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Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children

Foster Care - Total and first-time entries during reporting period in Pennsylvania

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Why This Indicator Matters

It is important to understand the number of children who have first-time entries into foster care from the total population served in the year. Child welfare agencies are tasked with providing preventative services in the hopes of keeping families safely intact. Pennsylvania had a 5-year consecutive increase in children entering foster care for the first time, before seeing a reduction in 2017-2018.
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Data Provided By

Definitions: Total number of children who entered foster care placement during the reporting period.  This total includes those children who entered foster care for the first time.  The first time entries and the percent of total entries are also provided.

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: Counts can be duplicated because a child can enter placement more than one time during the reporting period.  First time entries are unduplicated.

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.