Too many children get trapped in foster care.

• Seventy thousand children in America have languished in foster care for more than five years.

• On average, children in American child welfare systems spend more than two years — 28.3 months — in foster care.

• The average child in foster care lives in two to five different homes over a period of just two and a half years.

• Children in foster care range in age from infants to teenagers. The average age of a child entering the foster care system is eight, despite the common perception that most children in foster care are infants or young children. More than 40 percent are age 10 or older.

• Fifty-eight percent of children in foster care are children of color.

• While most children in foster care live in family settings, a substantial minority — 17 percent — live in institutions and group homes.

• More than 25,000 youth “aged out” of foster care in 2006 — turned out from the system not because they were reunited with their families or adopted, but simply because they turned 18. Research has shown that teens aging out of the system are highly likely as adults to experience homelessness, poor health, unemployment, incarceration, and other poor outcomes.

Learn More

• Learn about the role of child welfare systems in providing care and services for children in state custody.
• Find out how Children’s Rights improves failing foster care system through our child welfare reform campaigns and policy advocacy.