The Annie E. Casey Foundation
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Pennsylvania

Statistics on children, youth and families in Pennsylvania from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children

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Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children

Change Indicator

Foster Care - Exits during reporting period by discharge reason in Pennsylvania

Foster Care - Exits during reporting period by discharge reason

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Note: Non-consecutive years appear adjacent in the trend line
because one or more years have been deselected.

Why This Indicator Matters

Foster care, also known as out-of-home care, is a court-monitored process that involves removing children from their families following a substantiated report of abuse or neglect. [1] All child maltreatment reports are investigated by either Child Protective Services (CPS) or General Protective Services (GPS), depending on the nature of the referral, to determine the child’s safety within the household as well as the level of risk for future harm.[2] Children are typically only placed in foster care after family preservation and in-home services fail to improve their safety and well-being in the home. Out-of-home placement is often viewed as temporary, as achieving and maintaining permanency is always the primary priority of child welfare agencies, whether that be in the form of reunification with their caregivers or finding new homes with relatives or adoptive families.[3] Family issues with substance use, mental illness, or domestic abuse are among the most common factors that lead to children entering the foster care system.[4]

 By examining total exits from out-of-home care each year by discharge reason, researchers are able to track longitudinal trends and changes associated with why children are being discharged from foster care. As shown in the following table, the most common reasons children are discharged from foster care in Pennsylvania are reunification with original families or adoption to a new family, which is consistent with child welfare agencies’ main goal of supporting permanency. Additional reasons for exiting foster care include guardianship, living with relatives, emancipation, transfer to another agency, running away, or in very rare cases, death of the child. Children are only discharged when the court is satisfied that a permanency plan is sufficient to ensure the child’s safety and well-being.[5] Other data related to children in the foster system also suggest that a child’s length of stay varies significantly by the reason for discharge. More specifically, children typically only stay a few months before being discharged to live with relatives, 6 months for reunification, and over a year to be adopted.

[1] Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2023). Overview: Out-of-Home Care. United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children's Bureau. https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/outofhome/overview/

[2] Rizvi, M. B., Conners, G. P., King, K. C., Lopez, R. A., & Rabiner, J. (2022). Pennsylvania Child Abuse Recognition and Reporting. In StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33351411/

[3] Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2023). Achieving & Maintaining Permanency. United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children's Bureau. https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/permanency/

[4] Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2023). Achieving & Maintaining Permanency. United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children's Bureau. https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/permanency/

[5] Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2016). Reunification: Bringing Your Child Home From Foster Care. United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children's Bureau. https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/reunification.pdf

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Definition and Source

PROVIDER

Definition

The number and percent of children discharged from foster care during the reporting period by discharge reason.

Data Source

PPC analysis of AFCARS longitudinal file produced by Public Consulting Group for Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, Office of Children, Youth and Families.

Notes

This number can be a duplicated count as a child can exit multiple times during the reporting period.  Reunification, adoption, guardianship and live with other relatives are considered exits to permanent arrangements.  Emancipation, transfer to another agency, and runaway are exits to non-permanent arrangements.

S = Suppressed.  Statistics (rates, ratios, percents) are not calculated and displayed for counts less than 10 (or less than 3 for Bayesian/Nearest Neighbor rates). This is due to the unreliability of statistics based on small numbers of events.

Last Updated

May 2024