It is perhaps surprising that we lack complete national information about why children enter foster care. While the annual Adoption and Foster Care Analysis Reporting System (AFCARS) report is informative, it leaves many questions unanswered, particularly “how many children enter foster care by means other than Child Protective Services (CPS) reports?” Drawing from a unique new integrated dataset, we examined foster care data (AFCARS) and CPS report data (National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System Child File). The linked dataset included 210,062 children with foster care placements in 2017 and no placements in the prior 5 years. We categorized each placed child along two dimensions of four levels each: Time since prior CPS report (if any) and stated AFCARS placement reason, ranging from clearly maltreated to clearly not maltreated. We also tracked the siblings of placed children, to see if non-maltreated children entered care because of maltreated siblings. We find that between 8–35% of children enter foster care for reasons other than maltreatment, depending how thresholds are set. These numbers decline somewhat when siblings are considered. A meaningfully large number of children are placed in foster care for reasons other than maltreatment investigated by CPS. Further research into these children is warranted to better inform foster care policy.

令人惊讶的是，我们缺乏关于儿童为何进入寄养的完整国家信息。虽然年度收养和寄养分析报告系统 (AFCARS) 报告提供了丰富的信息，但它留下了许多未解决的问题，特别是“有多少儿童通过儿童保护服务 (CPS) 报告以外的方式进入寄养？” 我们从一个独特的新集成数据集中提取，检查了寄养数据 (AFCARS) 和 CPS 报告数据（国家儿童虐待和忽视数据系统儿童文件）。链接的数据集包括 2017 年有寄养安置的 210,062 名儿童，而前 5 年没有安置。我们将每个安置的孩子分为四个级别的两个维度：自先前 CPS 报告以来的时间（如果有）并说明 AFCARS 安置原因，范围从明显受到虐待到明显未受到虐待。我们还跟踪了被安置儿童的兄弟姐妹，以查看未受虐待的儿童是否因为受到虐待的兄弟姐妹而进入护理。我们发现，8-35% 的儿童因虐待以外的原因进入寄养家庭，具体取决于阈值的设置方式。当考虑兄弟姐妹时，这些数字会有所下降。除了 CPS 调查的虐待之外，还有相当多的儿童被寄养。有必要对这些儿童进行进一步研究，以更好地为寄养政策提供信息。除了 CPS 调查的虐待之外，还有相当多的儿童被寄养。有必要对这些儿童进行进一步研究，以更好地为寄养政策提供信息。除了 CPS 调查的虐待之外，还有相当多的儿童被寄养。有必要对这些儿童进行进一步研究，以更好地为寄养政策提供信息。