Roughly 38,500 children were in California’s foster care system as of September 30, 2024, making it the largest state foster care population in the country. The figure comes from a state-supervised, county-administered system in which all 58 counties run their own child welfare agencies under oversight from the California Department of Social Services. If you are trying to understand how many foster youth are in California and what that number represents, the headline count is only the starting point: the trend line, the demographics, and where these children actually live tell you more than the total alone.
How the Count Has Changed
A decade ago, California’s foster care caseload sat well above 50,000 children at any given moment. The current 38,500 is a drop of roughly one-quarter from those peaks.
Entries into care have fallen even faster than the standing population. According to the California Child Welfare Indicators Project, new entries dropped from about 26,800 in federal fiscal year 2019 to around 17,100 in fiscal year 2024. That is a 36 percent reduction in five years, outpacing the national trend by a wide margin.
Why Entries Are Falling
Fewer entries do not necessarily mean fewer families in crisis. California has directed significant funding toward in-home services, substance abuse treatment for parents, and community-based supports intended to keep children safely with their families rather than removing them. Adoption of the federal Family First Prevention Services Act shifted additional dollars toward preventive programs. The result is a deliberate policy posture that treats removal as a last resort rather than a default response to risk.
Who Enters the System
A child enters foster care when a juvenile court finds the child has been harmed or is at serious risk of harm from a parent or guardian. The legal basis is Welfare and Institutions Code Section 300, which covers physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, severe emotional damage, and abandonment.1California Legislative Information. California Code WIC 300 – Dependent Children Jurisdiction
Age matters a great deal. Infants and toddlers enter foster care at the highest rates. Data from the California Department of Social Services shows children under one year old have an entry rate of 9.4 per 1,000, compared with roughly 1.4 to 1.6 per 1,000 for teenagers.2California Department of Social Services. Data Very young children are more vulnerable and less visible to outside reporters like teachers, so cases involving them tend to involve more acute safety concerns by the time an agency intervenes.
Racial and Ethnic Breakdown
The 38,500 figure does not mirror California’s child population. Federal data for fiscal year 2024 shows the following composition of children in care:3U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. California – Child Welfare Outcomes
- Hispanic/Latino children: 56.8 percent of foster youth, roughly in line with their share of the state’s child population.
- Black children: 18.1 percent of foster youth, despite making up approximately 5 percent of California’s children. That is nearly four times their share of the general population.
- White children: 17.0 percent of foster youth.
- Asian children: 1.3 percent of foster youth.
- American Indian and Alaska Native children: 0.7 percent of foster youth, which looks small but is also roughly four times their share of the state’s child population.
A 2024 report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office confirmed that “the proportions of Black and Native American youth in foster care are around four times larger than the proportions of Black and Native American youth in California overall.”4Legislative Analyst’s Office. Update – Racial and Ethnic Disproportionalities and Disparities in California’s Child Welfare System For Native American children, the federal Indian Child Welfare Act sets minimum standards for how states handle removal and placement, aiming to keep Indigenous children connected to their tribes and communities.5Bureau of Indian Affairs. Indian Child Welfare Act
Where These Children Live
Kinship placement, where a child lives with a relative or close family friend, is the most common arrangement in California. A 2018 statewide snapshot showed over 19,000 of the roughly 55,000 children in care at that time were placed with kin. The state’s push toward kinship has only intensified since, and California’s kinship rate runs well above the national average of about 30 percent.6Child Trends. New Data Reveal Wide Variation in States’ Use of Formal Kinship Care
Foster family agencies, operated by private nonprofits, and county-licensed foster homes account for another large share. Children who need intensive therapeutic support may be placed in a Short-Term Residential Therapeutic Program, or STRTP. These facilities replaced most traditional group homes in 2017 under the Continuum of Care Reform (Assembly Bill 403).7California Department of Social Services. Short-Term Residential Therapeutic Program Each STRTP must obtain mental health program approval from the Department of Health Care Services and is designed to stabilize a child for an eventual return to a family setting. As of early 2023, roughly 3 percent of foster youth lived in STRTPs. The rest are in guardianship arrangements, pre-adoptive placements, supervised independent living, or other specialized settings.
Youth Who Stay Past 18
The 38,500 count includes young adults who have chosen to remain in care beyond their eighteenth birthday. California was one of the first states to allow this. Assembly Bill 12, effective in 2012, created the Extended Foster Care program, letting eligible young adults stay in care until age 21.8California Department of Social Services. Extended Foster Care (AB 12) To stay eligible, a participant must meet at least one of five requirements: enrollment in high school or an equivalency program, enrollment in college or vocational school, working at least 80 hours per month, participation in a program that helps find employment or remove barriers to work, or an inability to do any of the above because of a verified medical or mental health condition.
For young adults who never achieved permanency through adoption or guardianship, extended foster care is the primary safety net preventing an abrupt transition to full independence at 18 with no family backup.
What Happens After Care
The outcomes for young people who age out without a permanent family explain much of the urgency behind extended foster care. A California Policy Lab study of transition-age foster youth found that nearly one in four former foster youth reported experiencing homelessness between ages 21 and 23. That figure captured only those who reported sleeping in a shelter or a place not meant for sleeping. When researchers broadened the definition to include young people flagged as homeless while enrolling in safety-net programs like CalFresh, CalWORKs, or General Relief, the share rose to 30 percent within three years of leaving care.
Extended foster care under AB 12 was designed to soften that cliff, but participation hinges on meeting one of the five eligibility criteria. Young adults dealing with untreated trauma, housing instability, or a lack of adult mentors sometimes fall out of compliance and lose benefits at exactly the moment they need them most. This is the gap where California’s foster care statistics stop being abstract numbers and start representing real people navigating adulthood without the backstop most young adults take for granted.