Out of home care includes foster care, kinship care, therapeutic foster care, and residential and group care. A judge may order a child be taken into the custody of the Department for Children and Families (DCF) if the child has been abused or neglected; is beyond or without parental control; or has been adjudicated delinquent.
Data source: National Adoptions and Foster Care Reporting System (AFCARS).
Last updated: September, 2021
Updated by: Department for Children and Families
We want to reduce the rate of children and youth in out of home care as part of our efforts to ensure that all Vermonters are healthy and safe and families are safe, nurturing, stable, and supported.
The rate of Vermont children coming into statee custody due to abuse and neglect has slowly decrease from11.3/1,000 children in 2018 to 9.4/1,000 in 2020.
There is more work to be done to assure child safety and support vulnerable families. However, it is anticipated that the rate of children and youth in out of home care will continue to slowly decrease based on findings from the 2019 Report on Child Protection in Vermont.
Child abuse and neglect in Vermont is a population-level problem. While the Agency of Human Services (AHS) and its Departments are responsible for intervening in, and working to reduce the rate of child abuse and neglect in Vermont, AHS recognizes that preventing abuse and neglect is something many other partners contribute to.
In the AHS strategic planning process for reviewing our strategic plan population-level results and indicators, each of the partners below was identified as having a contributing role to play in improving this population-level indicator for the state of Vermont.
Strengthening Families™ is a research-informed approach to increase family strengths, enhance child development and reduce the likelihood of child abuse and neglect. It is based on engaging families, programs and communities in building five protective factors:
Child abuse prevention initiatives across the Department for Children and Families and the Agency of Human Services draw on this evidence-informed approach.
The deaths of Dezirae Sheldon and Peighton Geraw in 2014 caused the entire child protection system to question what could have been done to prevent these tragedies. Vermont’s Child Protection System has undergone an unprecedented number of reviews and inquiries in an attempt to answer this question.
DCF has implemented significant improvements based on reviews conducted by Casey Family Programs and the Vermont Citizen’s Advisory Board. DCF also sought feedback from its staff, community partners, and the public to develop a plan to improve our policies and support our workforce. Changes implemented by DCF include:
Act 60 went into effect on July 1, 2015. This legislation makes several key changes possible:
For more information about ongoing efforts to strengthen Vermont's child protection system, please click here.