Watching the Numbers 2022: Covid-19's Effects on Child Welfare System
Child welfare activity has remained at a lower level throughout the pandemic. Our annual Watching the Numbers report tracks trends in key child welfare indicators and our latest report includes six years of data ending with City Fiscal Year 2021. This year’s report also includes monthly data from throughout the pandemic (starting in January 2019 and running through December 2021). Last year’s Watching the Numbers captured data from the early months of Covid-19 shutdowns, and showed a precipitous decline in abuse and neglect reports, investigations, court filings and orders, mandated services, foster care admissions, and discharge outcomes. These and other indicators have stayed below recent historical trends.
Many have remarked that the pandemic set up a natural experiment in what might happen if child welfare services were a less active part of families’ lives. Local and national news reports predicted an increase in harm to children at home, with stressed parents and without the protective eyes and engagement of schools, service agencies, and other entities. It appears, however, that less child welfare activity did not make children less safe at home. Families and children certainly faced many pandemic hardships. But they also experienced a more robust social safety net and received unprecedented Federal financial support. Many social service agencies also reoriented themselves to providing for basic needs like food and diapers. Less activity, however, also extended to fewer discharges from care, and calendar year 2020 data also show fewer family reunifications and adoptions. Will these trends continue as the city emerges from Covid? Is there a “new normal” where kids are safe with less child welfare intervention?
Some key trends in this year’s report:
Continuing a long-term trend, children entering foster care and the total foster care population declined. The number of children admitted to care dropped to below 3,000 in calendar year 2020.
However, fewer children were discharged from foster care, with 3,042 children discharged in CY20. While the number of children discharged to KinGap increased to 414, the number of children discharged to reunification within a year dropped to 790 and the number of completed adoptions fell to only 240. The proportion of children in foster care for more than three years increased to 36.7 percent in FY21.
Average caseloads for child protective workers dropped to 6.3 in FY21 and only eight workers had caseloads over 15.
The number of families receiving preventive services dropped to 15,469 in FY21, but the number of new preventive cases increased and the number receiving evidence-based services bounced back, in line with previous trends.
The racial disparities among children in foster care remained high in 2021, with Black and Latinx children representing 88.9 percent of children in care.
Monthly data for selected indicators remained lower than in pre-pandemic 2019. After a sharp drop in the spring of 2020, monthly data for investigations, emergency removals, abuse and neglect cases filed in Family Court, court-ordered supervision, preventive services, and admissions to and discharges from foster care all increased, while still remaining lower than their pre-pandemic levels.
This report is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Child Welfare Fund and the Ira W. DeCamp Foundation.
