In this episode we welcome back Erin McConaghy and Meaghan Bedrossian to give us an update on the state of foster care. We talk about the HBO Documentary Foster, and the impact of trauma on our youth in the system. We discuss the challenges of placement, how the system can be a barrier at times, what the goal of foster care ultimately is, and why despite it's challenges foster care continues to be massively rewarding for the foster parent (and life changing for the child!).
Foster Care Statistics:
On any given day, there are nearly 443,000 children in foster care in the United States.
In 2017, more than 690,000 children spent time in U.S. foster care.
On average, children remain in state care for nearly two years and six percent of children in foster care have languished there for five or more years.
Despite the common perception that the majority of children in foster care are very young, the average age of kids entering care is 8.
In 2017, one third of children entering U.S. foster care were young people of color.
While most children in foster care live in family settings, a substantial minority — 11 percent — live in institutions or group homes.
In 2017, more than 69,000 children – whose mothers’ and fathers’ parental rights had been legally terminated – were waiting to be adopted.
In 2017, more than 17,000 young people aged out of foster care without permanent families. Research has shown that those who leave care without being linked to forever families have a higher likelihood than youth in the general population to experience homelessness, unemployment and incarceration as adults.
While states should work rapidly to find safe permanent homes for kids, on any given day children available for adoption have spent an average of about one and a half years waiting to be adopted since their parental rights were terminated.
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