Foster Care Statistics: The Need

  • “More than 400,000 children are in foster care in the United States.”-MDHHS
  • “In Michigan there are more than 13,000 children in foster Care and over 300 who still need an adoptive family.” -MDHHS
  • There is a huge need for families to foster/adopt older children, teens, and sibling groups.
  • “In Michigan, more than 92% of waiting children are adopted by foster parents or relatives. While half of all adoptions from the foster care system are of children under the age of five, almost all of them are adopted by a foster parent or relative. Many of those children are also part of a sibling group that includes older children, where all of the children need to be placed together.”- mare.org
  • “More than 23,000 children will age out of the US foster care system every year.”- The National Foster Youth Institute
  • “After reaching the age of 18, 20% of the children who were in foster care will become instantly homeless.” – The National Foster Youth Institute
  • “Only 1 out of every 2 foster kids who age out of the system will have some form of gainful employment by the age of 24.” – The National Foster Youth Institute
  • “There is less than a 3% chance for children who have aged out of foster care to earn a college degree at any point in their life.” – The National Foster Youth Institute
  • “7 out of 10 girls who age out of the foster care system will become pregnant before the age of 21.” – The National Foster Youth Institute 

The Bright side:

  • Children are resilient.
  • Building positive relationships helps to combat trauma behaviors and effects of trauma.
  • You can be a positive role model, mentor, or foster parent to children in foster care.
  • You can provide a safe, loving, structured home for a child in foster care.
  • You can help a child with many “firsts” such as a child’s first time walking, talking, tying shoes, first dance, first shave, and/or first time driving a car.
  • As a foster family or adoptive family you can learn and grow so much from the experience of fostering/ adopting a child in foster care.
  • You can begin to change the outcomes of the above statistics.