Addressing America’s Shortage of Safe, Stable Foster Homes

To help ensure children entering foster care are placed in safe, stable, and supportive family environments, the federal government recently unveiled an agencywide initiative to address one of the most pressing challenges in child well-being: the shortage of foster homes. Known as “A Home for Every Child,” the initiative aims to strengthen foster care nationwide so that more children can be placed with families if they need to be removed from their homes.

Westat’s Allison Hyra, PhD, an Associate Vice President for Education and Social Policy, and Abram Rosenblatt, PhD, a  Vice President for Clinical Research, discuss the initiative’s goals and pathways to success.

Core Issue

Q.  What is the core problem this initiative is designed to address?

A. Abram Rosenblatt: The government assessed the nation’s foster care safety net and determined that for every 100 children entering foster care, we only have 57 available and licensed foster homes. The consequence of this gap in supply is that too many children who enter foster care lack access to safe, stable home-like living environments. When a foster home is not available. child welfare case workers have to use emergency or congregate care. Children entering foster care have already experienced the trauma of being separated from their families, in addition to circumstances that made their homes unsafe in the first place. Research shows that children lacking a stable environment are at risk for a range of negative outcomes, including educational challenges and mental and behavioral health concerns.

Q. The government will measure progress using a ratio of the number of foster homes to the number of children who need placement. How will that metric drive the initiative?

A. Allison Hyra: This ratio focuses and aligns action across the agency by establishing a clear, shared goal: ensuring there are more licensed foster homes available than children waiting for placement. The government is aiming for a ratio greater than 1. Of course, a foster home in 1 state cannot meet the needs of a child in another, so this metric is most informative when used locally to identify where gaps are the greatest and measure progress.

Framing progress this way highlights 2 complementary strategies: increasing the supply of foster homes and reducing demand for placements. On the supply side, the government and its partners can expand licensed homes by strengthening recruitment, addressing any licensure barriers, and enhancing support for foster families. On the demand side, effective prevention services can help families remain safely together, reducing entries into care. Tracking the ratio nationally promotes accountability, whereas state and local tracking enables targeted action. Achieving a ratio of at least 1 requires progress on both fronts.

Helpful Strategies

Q. What strategies, policies, or approaches can child welfare systems leverage to reduce the number of children who enter foster care?

A. Abram Rosenblatt: Prevention services play a critical role in reducing child maltreatment. This approach is central to existing legislation (the Family First Prevention Services Act) as well as current federal initiatives and ongoing research focused on developing and expanding evidence-based interventions. Sufficient funding to implement these interventions is essential.

However, barriers to implementation extend beyond funding. For example, the government is working to fast-track evidence review processes so effective practices can quickly be adopted. This includes substance use interventions, including medication for opioid use disorder (OUD). Providing parents with support, such as behavioral health treatment, can improve the likelihood that children can remain in their homes.

Q. What approaches look promising for increasing the number of foster homes?

A. Abram Rosenblatt: Even with evidence-based interventions, some children will still need to be removed from their homes to ensure their safety. Increasing the supply of available foster parents is essential, and the government is taking steps to strengthen foster parent recruitment and reduce the barriers to enlisting and licensing prospective foster families. Placing children with relatives and siblings, and providing support to foster parents, can significantly improve placement stability. These approaches are currently part of the federal strategy. 

Other Initiatives

Q. Beyond offices directly connected to child welfare, what can other federal offices do to support the initiative?

A. Allison Hyra: The government is exploring how related programs can reinforce the initiative. For example, the Office of Community Services (OCS) is introducing it to recipients of the Diaper Distribution Demonstration and Research Pilot (DDDRP) grants. By providing diapers and referral services to families with low incomes, the program helps reduce financial stressors linked to neglect. In the future, DDDRP award recipients may further support the initiative by recruiting families at risk of child welfare involvement and encouraging participants to consider becoming foster parents.

Q. What research or evaluation projects can help inform or contribute to the A Home for Every Child initiative?

A. Allison Hyra: Several types of research and evaluation could support the initiative. Key priorities include:

Assessing what encourages or deters families from becoming licensed foster care providers. Although licensing regulations are often cited as barriers, most foster care applicants ultimately receive licensure to house children. More systematic research could distinguish perceived from actual barriers and identify ways to strengthen and expand recruitment.

Predicting which foster homes are most likely to remain licensed over time. Understanding the characteristics and experiences of families who continue fostering versus those who exit could inform more targeted training, support, and retention strategies.

Evaluating homegrown programs against Prevention Services Clearinghouse standards. Currently, the path from a new intervention to Clearinghouse approval can take more than a decade, mostly due to waiting until the research field publishes evaluation standards and then determining if evaluations meet evidence standards. If the government could prioritize funding evaluations of promising, practice-based programs by teams trained in Clearinghouse standards, they could accelerate that process.

Abram Rosenblatt: In addition to the research efforts Allison described, there is also an opportunity to better leverage existing research and data collection activities. Increasingly, healthcare is using large research-derived datasets, as well as advanced methods for analyzing administrative data to gain new insights and accelerate the implementation of demonstrably effective interventions. Westat has supported this type of work for other agencies through data coordinating centers and sophisticated analyses of large administrative datasets.  

Applying these approaches in foster care, and child welfare more broadly, is complex and poses its own challenges and opportunities. However, related research is already underway, and many states have made progress in improving foster care data collection. Given current initiatives to aggregate and harmonize existing data, there is a growing opportunity to apply innovative approaches to analyzing large-scale datasets in foster care.