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Foster care statistics and kinship placement trends
4:38:04
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150 sec
Council Member Stevens presents recent foster care statistics, noting increases in placement moves and entries, and a decline in kinship placements. Commissioner Dannhauser responds with insights on kinship care efforts:
- ACS has set aggressive goals for kinship placements, aiming for 54%
- Current kinship placement rate is around 44%, up from low 30s previously
- Factors affecting recent declines include more teens entering care and new immigrant families without local kin
- Efforts to improve kinship care include increased reimbursement for kin providers and engaging child and family specialists in the process
Althea V. Stevens
4:38:04
The number of children who moves out of foster care placement to another increase for the first four months of fiscal twenty twenty five to one point four per 1,000 care days compared to the one point three per 1,000 care days in fiscal twenty twenty four.
4:38:23
The number of youth entering foster care totaled 1,081 in the first four months of fiscal twenty twenty five, '4 point '1 percent more than the 1,038 who entered foster care during the same period in fiscal twenty twenty four.
4:38:37
In the first four months of fiscal twenty twenty five, the percentage of children entering foster care who were placed with relatives was 42.2%, a decline of 4.7% compared to the same period last year when it was 48.9.
4:38:55
This is below the target of 54% and ACS has not exceeded that target since fiscal twenty twenty two when four point eight percent of foster care placements were relatives.
4:39:06
Why did the number of foster foster care moves increase?
Jess Dannhauser
4:39:11
So around the kin work, this is really important to us, look at it by borough.
4:39:20
We have seen a major increase.
4:39:23
We've set very aggressive goals around the 54%.
4:39:26
We were in the low 30s and now have sustained to be the active population in care is around forty four percent.
4:39:35
Some of the decline we've seen on the front end we hypothesize is a little about having more teens that are coming into our care.
4:39:43
It's just a slight increase and we did see some families, more families than before that were coming who were new New Yorkers and did not have local kin connections.
4:39:55
The providers continue to work on that.
4:39:57
So another 10% or so are converted to kin during the time that children are in care.
4:40:05
And so we never stop trying to engage kin.
4:40:09
We've also increased the reimbursement that we provide to kin providers right away, even before they're connected to a provider agency.
4:40:17
So that night we're able to provide them resources and supports.
4:40:21
We also asked our child and family specialists who are social workers to engage in the kin process to try to move this in the right direction.
4:40:33
So we're very, focused on that.