children’s Bureau, n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2014.


"Understanding Foster Parenting: Using Administrative Data to Explore Retention." Understanding Foster Parenting: Using Administrative Data to Explore Retention, Main Page. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Jan. 2005. Web. 22 Feb. 2014