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The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has attempted over the last few decades to introduce monitoring and reporting systems for both adoption and foster care alike. Despite their best efforts, there are several difficulties with the collection of this type of data. First, the target population, the children, are always in transition. By the time the information is collected and analyzed, any number of children may have either been placed or left the foster care system altogether. Second, social service agencies themselves have not incorporated good data collection mechanisms. This ultimately affects the quality of data returned to DHHS for final analysis. The DHHS did introduce the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS). While AFCARS has had mixed success, it does reflect a slight improvement in final data collection and analysis.
Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System
The AFCARS was adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services in the early 1990s. Similar statistics are available through the Child Welfare League of America
www.cwla.org, in the Multistate Data Archive.
Children in Foster Care:
By Age
An estimated 469,073 children were in foster care at the end of 1994.
4% were under age 1
31% were 1-5
35% were 6-12
30% were 13 or older
By Race
47% were African-American
32% were White
14% were Hispanic
1% were Native American/Alaskan Native and Asian/Pacific Islander
the background of the rest was unknown.
Geographically Speaking: Highest increase
Between 1983 and 1993 the number of children in foster care had increased
as follows in selected states:
- 154% in California
- 158% in Illinois
- 67% in Michigan
- 120% in New York
- 123% in Texas.
Between 1990 and 1993, 24% of the children entering foster care in the five states listed above were under age 1; the largest shares were newborns.
Between 1983 and 1993, most of the growth in foster care in New York and Illinois was absorbed by kinship care. In other words, while the number of foster children under state supervision increased in those states, relatives cared for most of the children who accounted for this growth. By 1993 kinship providers cared for a third of the foster children in New York, 40% of foster children in California, and almost half of the foster children in Illinois.
How long do kids stay in foster care?
The median length of a child's first spell in foster care during 1988-1993
varied as follows:
- Texas, 8.7 months
- Michigan, 12 months
- California, 18.1 months
- New York, 24.5 months
- Illinois, 35.8 months
Altaf Husain, MSW, LSW is a contributing writer to the Islam-Online social section.
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