FAQ: Permanency Indicators

The permanency in 12 months for children entering foster care indicator requires six 6-month Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) periods (3 years) to calculate performance. All children who enter foster care are identified over the first 12-month period (denominator) and are followed over the six AFCARS periods to determine if they exited to permanency within 12 months of entering foster care (numerator). An adjustment is made for children who discharged from foster care to reunification with parents or other caregivers on a trial home visit.

The reentry to foster care in 12 months indicator requires six 6-month AFCARS periods (3 years) to calculate performance. All children who enter foster care are identified over the first 12-month period. Those children who discharged within 12 months to reunification, living with a relative, or guardianship are identified using the second 12-month period. Children identified with these discharge types are then followed over the third 12-month period to determine if they reentered foster care.

The THV adjustment is made to address variations in state policy regarding returning children to their families for a period of time before the state makes a formal discharge from foster care ending the agency's placement and care responsibility. The THV adjustment is applied to the permanency in 12 months for children entering foster care statewide data indicator. To determine the child’s length of stay in foster care and if permanency was achieved within 12 months of entering care, the number of days in the THV beyond 30 days is subtracted from the length of stay.

For example, a child was in foster care for a total of 400 days and discharged to reunification following a 120-day THV. Without a THV adjustment, the child would be identified as not achieving permanency within 12 months (365 days). However, by applying the THV adjustment, 90 of the 120 THV days are not counted toward the time to achieve permanency, which adjusts the length of stay to 310 days (400 – 90 days), which does result in timely achievement of permanency within 12 months of entering foster care. This example is illustrated in the table below.

Number of Days Counted for a 120-day THV, as Applied to the Permanency
in 12 Months for Children Entering Foster Care Statewide Data Indicator

A child’s risk of experiencing a placement move can vary depending on the number of days they are in care. The placement stability rate calculates the total number of placement moves that occurred for children entering care during a 12-month period, divided by the total number of days in care those children experienced during that period. Because moves in care are not a frequent event, the rate is expressed in terms of moves per 1,000 days in care. This allows for more straightforward comparisons between groups (age, race/ethnicity, county) serving different numbers of children.

For example, children entering care in County A experienced 14 moves out of 4,100 total days in care and children entering care in County B experienced 1,500 moves out of 453,000 days in care for the same 12-month period. By saying that County A has a rate of 3.41 per 1,000 days and County B has a rate of 3.31 per 1,000 days, it makes differences (or similarities) easier to identify: County A and County B have roughly the same rate of foster care placement moves in their foster care populations.

Information on how each data indicator is calculated can be found in the CFSR Round 3 Statewide Data Indicator Data Dictionary.

The number of placement moves a child experiences is derived from the child’s AFCARS record using data element #24, “Number of Previous Placement Settings During This Removal Episode.” To determine the number of placement moves that occurred while the child was in foster care during a 12-month reporting period and under the age of 18, the code makes the following adjustments:

• Subtract one from the number of placement settings for each foster care episode to not count the initial removal from home into foster care as a placement move
• As applicable, subtract one when the date of the current foster care placement setting (AFCARS data element #23) is after the child’s 18th birthday and the number of previous placement settings during that removal episode is greater or equal to one

For more information about exclusions and considerations for the calculation of the Placement Stability data indicator, see the CFSR Round 3 Statewide Data Indicators Data Dictionary 2020. For more information about AFCARS reporting for placement settings, see the Children’s Bureau’s FAQS for AFCARS, Data Elements and Definitions, Foster Care Specific Elements, Placements webpage.