All States, Foster Care Rankings

FY2022 ACF AFCARS data · 51 states · Sorted by reunification rate · Numbered among the 49 with at least 500 exits

The grade is an equal-weight four-measure profile band, not an overall rating of state child-welfare quality or child safety. This table itself is sorted only by reunification rate. How grades are calculated.

Washington leads the ranking at 67.0% reunification, while Virginia trails at 26.7%, a 40.3-point spread across the 51 jurisdictions we track. See our methodology for how each state's grade is computed from the underlying AFCARS extract.

# State Grade In Care Reunification
1 Washington C 8,049 67.0%
2 Wyoming B 756 64.8%
3 Nebraska C 3,873 59.1%
4 Idaho A 1,548 57.2%
5 Massachusetts D 8,824 56.0%
6 Nevada B 4,047 55.3%
7 Indiana B 11,457 54.2%
8 New Mexico B 1,800 53.2%
9 Hawaii C 1,340 53.0%
10 Montana C 2,672 52.0%
11 Kansas C 6,808 51.6%
12 Illinois C 20,743 51.2%
13 Minnesota C 6,133 51.0%
14 Wisconsin D 6,622 50.5%
15 New Hampshire B 1,181 50.3%
16 California C 45,924 49.6%
17 Alaska C 2,690 49.5%
18 Vermont B 1,096 49.2%
19 North Dakota B 1,547 48.8%
20 South Carolina C 3,793 48.7%
21 Oregon D 4,826 48.5%
22 South Dakota C 1,615 48.1%
23 Arizona C 12,358 47.2%
24 West Virginia B 6,952 47.1%
25 Iowa B 4,048 45.9%
26 Maine B 2,429 44.8%
27 Missouri D 12,514 44.8%
28 Mississippi B 3,825 44.1%
29 Arkansas C 3,952 43.9%
30 Rhode Island D 1,723 43.2%
31 Tennessee C 9,053 43.1%
32 Florida B 22,493 42.5%
33 Pennsylvania C 12,465 42.0%
34 Oklahoma C 7,013 41.1%
35 New Jersey C 2,786 40.5%
36 Texas C 21,358 40.4%
37 Utah B 2,067 40.4%
38 North Carolina C 11,258 40.3%
† Delaware Small N † D 548 39.8%
39 Ohio D 14,946 39.5%
40 Georgia D 10,838 39.4%
41 New York F 14,134 39.1%
42 Louisiana B 3,682 38.0%
43 Alabama C 5,260 37.9%
44 Michigan D 8,940 37.6%
45 Kentucky C 7,905 36.8%
46 Maryland F 3,609 35.3%
† District of Columbia Small N † D 427 33.8%
47 Colorado C 4,133 33.3%
48 Connecticut D 3,295 30.9%
49 Virginia D 5,039 26.7%

† Delaware (256 exits) and District of Columbia (260 exits) fall under the 500-exit floor. Their reunification rate rests on too few discharges to rank, so they sit in the sort at the reported rate but carry no row number. Row numbers count the 49 jurisdictions at or above the floor, the same pool as the rankings and metric boards.

Grade key: A, composite 80–100B, composite 60–79.9C, composite 40–59.9D, composite 20–39.9F, composite 0–19.9

Source: Administration for Children and Families, AFCARS Report #30 (FY2022). acf.hhs.gov