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A permanent, safe and loving home should be the goal for every kid who is served by our child welfare system.  We don’t want kids to be raised by the system, we want the system to help them get to permanency as quickly as possible.  In our post earlier this week, we took a closer look at how long children in the system are waiting for permanency and how many of them reenter the child welfare system. Today, we dive in to the different ways children are exiting our child welfare system and finding permanency.

There are several different ways kids exit the child welfare system. These include: reunification with their parents, adoption, independent living, guardianship, and other reasons. In 2012, 2,954 children exited out-of-home care: 65% of children exiting care were reunified with their parents, 15% were adopted, 9% were placed in an independent living setting, 7% were placed with a guardian, and 4% experienced some other type of placement.

We cannot say with confidence that one of these permanency types is best for children over the others. Each case is different, and each child and family has individual needs and challenges. We can only hope that these children exit the child welfare system to the place that is best for them, where they have the support and love to grow up safe, healthy and happy.

Thank you to taking the time to share!