This week, The Imprint released a report on foster care capacity nationwide, which included a projection that the overall number of U.S. foster kids is continuing to go up.
Based on foster care totals from the 30 states that provided information, we project that the total number of children in foster care in 2017 is roughly 443,000, 3 percent more than the 2015 federal count, the last year such data was made available.