FOSTER YOUTH FACTS
In many states, foster youth leave foster care without a place to live.
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Foster youth are more likely to experience homelessness, and most will do so within the first 18 months of emancipation.
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A quarter of all homeless people have spent time in foster care.
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Youth in foster care are less likely to graduate from high school, and most will be unemployed within 2 years of leaving the foster care system.
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Girls in foster care are more likely to give birth before the age of 21 than the general population and most of those girls will give birth within 2-4 years of leaving the foster care system.
By 2020 more than 300,000 children will age out of our foster care system, some in poor health and many unprepared for success in higher education, technical college or the workforce.
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Foster care touches all ethnicities. Of the children entering foster care in 2015:
ƒ 45 percent were White.
ƒ 23 percent were Black or African-American.
ƒ 20 percent were Hispanic.
ƒ 10 percent were other races or multiracial.
ƒ 2 percent were unknown or unable to be determined. *
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* Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2017). Foster care statistics 2015. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children’s Bureau.
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