– There are over 13,000 Children are in foster care in Michigan. They have been removed from their birth families because of abuse and/or neglect.
– There are about 450 kids in foster care in Muskegon County alone.
– 2,500 of those 13,000 children have adoption as their case goal, as determined by the courts. These are kids who have been placed in foster care and their parents have had their parental rights terminated (TPR). They will never return to their birth families and need a permanent home.
– About 300 of those Michigan TPR children have no options or potential placements. Simply put, they have nowhere else to go and are in “limbo” in the foster care system. Kids who are never adopted are just waiting until they are 18 and then they will “age out”
– According to national averages, kids who age out of the system are:
- less likely to finish high school or college
- less likely to be employed
- more likely to be homeless
- more likely to be incarcerated
- more likely to repeat the cycle