• National Foster Care and Adoption Statistics
  These statistics are taken from the AFCARS courtesy of the Children's Bureau. Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) data. Visit the Children's Bureau website for more details.
  • 510,000 = Number of children in foster care on September 30, 2006

  • 129,000 = Number of children waiting to be adopted on September 30, 2006

  • 51,000 = Number of children adopted from the public foster care system in FY 2006

• State Fact Sheets on Foster Care
  The NRCFCPPP prepared these fact sheets about foster care for the National Foster Care Month campaign. Most data was supplied by the Children's Bureau for Fiscal Year 2003. Some states have provided more current statistics from their own data systems.

• Foster Care: Numbers and Trends
  This factsheet from the Child Welfare Information Gateway provides the most recent national statistical estimates for children in foster care from fiscal year (FY) 2003 and also provides earlier data from FY 1998 to allow for some estimate of trends over time. Data were obtained from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS). AFCARS collects case-level information on all children in foster care for whom State child welfare agencies have responsibility for placement, care, or supervision and on children who are adopted under the auspices of the State's public child welfare agency.

• State by State Foster Care and Adoption Statistics
  The Children's Bureau also provides some state-by-state data.

• Research Briefs from NSCAW
  Two research briefs provide information gathered from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW).
  • Who are the Children in Foster Care?, describes the characteristics, experiences of abuse/neglect, living situations, and status of 727 children who have been in foster care for one year.
  • Foster Children's Caregivers and Caregiving Environments provides some information about the families who care for children in foster care, children's perceptions of their caregivers and living arrangements, and reunification plans for this group of children.

• The Child Welfare Outcomes Annual Reports
  These annual reports to the Congress are required by the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA). Reports depict the performance of each States on seven national child welfare outcomes:
  • Reduce recurrence of child abuse and/or neglect,
  • Reduce the incidence of child abuse and/or neglect in foster care,
  • Increase permanency for children in foster care,
  • Reduce time in foster care to reunification without increasing re-entry,
  • Reduce time in foster care to adoption,
  • Increase placement stability, and
  • Reduce placements of young children in group homes or institutions.

• House Ways and Means Committee Green Book
  Section 11 of this annual publication, officially titled Background Material and Data on the Programs within the Jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means deals with child protection, foster care, and adoption assistance. The Green Book provides updated data on major programs within the Committee's jurisdiction, as well as related programs and issues. It is compiled by the Ways and Means staff with the assistance of the Congressional Research Service and various Federal agencies.

• State Fact Sheets on Child Welfare Funding
  These state fact sheets from the Center for Law and Social Policy and the Children's Defense Fund describe the context for child welfare spending by providing data on abused and neglected children, children in foster care, children who have left foster care and children living with kin; identify the proportion of child welfare funding that comes from federal, state and local sources; describe the major federal funding streams that are used to support child welfare and what proportion of child welfare funding comes from each of these sources; and highlight expenditures and trends within the Title IV-E Foster Care Program, including expenditures for foster care maintenance payments, administrative and child placement costs and training.

• State Fact Sheets on Foster Care
  The Kids are Waiting campaign, a project of the Pew Charitable Trusts, has produced fact sheets providing basic information about children in foster care in each state and the District of Columbia.

• Children with Disabilities and the Child Welfare System: Prevalence Data
  This paper from the Fall/Winter 2205/2006 issue of Impact reviews research statistics on the number of children with disabilities in the child welfare system.

• All Children Deserve a Permanent Home: Subsidized Guardianship as a Common Sense Solution for Children in Long-Term Relative Foster Care
  This report from Generations United provides state-by-state data on the number of children living in foster care with relative caregivers.

• Aging Out and On Their Own: More Teens Leaving Foster Care Without a Permanent Family
  This report from Kids are Waiting presents state-by-state data on the rising numbers of youth aging out without a safe, permanent family.

• Child Maltreatment Reports
  Annual reports that show state-by-state data on child abuse and neglect from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data Systems.

• Child Abuse and Neglect State Briefs
  These state-by-state fact sheets are from Fight Crime: Invest in Kids.

Reports on Child Well-Being

• Trends in the Well-Being of America's Children and Youth
  This annual report from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) presents the most recent and reliable estimates on more than 80 indicators of well-being. The indicators have been organized into five broad areas: Population, Family, and Neighborhood; Economic Security; Health Conditions and Health Care; Social Development and Behavioral Health; and Education and Achievement.
  • America's Children: 2007

    Click on "Past Reports" to access reports for the years 1998 through 2006.

  • 1997 Trends Report
  • 1996 Trends Report

• National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being
  The NSCAW makes available nationally representative longitudinal data drawn from first-hand reports from children, parents, and other caregivers, as well as reports from caseworkers, teachers, and data from administrative records. This national study will examine child and family well-being outcomes in detail and seeks to relate those outcomes to their experience with the child welfare system and to family characteristics, community environment, and other factors. The study will describe the child welfare system and the experiences of children and families who come in contact with the system.

• Youngsters' Mental Health And Psychosocial Problems: What Are the Data?
  This report from UCLA's Center for Mental Health in Schools details and evaluates the existing data from research on the prevalence and incidence of these problems and defines the research in this area that remains to be done. Includes some interesting data about children in foster care and kinship care including the information that preschoolers receiving mental health services were almost twice as likely as older children to be living with kin caregivers or foster parents – “a finding which means that caretakers who are not parents may need supportive services to ensure timely and appropriate help for the children in their care.”