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 (Hill, 2006). 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.
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