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United States
Children in foster care by placement type (Group home or institution only) in United States
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Definition and Source
PROVIDER
Definition
Percent estimates of children in each placement type are based on the total ages 0 to 20 in foster care, where placement type is known. Missing placement type data are excluded from percentage and frequency distributions. Youth are categorized as being in foster care if they entered prior to the end of the current fiscal year and have not been discharged from their latest foster care spell by the end of the current fiscal year. Placement type is the setting in which the child was living at the end of the fiscal year. National estimates include Puerto Rico.
Data Source
Starting with data from FY2022, files released by the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN) are now referred to as “AB” files as opposed to annual files. The new AB file format produces slightly different estimates than the old annual file format (used for and prior to FY2021), which limits comparability across years. Furthermore, the data presented here will not match the ACF Dashboards because the Dashboards use files that are different than the AB files.
Notes
N.R. - Data are not reported.
Last Updated
August 2025