Overview
In 2020, the onset of the COVID pandemic upended the child welfare system in New York City. The number of families investigated and children placed in foster care both fell by one-quarter. Court-ordered supervision of families fell by almost half. Even so, there was no indication that NYC children were less safe.
Since then, the question has been: How well will NYC be able to sustain this “unintended abolition”? Will surveillance and separation of families spring back to pre-pandemic levels?
Five years later, the picture is complicated:
- Every form of child welfare involvement remains below pre-pandemic levels;
- Court supervision—one of the heaviest burdens of the system—has dropped by 46%, affecting 4,000 fewer children in 2024 than in 2019;
- The number of Black children entering foster care was down 23% in 2023 compared to 2019, which means that nearly 400 fewer Black children were removed from home;
- Deaths of children known to ACS also declined 18% 2022-2024 compared to the previous 10 years;
- However, child protection cases and foster care entries have steadily crept back up; they are now down just 10% and 12% against 2019.
Keeping in view the last 20 years, ACS involvement was lower in 2024 than at any time pre-pandemic. But compared to the deep cut in ACS’ presence that families felt in 2020-21, recent increases can be seen as a worrisome trend.
As decades of research and advocacy have documented, family separation is traumatic. More than 20 years ago, the New York Court of Appeals decreed that that any decision
to remove a child from their family must be weighed against the psychological harm to the child that could be created by the removal itself. New research also finds that investigations—which impact nearly 45% of Black and Latino children in NYC by age 18—rarely lead to support and leave damaging effects. With upstream investment, family crises could be addressed early far more often, without the shame, terror and trauma of child welfare involvement.
This brief provides an overview of major child welfare indicators from 2019 to 2024—and uses detailed data from 2023 to examine their drivers. These data reflect the direct impact of recent legislative, policy and practice shifts. They also provide new evidence of the need for further legislative and local action to sustain NYC’s progress in both keeping children safe at home and protected from system overreach.
Data analysis by Caterina Pisciotta and written by Nora McCarthy, with thanks to Mahima Golani. All data provided by the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) unless otherwise noted.
A few notes:
- Note: "Child protection cases" in this introduction refers to investigations and CARES cases. "ACS Cases" is used in the text. "Children known to ACS" refers to children who have had any contact with ACS over the past 10 years.
- For explanations of any jargon in this brief, use this guide.
- You can contact info@familypolicynyc.org with any questions. Our goal is to make sure parents and youth impacted by the child welfare system, advocates, community organizations, policymakers, media and others have access to information about the child welfare system’s impact in NYC.
Every Form of Child Welfare Involvement Remains Below Pre-Pandemic Levels
Before the pandemic, ACS’ presence in families’ lives had ballooned following the murder of Zymere Perkins in 2016. In 2017 alone, more than 15,000 families entered into some form of court oversight (court-ordered supervision or foster care). Investigations were also higher in 2017 than in the 1990s, jumping nearly 5,000 cases above typical levels.
It’s well-established that high-profile media coverage of child deaths drives “foster care panics”—months and years when hotline calls jump and child welfare agencies and judges make politically safer decisions that can devastate families, without reducing fatalities. After Perkins’ death, media coverage surged. While avoiding extreme increases in family separations, NYC’s panic resulted in heightened and sustained intrusion in Black and Latino families’ lives.
In contrast, the pandemic brought the city to unprecedented lows in every form of child welfare involvement. Families suffered, dealing with illness, death and grief even as jobs, childcare and schooling evaporated. Yet available metrics of the most serious harms to children—including hospital data, child homicide rates and deaths of children known to the system—showed no spike in the absence of surveillance.
Note: Total ACS Cases refers to investigations + CARES Cases. Entries to foster care excludes JD. Unless otherwise noted, all data includes duplicates, meaning that if any family or child had more the one ACS case in a given year, they are counted more than once.
See: The Social Outrage Routinization Process in Child Protective Services (CPS) System: A Case Study; The Vicious Cycle: Recurrent Interactions Among the Media, Politicians, the Public, and Child Welfare Services Organizations; Scandals, Lawsuits, and Politics: Child Welfare Policy in the U.S. States; Social outrage and organizational behavior: A national study of child protective service decisions.
