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Adoption Fact Sheets
Fosteringconnections.org and NACAC produced the following adoption fact sheets to help inform adoption community members and adoption advocates. The fact sheets, derived mostly from 2010 AFCARS data, have information about the number of waiting children, the length of time children spend in care, the race of waiting and adopted children, types of exits from foster care, Title IV-E payments, and more.
To download a PDF of your state's fact sheet, click on the state on the map or click on the state name below. See below for sources and notes on specific data points.
Source
Fosteringconnections.org and NACAC prepared these fact sheets using data made available, with permission, by the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) were originally collected by the Children’s Bureau. NACAC’s work was funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The collector of the original data, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Archive, Cornell University and their agents or employees bear no responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented here.
Data on race of a state’s child population is from the 2009 National KIDS COUNT Program, http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.aspx?ind=103
Notes on Specific Variables
Waiting Children
AFCARS defines waiting children as foster children ages 0 to 17 who either havea case goal of adoption or whose parental rights have been terminated. Youth who are 16 and 17 who have a goal of emancipation are not considered to be waiting children.
Length of Stays
For adopted children, the length of stay is the lifetime length of stay for those children who have had only one or two episodes in foster care, which includes about 94 percent of the children. For Waiting kids, the length of stay is for the most recent foster care episode.
IV-E
In our fact sheets, children were counted as IV-E if a IV-E payment was made on their behalf during the reporting period for waiting children, and at adoption for adopted children. Some children who do not receive a payment in this timeframe may still be IV-E eligible.
Prior Relationship of Adoptive Parent
Adoptive parent(s) can be counted in four categories—step parent, other relative, foster parent, and non-relative. Some states count parents in more than one category, while others do not. States may vary in how they track and report the data.
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