​Education:

• 4% of youth who've experienced foster care will obtain a college degree.
• ​The average 17-18 year-old experiencing foster care is reading at a seventh-grade level.
• 65% of youth who've experienced foster care had to navigate 5 or more school moves during their time in care.
• On average, 50% of youth experiencing foster care complete high school by age 18.
• Youth experiencing foster care are 2 times more likely to be suspended and 3 times more likely to experience expulsion compared to their peers.

Homelessness:

• Between 31 and 46% of youth exiting foster care experience homelessness by age 26.
• ​61% of individuals who've experienced foster care and are navigating homelessness are likely to be incarcerated.
• ​Between 31% and 46% of youth exiting foster care experience homelessness by age 26.
• 20,000 young people age out of foster care every year. 20%, or 4,000, will experience homelessness within four years.
• ​Approximately, 47% of all current youth experiencing foster care and homelessness also experienced homelessness with their biological family compared to 9% of non-foster youth.

Incarceration:

• Over 50% of youth experiencing foster care will have an encounter with the juvenile legal system through arrest, conviction or detention by the age of 17.
• Over half of youth experiencing foster care experience an arrest, conviction, or overnight stay at a correctional facility by age seventeen
• ​Approximatey 25% of youth experiencing foster care will be involved with the criminal legal system within two years of leaving the system.
• 90% of children and youth who've had five or more placements in foster care have a risk of being involved with the criminal legal system.
• ​About 70% of youth who exit foster care as legal adults are arrested at least once by age
  26.
• ​Close to one fifth of the prison population in the United States is comprised of individuals who've experienced foster care.
• 17% of parents who are incarcerated spent time in the child welfare system.

Mental Health:

• Out of the 400,000 young people who've entered foster care in the United States, 80% have mental health issues, compared to 20% of their peers.​
• 91% of states do not offer programs that meet the mental health needs of foster youth.
• ​An average of about 23% of children experiencing foster care have one or more emotional, behavioral, or developmental conditions.
• ​In a study over a quarter the children experiencing foster care had a history of suicidality according to their own and/or their caregiver’s report, 4.1% of whom were imminently suicidal.
• The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACEs) determined that there is a 60% increase in risk of suicide attempt with every additional adverse childhood experience.
• ​​Children and youth who have experienced foster care are 2x as likely as US war veterans to experience PTSD as adults.
• ​Children and youth experiencing foster care are 5 times as likely to have anxiety and 7 times as likely to have depression than children not in the child welfare system.
• ​The Department of Health and Human Services states that approximately 90% of children experiencing foster care have been exposed to trauma.