Discover the Unexpected: Top 7 Fun and Heartwarming Facts About Foster Care

1. NYC Foster Care Time Warp

A keen observer of time once stated, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Turns out, that season may be longer in the Big Apple for little fosterling visits: In New York State, children spend an average of 1.67 years in foster care, but this duration jumps to 1.92 years in New York City while it shortens to 1.42 years in the rest of the state.
Source => pix11.com

2. Cash-Strapped College Dreams

It’s all about the Benjamins, baby: Foster care youth pursuing college degrees face a significant hurdle due to financial constraints, according to a symposium on foster care youth transitioning to college, which also emphasizes the crucial role of supportive figures like caseworkers, educational specialists, and high school counselors in guiding their higher education journey.
Source => cuny.edu

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=> Fun Facts about Adoption

3. California's Sleepover Crisis

If California were a giant sleepover party, over 60,000 children would be asking, "Is there room for one more?": In the Golden State alone, that's how many kids and young adults require safe homes due to varying circumstances, often involving trauma. Even though 2021 saw 214,421 foster parents across the United States step up to the plate, we're still scouting for more compassionate souls to join the league of extraordinary bedtime story readers and shoulder-to-cry-on providers.
Source => fosterva.org

4. College Magic for Muggle-Raised Kids

Step aside, Hogwarts: Turns out only a small percentage of Muggle-raised children are receiving their own letters of educational acceptance from the enchanted world of college! Serious reveal: A mere 6% of kids who age out of the US foster care system get to stride through the hallowed halls of higher education, and of those brave souls, just 50% manage to conjure up a hard-earned degree.
Source => nfyi.org

5. Sibling Musical Chairs

They say "the more, the merrier," but that isn't always the case in the topsy-turvy world of foster care, where sibling bonds can sometimes resemble a game of musical chairs: a staggering 65-85% of children in foster care have siblings in the system, but heartbreakingly, only 20-47% of these sibling groups find themselves placed together, despite evidence showing that keeping them united leads to better outcomes.
Source => casey.org

6. Captain America's Multicultural Crew

It's a "Census"-sational melting pot of mini-heroes, this mighty league of foster kids! The colorful crew might just have Captain America swapping his star-spangled environs for multicultural stripes: According to a 2016-2018 Current Population Survey, over a quarter of foster children in the U.S. were Hispanic and almost one-fifth were Black, whereas the majority of biological, adopted, and stepchildren were White.
Source => bgsu.edu

7. Urban Tarzan Foster-land

When city slickers oddly embrace the wild side like an urban Tarzan: primary urban counties, those with the largest child welfare systems in their states, have higher rates of placement in foster care, according to the Multistate Foster Care Data Archive.
Source => aspe.hhs.gov