Child Welfare’s Moving Target – Towards Community-Based Care

If you look back over the past decade, the use of residential facilities to house children in the child welfare system has dropped continuously. In 2013, there were 402,378 children in the child welfare system – this is a 22% decrease from 2004, when there were 517,000 children in the child welfare system. In 2004, roughly 8% of children in out-of-home placements were in group homes, 10% were in institutions, 24% were in relative foster homes, and 46% were in non-relative foster homes. In 2013, roughly 6% of children in out-of-home placements were in . . .