NYC’s foster youth population continues to decline – as do family reunifications

New York City’s child welfare agency reported that the number of children in foster care hit a new low last fiscal year, though the number of children reunified with their families declined significantly.

The city Administration for Children’s Services has reported a consistent decline of the number of youth in foster care over the past several years, and that trend continued during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were 7,800 children in foster care by the end of the last fiscal year – a decline of 6% compared with the previous year.

But the pandemic disrupted and limited the operations of New York’s Family Court system, which hurt the city’s effort to reunify children with their families, according to a report released by the agency on Friday.  

About 1,800 children were reunified with their families in fiscal year 2020 – an 18% decline compared with the previous year, when 2,244 children were reunified. To expedite the process, the agency began to look for cases where children could spend more time with their families, move to trial or get discharged in order to be reunified with their families. Though the number of children reunified with their families increased during the summer, the pace has still been slower than it was pre-COVID. 

The city’s Family Court shut down buildings in mid-March, and judges were instructed to hold virtual hearings on “essential” matters, which largely excluded efforts to reunify children with their families. Though petitions to remove children from their homes continued, no hearing motions were accepted from parents trying to contest them. While other cases deemed “non-essential” began to be heard, their pace continued to lag. And reliance on virtual visits and services to facilitate the reunification process have also made it more difficult for families.