First State Times

The number of children in foster care nationwide has been steadily increasing in recent years, climbing to more than 440,000, but remained unchanged in 2018, according to a federal report. In Delaware, that number actually went down last year.

The number of children in foster care across the U.S. at the end of fiscal year 2018 was virtually unchanged compared to the end of fiscal year 2017, according to the report issued by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children & Families.

The report tracks trends in foster care and adoption from fiscal year 2009 until fiscal year 2018.

In Delaware, there were 719 children in foster care in fiscal 2018, compared to 787 in 2017.

"This is an estimated count of all children who were in the public foster care system during the fiscal years," the report said. "This number is the sum of two mutually exclusive groups of children: the children who are already in care on the first day of the fiscal year (as of October 1) and the children who enter foster care during the year. An individual child is counted only once for each year."

Since fiscal year 2012, the number of children in foster care increased, with the 441,000 counted in fiscal year 2017 amounting to an 11 percent increase over fiscal year 2012's 396,000 children in foster care.

"The numbers of children in care on the last day of FY 2018 as compared to FY 2017 is virtually unchanged representing a decrease of slightly less than 1 percent," the report said.

The number of children in foster care counted in fiscal year 2018 was an 11 percent increase over fiscal year 2012.

The report was compiled from data submitted to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) by U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico by this past August.  

A fiscal year in the report runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.

"Please note that, for all of the years shown, some of the data may differ from that shown in earlier versions of this chart," the report said. "This is due to the fact that some States have resubmitted their AFCARS data after addressing data quality issues."