Fun Facts

ADOPTION

• Most kids spend 2-5 years in foster care.
• Approximately 7 million Americans are adopted persons;
• Approximately 140,000 children are adopted by American families each year.
• As many as 100 million Americans have adoption in their immediate family (adopting, placing, adopted);
• The number of children in US foster homes alone is well in the half millions and that population is daily increasing.
• Children in similar situations all over the world are possibly in the millions.
• A fourth of these American children have no legal parents or families at all and will probably end up as orphans for life unless they are adopted.
• Foster kids usually have to bounce from foster home to foster home (due to financial issues, etc), and have to bounce from foster sibling to foster sibling.
• Only 17% of the children who left foster care in 2006 were adopted. More than 25,000 children “aged out” — turned out from the child welfare system not because they were reunited with their families or adopted, but simply because they turned 18
• Teens that age out of the system are much more likely to experience homelessness, health issues, unemployment, and the like.
• There were 3.3 million reports of child abuse and neglect in the United States involving 6 million children. (in 2006)

CHILD ABUSE