Understanding Foster Care--the numbers

 Social services agencies throughout CA get more than 450,000 calls a year that allege abuse or neglect of children. If these allegations are accurate, children are removed from homes and placed in the foster care system.

In California, there are more than 80,000 children in foster care. The state has more youth in foster care than any state in the nation.

The California Blue Ribbon Commission on Children in Foster Care has some statistics on its site that give a good picture of the system’s challenges:

·      There are only 132 full-time and part-time judicial dependency court officers statewide, and they are responsible for an average caseload of 1,000 

·      Attorney caseloads average 273 and some attorneys handle more than 500 to 600 cases apiece. This far exceeds the recommended caseload of 188. (Social worker caseloads are also high.)

There are resource issues system-wide, said Christopher Wu, a supervising attorney with the Blue Ribbon Commission.

What does this system look like from the inside? KALW is going to take you into of juvenile court rooms and take and in depth look at this system.

Sources:

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/jc/tflists/bluerib-facts.htm

http://states.fosterclub.com/california/resources/statistics

http://www.californiacasa.org/About/index.htm