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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 - Reunification re-entries during reporting period in Pennsylvania

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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]

 Reunification, the process of safely returning children to their homes after being removed and placed into foster care, is almost always in the best interest of the child and the foremost goal of child welfare agencies. [5] This permanency option typically takes around 6 months to achieve as families must first prove to the court that they can keep their child safe, meet all their essential needs, and serve as responsible caregivers. To meet these criteria, agencies will develop case plans centered around family needs, strengths, current support systems, and long-term aspirations. By examining the annual rate of re-entry into foster care following reunification, researchers are able to track longitudinal trends associated with re-entries and quantify the need to strengthen reunification permanency. As shown in the following table, over the past decade in Pennsylvania, the percent of children re-entering foster care within 12 months of reunification has gradually decreased. This reduction in re-entries after reunification is likely due to in increased efforts by child welfare agencies to provide families with support services to successfully reunify parents and children while maintaining ongoing stability.[6]

[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

[6] Casey Family Programs. (2017). Supporting Lifelong Families: Steps Child Welfare Agencies Can Take to Prevent Children from Re-Entering Foster Care. https://www.casey.org/media/supporting-lifelong-families-action-plan.pdf

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Definition and Source

PROVIDER

Definition

This indicator shows the number and percent of children who were discharged to reunification with their parents or other relatives before their 18th birthday in a 12-month period and re-entered foster care in less than 12 months following their reunification.  Young adults up to age 21 are counted as a re-entry if the initial discharge was before they turned 18, and reunified with their parents or other relatives.

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

The data system does not allow the capture of enough information on children discharged from care who re-entered foster care within the first year to determine whether that discharge was a reunification to parents or relatives or discharge for another reason.  This may result in an over-reporting of reunifications and subsequent re-entries.  Some counties may also have an overcount of re-entries because of nuances of their billing systems.  Some county-level data is also not available for certain years.

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