Quick Foster Care Facts

• Every year in America, nearly 300,000 children enter foster care after being rescued from terrible circumstances of abuse, neglect, abandonment, or homelessness. Most enter care with nothing of their own.
• At any given time, there can be over 400,000 children in the national foster care system, many of these children have entered and transition through foster care with little of their own.
• Most children endure as many as 4 placements before being adopted or aging out of foster care.
• Children in foster care range from newborns to teens; the median age is 7.8 years old.
• The average age of children at the time of removal from parents or caretakers is 6.6 years old.
• Approximately 52% of children entering foster care are male, 48% are female.
• Children in foster care come from all races, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds .

Main Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), YE2015