My inforgraphic digs into the number of children in the U.S. foster care systems and our local foster care system in 2019. I chose to research this topic because I knew there could be a lot of interesting government data that I could find. I was overwhelmed by the amount of data that had been reported on, not just the general number of children in the U.S. who are in the foster care system, but in Indiana as well.
I was able to find the amount of children in foster care in each state pretty easily. Then I calculated a rate per 1000 people under the age of 18 in each state. With this data, I made a sequential U.S. map that shows the rate of children in foster care in each state for 2019.
Through the Indiana Department of Child Services, I was able to find a database that keeps record of how many children enter and exit foster care in all 92 counties in Indiana. However, this data did not have an average for each county for 2019. I had to manually enter the amount of children in foster care for each of the 92 counties for each month of the year. Then I calculated the rate per 1000 people under 18 in each of those counties. Because I had to do so much googling to find population data, I came across some particularly useful Indiana population data websites that had an influx of information. With this information, I created an Indiana map with all 92 counties and showed the rate of children in foster care for 2019.
I decided to add two supplementary charts in order to context, and to compare Indiana to the rest of the U.S. These charts show the outcomes of children exiting foster care. This information comes from Childtrends.org, a research organization that focuses on improving the lives of vulnerable youth.
Despite the intensive data scrubbing, I was surprised that I was able to find all the data that I wanted. Looking back at my graphic, I don’t think that I was as clear in my labeling as I should have been to really explain the data.