The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges recently released a Technical Assistance Bulletin which identifies the disproportionality rates for all states and select Model Courts across the country. Utilizing 2009 Adoption and Foster Care Reporting System (AFCARS) and 2010 census data, the Disproportionality Rates for Children of Color in Foster Care Technical Assistance Bulletin provides the most current estimates of racial disproportionality. The Bulletin discusses how disproportionality can be measured and illustrates disproportionality rates across the U.S. for African American, Native American and Hispanic/Latino children.

Children of color are disproportionately represented in the United States foster care system. In most states, there are higher proportions of African American/Black and Native American children in foster care than in the general child population. In some states, Hispanic/Latino children are disproportionately represented as well. The overrepresentation of children of color is an issue of interest to juvenile dependency stakeholders, practitioners, and scholars. This Technical Assistant Bulletin briefly describes the issue of disproportionality, including an overview of prior research and information on how disproportionality can be measured. Disproportionality rates are then presented for all 50 states and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges Model Court jurisdictions.

Across the United States, Native American children are overrepresented in foster care at a rate of 2.2 times their rate in the general population. While not all state show disproportionality, 21 states do have some overrepresentation. Twenty-six percent of the states that have overrepresentation have a disproportionality index of greater than 4.1. In Minnesota, the disproportionality is index 11.6.

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