The Statistics

YOUTH AGING OUT OF FOS­TER CARE

More than 20,000 youth left fos­ter care in 2020 with­out reunit­ing with their par­ents or hav­ing anoth­er per­ma­nent fam­i­ly home. The tran­si­tion to adult­hood is a sig­nif­i­cant and chal­leng­ing devel­op­men­tal phase of life for all young peo­ple, but youth aging out of fos­ter care on their own must face this with­out the sup­port of a sta­ble, lov­ing fam­i­ly. Many also lose access to ser­vices and sup­ports offered through the fos­ter care sys­tem. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, these youth and young adults are more like­ly to expe­ri­ence behav­ioral, men­tal and phys­i­cal health issues, hous­ing prob­lems and home­less­ness, employ­ment and aca­d­e­m­ic dif­fi­cul­ties, ear­ly par­ent­hood, incar­cer­a­tion and oth­er poten­tial­ly life­long adver­si­ties. In line with the racial inequities not­ed ear­li­er, youth of col­or are more like­ly to expe­ri­ence these chal­lenges.

Every child counts

• 78,725 children were involved in investigations of maltreatment or other issues where timely intervention can be important

• 17,471 children received services as a result of an investigation

• 2,642 children entered foster care

Reasons children in New Jersey enter foster care: 12% abuse and 88% neglect and other*

• 12% abuse

• 88% neglect and other*

*"Other" includes parental substance abuse, child substance abuse, child disability, child behavior problems, parent death, parent incarceration, caretaker inability to cope, relinquishment or inadequate housing.

Every child deserves a lifelong family

What happens to children who end up in foster care? Most are safely reunited with their own family or extended family. A significant number are adopted. Under the Family First Prevention Services Act, communities can more easily invest in helping more children to grow up in safe, stable families by providing appropriate and timely services prior to the need for removal, or after they return home or have been adopted.

Among children in New Jersey who exited foster care in 2019:

• 51% Reunited with their Families

• 32% Exited to adoption

• 11% Exited to live with relatives or guardians

• 5% Aged out

• 1% Other*

*"Other" includes transferred to another agency, ran away or died. Numbers may not equal 100% due to rounding.

Vulnerable Youth

• 298 children in New Jersey aged out of out-of-home care—exited foster care to emancipation—in 2016.

• 90% of high school students in New Jersey graduated on time at the end of the 2015-16 year.

• 24,000 teens ages 16 to 19 in New Jersey were not enrolled in school and not working in 2016.

• 86,000 young adults ages 18 to 24 were not enrolled in school, were not working, and had no degree beyond high school in 2016.

• 48.6% of young adults in New Jersey ages 25 to 34 had an associate’s degree or higher from 2011 to 2013.

• In 2017, there were 0 reports of children in New Jersey aged 10 to 14 committing suicide, and 37 reports of suicide among children aged 15 to 19

JUVENILE JUSTICE AND DELINQUENCY PREVENTION

32 children under age 19 were killed by a firearm in New Jersey in 2017, compared to 32 in 2015.

CWLA New Jersey’s Children at a Glance

• 17,784 children younger than 18 were arrested in New Jersey in 2016. Violent crimes were the reason for 1,409 of the arrests in 2016.

• 636 children lived in juvenile correction facilities in New Jersey in 2015.

The foster care statistics for youth who never get placed with a forever home or family are heartbreaking.

20 percent of foster youth will become homeless the day they age out.

And approximately 20,000 age out every year. That means approximately 4,000 kids per year leave foster care into homelessness.

A young adult who ages out is less likely to graduate high school, attend college, or get a degree. This also increases the cost to society. According to the Annie E Casey Foundation, if aged out foster youth had the same outcomes as youth who didn’t age out, the US taxpayers would save $4.1 billion.

“The outcomes of law enforcement efforts against sex traffickers repeatedly support the NCMEC estimate. In a 2013 FBI 70-city nationwide raid, 60 percent of the victims came from foster care or group homes. In 2014, New York authorities estimated that 85 percent of sex trafficking victims were previously in the child welfare system” – Newsweek Op Ed