This dataset summarizes the number of dependent children (less than 18 years old) removed from households in the 2017 and 2018 federal fiscal years due to parental drug abuse. The data indicates if the dependent children were placed in kinship care or not.
*Kinship care refers to the care of children by relatives or, in some jurisdictions, close family friends (often referred to as fictive kin). Relatives are the preferred resource for children who must be removed from their birth parents because it maintains the children's connections with their families.
*The Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) definition of parental drug abuse is “Principal caretaker’s compulsive use of drugs that is not of a temporary nature.”