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Children 's Child Welfare Reform Essay

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In 1980, about 500,000 children were in foster care, but a series of successful reforms began with that year 's Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act which dramatically decreased the number of children in foster care. But in the early 1990s, with the advent of crack cocaine and an economic recession numbers went back up. Child welfare advocates said that the foster care system was in need of changes so that children spend less time in foster placements and that America’s child welfare system needed an improvement. Some children in care were separated from their siblings, others transitioned from one foster care placement to another, never knowing where to call home. Too many children were being abused in systems that were supposed to protect them. Instead of being safely reunified with their families or moved quickly into adoptive homes many remained in foster homes or institutions for years.
In 2014, over 650,000 children spent time in the child welfare foster care system. On average, children remain in state care for nearly two years and seven percent of children in foster care remain in foster care for five years or more. The majority of children in foster care are very young, the average age of children in care is around the age of nine. In 2014, more than half of children entering the United States foster care system were children of color. While most children in foster care reside with family in the present time, 14 percent of minorities live in institutions or

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