The proportion of U.S. teens and young adults in foster care dropped by half in the past 15 years, including significantly fewer who were removed from their homes due to abuse. But the rate at which older youth are placed in foster care due to neglect has dipped only slightly, according to a national report released Monday.
The new report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation analyzed federal data over a 15-year period to gain a data-driven picture of teenagers and young adults 14 to 21 years old in foster care and how well the system supports their transition to adulthood. The report also shows that despite a persistent decline in the number of older children in foster care, less than half find permanent homes, with outcomes for youth after they leave the system largely stagnating or worsening over the years.
In 2006, child behavior problems were the most common reason older youth were placed in care. But by 2021, neglect was the leading cause the system removed a youth from their family, increasing from 29% of total cases in 2006 to 48% in 2021.
Some critics of the current child welfare system argue that neglect is a code word for poverty in that the removal is based on a family’s inability to meet the youth’s basic needs, including food, clothing, shelter and adult supervision.
“The system we have now doesn’t deal with the inequities that lead to families being homeless, children malnourished and families being deprived of adequate health insurance and income,” University of Pennsylvania Professor Dorothy Roberts told Youth Today in 2022. “The system calls that neglect and blames families for it.”
The data doesn’t explain why neglect now accounts for such a greater proportion of removals, said Todd Lloyd, senior policy associate at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, but it begs the question: “Are the underlying issues here related to poverty, and if so, is there an opportunity to provide more concrete support,” he said.
The number of older children in foster care has persistently declined over the last 15 years, according to the data, going from 271,000 in 2006 to nearly half that amount of 147,143 in 2021.
Even with the falling numbers, the report noted, the system found permanent homes for less than half of older youth, and the numbers are worse for youth of color.
Of the Black and Hispanic or Latino youth who were in foster care in 2021, the system was only able to place them in adoptive households or with guardians or return them to their birth families in 37% and 39% of the cases, respectively. Child welfare agencies found homes for white youth 51% of the time.
As older youth navigate early adulthood, they “often rely on family and other supportive adults to help them during this transition by providing guidance as well as a financial and emotional safety net,” according to a 2019 Child Trends report.
“Despite this pretty significant decline, child welfare agencies are still struggling to help young people find permanent families and make the successful transitions to adulthood,” Lloyd said.
More than half of foster youth don’t have a legal connection to a caring adult, placing them at an increased risk of not going to college or vocational school, being homeless, unemployed and having unintended pregnancies, Lloyd said.
And while 33 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and nine tribes offer extended benefits like housing assistance, navigation, financial aid, education support and employment skills training to account for the added hardship many foster youth face — the data shows youth aren’t enrolling in these services.
Over the years, despite more funding and increased eligibility, the utilization of the services has been consistently low and is getting lower in some states, Lloyd said.
Nationally, only 23% of eligible young people took advantage of foster care transitional services, and outcomes for youth after they leave the system — including education, incarceration, stable housing, and parenthood — have largely stagnated or worsened over the last 15 years, including in states like California that have greatly expanded foster youth benefits.
Jennifer Pokempner, senior policy director of the San Francisco-based Youth Law Center, said the report’s findings aren’t necessarily surprising but are “disturbing” and “noteworthy.”
The report reinforces the need to “drastically retool how we’re serving older youth,” Pokempner said.
For whatever reason, the transitional services are not reaching foster youth, it may be a problem with delivery and access or they may not be the right service for them, she added.
The report recommends more federal funding and that states need to remove barriers and make it easier for youth aging out of the foster care system to get access to services.
“We should be supporting our young people coming out of foster care better,” she said.
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The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a funder of Youth Today. Read our editorial independence policy.
Brian Rinker is a San Francisco-based journalist who covers public health, child welfare, digital health, startups and venture capital.
