Foster Care - Reunification re-entries during reporting period in Pennsylvania

Definitions: This indicator shows the number and percent of children who were discharged to reunification with their parents or other relatives before their 18th birthday in a 12-month period and re-entered foster care in less than 12 months following their reunification.  Young adults up to age 21 are counted as a re-entry if the initial discharge was before they turned 18, and reunified with their parents or other relatives.

Data Source: PPC analysis of AFCARS longitudinal file produced by Public Consulting Group for Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, Office of Children, Youth and Families.

Footnotes: The data system does not allow the capture of enough information on children discharged from care who re-entered foster care within the first year to determine whether that discharge was a reunification to parents or relatives or discharge for another reason.  This may result in an over-reporting of reunifications and subsequent re-entries.

Some counties may also have an overcount of re-entries because of nuances of their billing systems. 

County-level data is no longer available after October 2017.

Statistics (rates, ratios, percents) are not calculated and displayed for counts less than 10 (or less than 3 for Bayesian/Nearest Neighbor rates). This is due to the unreliability of statistics based on small numbers of events.

Updated October 2022.

Definitions: This indicator shows the number and percent of children who were discharged to reunification with their parents or other relatives before their 18th birthday in a 12-month period and re-entered foster care in less than 12 months following their reunification.  Young adults up to age 21 are counted as a re-entry if the initial discharge was before they turned 18, and reunified with their parents or other relatives.

Data Source: PPC analysis of AFCARS longitudinal file produced by Public Consulting Group for Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, Office of Children, Youth and Families.

Footnotes: The data system does not allow the capture of enough information on children discharged from care who re-entered foster care within the first year to determine whether that discharge was a reunification to parents or relatives or discharge for another reason.  This may result in an over-reporting of reunifications and subsequent re-entries.

Some counties may also have an overcount of re-entries because of nuances of their billing systems. 

County-level data is no longer available after October 2017.

Statistics (rates, ratios, percents) are not calculated and displayed for counts less than 10 (or less than 3 for Bayesian/Nearest Neighbor rates). This is due to the unreliability of statistics based on small numbers of events.

Updated October 2022.