According to a new Child Trends analysis of federal foster care data, nearly 344,000 children of all ages—1 in 1,000 children under age 21—spent time in foster care in 2024. A foster care placement happens when child welfare agencies decide that children are not safe in their home and remove them to live with relatives or non-relatives, in family or institutional settings, in their home neighborhood or hours away. Children in foster care can be of any age, but their experiences and needs differ by age.
344,000 children ages 20 and under lived in foster care at some point in 2024
.png&w=1920&q=75)
Source: Child Trends’ analysis of data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS). The figure includes young people under age 21 in foster care at the end of the listed federal fiscal year.
Compared with younger children in care at any point in time, older children are less likely to be in family settings or to be adopted, and more likely to have had longer stays in out-of-home care and multiple placements. Teens are also less likely to return to their parents or original caregivers. While foster care is typically traumatic regardless of a child’s age, the lack of consistent caregiving can permanently harm infants’ and toddlers’ healthy brain development.
Child Trends conducts research on children in foster care of all ages, from infants and toddlers through adolescence and early adulthood. Among our body of work, we’ve studied how to support safe family reunification or, if reunification is not possible, adoption or guardianship; how to reduce the effects of trauma; how to support youth’s successful transition to adulthood; and how to prevent the need for foster care.
Interested in learning more about foster care? Contact Sarah Catherine Williams at swilliams@childtrends.org, Rachel Rosenberg at rrosenberg@childtrends.org, or any of the experts in Child Trends’ child welfare research area.