Failure to Achieve Permanency

Definition: Percentage of children who do not achieve permanency in the foster care system. In other words, cases in which court jurisdiction ends because the child reaches the age of majority.

Purpose: Child Permanency. This measure is examines how often children fail to achieve permanency. The courts share responsibility for permanency because they decide when children will be permanently placed and oversee the case planning and progress during the life of the case.

Method: Computing this measure first requires selecting cases whose reason for closure was “age out” or other non-permanent equivalent. Compute the percentage of case closures that did not result in permanent placement. Both the raw numbers and percentages should be reported.

Analysis and Interpretation:
Required Data Elements: Case number or child identifier,
Date of case closure
Reason for case closure—“age out” or other non-permanent placement. .

Alternative Measures:
Percent of children exiting foster care because they have reached the age of majority.