DC children still linger in foster care

When Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act in 1997, a major goal was to reduce the time children spend in foster care, especially those children who cannot safely return home but instead need to find an adoptive family.

For the DC foster children who need adoption, that goal is still elusive, 15 years later. DC foster children spend more than a year longer in foster care before being adopted than their peers nationally.

The median time DC children spend in foster care before being adopted has been stuck at close to 4 years since 2006, compared to 2 ½ years nationally. The lack of progress on expediting permanency for the District’s foster children is especially disappointing because the total number of foster care cases has dropped significantly, from 3,421 in 2004 - to 2,000 in 2011.

Over the past year, an interagency working group convened by the DC Family Court studied how to expedite adoptions in foster care cases and suggested specific practice improvements. Let’s hope their work leads to better performance on behalf of the city’s foster children.

Calendar Year New Cases Filed Cases Closed Adoptions Completed Cases Pending on 12/31 Median Years to Adoption in DC National Median Years to Adoption Average Years to Adoption in DC DC Foster Care System: Trends in Caseload and Time to Permanency by Adoption2004 802 1378 420 3421 5.3 5.8 2005 933 950 279 3098 5.0 5.4 2006 652 916 197 2785 3.9 2.6 4.5 2007 532 916 135 2519 3.7 2.5 4.5 2008 842 606 95 2608 3.9 2.6 4.6 2009 525 642 128 2369 4.1 2.5 5.2 2010 726 670 112 2288 3.6 4.5 2011 593 712 109 2000 3.9 4.5

Data sources: DC Family Court Annual Reports; US Dept. of Health & Human Services' report "Child Welfare Outcomes 2006-2009"