ACS Contact Has Ticked Up Amidst Rising Child Poverty
Research shows that exposure to child welfare involvement increases when families struggle to meet their basic needs—and that policies that protect families from economic shocks and setbacks reduce every form of system involvement.
In the pandemic, the safety net pulled tighter, helping to offset family stress and exposure. An eviction moratorium kept families housed and out of shelter. Child tax credits boosted family income—and had direct effects on mental health. Mutual aid and community care efforts provided concrete resources and uplift. These policies had profound effects on helping households meet their basic needs, cutting the adult poverty rate by 45% and the child poverty rate by 68% in 2021.
Still, pandemic protections have slipped away. NYC has seen rising child poverty and hardship. According to NYC’s Poverty Tracker, child poverty rose starkly to 26% in 2023, up from 15% in 2021 and a pre-pandemic average of 20%. NYC also has absorbed an influx of more than 40,000 migrant children. Concurrently, child welfare involvement has ticked up.
Download: Image
Chart courtesy of the Poverty Tracker Research Group at Columbia University. The State of Poverty and Disadvantage in New York City, Volume 7. Robin Hood (2025).
Investigations Are Now Only 10% Below Pre-Pandemic Levels
After falling by almost one-quarter in 2020, ACS cases (including investigations and CARES cases) increased each year until 2023. However, in 2024, ACS cases dipped again by 2.7%, to about 51,500 cases. Apart from pandemic lows in 2020-21, this is the lowest number of ACS cases in the past 20 years.
During this time, the percent of reports routed to CARES—a type of investigation for lower-risk concerns—grew from 4% to 22%, or 11,277 cases in 2024.
More significant reductions in investigations may require reforms to the State Central Register (SCR), which receives hotline calls reporting neglect and abuse. As a 2024 FPP report documented, New York’s SCR screens out far fewer hotline calls than most other states, screening out only 25% of hotline calls, compared to a national average of 50%.
At a State Assembly hearing on the SCR in October 2024, the Office of Children and Families (OCFS) commissioner confirmed that the state SCR uses no standardized screening tool and has not examined its own screen-out data. OCFS has not yet committed to examining and addressing the problem.
ACS Cases Based on Reports by School and Hospital Personnel, and by Anonymous Reporters, Have Fallen Significantly
Declines in ACS cases have been driven by reductions in reports by education reporters, medical/mental health reporters, social services reporters and anonymous reporters, and in declining allegations of educational neglect, parental drug use and excessive corporal punishment, comparing 2019 to 2023. However, reports by law enforcement increased by 26%, partially offsetting these reductions.
These declines likely reflect rising advocacy, public awareness and systemic efforts to reduce unwarranted investigations. In response to parent-led advocacy, OCFS redesigned its training for mandated reporters and ACS has trained thousands of city personnel in schools, hospitals and family shelters that they can “support, not report” families when children are not in danger.
Hotline calls by education reporters, in particular, are rarely substantiated. Almost 90% of neglect-only calls by education reporters are not substantiated in NYC.
Procedural changes by the SCR also may have reduced the number of calls by education reporters and anonymous reporters screened-in for investigation. In the pandemic, SCR staff began asking more questions of education reporters, as required by law, according to OCFS testimony. In addition, the SCR recently began requiring that anonymous callers speak with a supervisor, which may have reduced anonymous reports, according to ACS.
Note: “Social services reporters” includes social workers based in schools, hospitals, shelters and other settings. “All Other” includes other mandated reporters, including Child Care Workers and Day Care Facility/Providers, as well as non-mandated reporters, including parents, foster parents, friends/neighbors/other relatives and anonymous reporters.
Hotline Calls Fell the Most in Areas Where ACS Involvement Is Most Common
ACS cases fell 10% in the 25 zip codes that had the highest burden of child welfare involvement in 2019, compared to 4% in all other zip codes. In these neighborhoods – such as Brownsville, East Harlem and Mott Haven – more than 1 in 10 families was investigated in 2019 alone. However, reductions in hotline calls were highest in these neighborhoods.
The Bronx, which has far higher hotline call rates than other boroughs, also saw a substantial reduction. The rate of hotline calls in the Bronx fell from 87 per 1,000 families in 2019 to 77 per 1,000 families in 2023.
Note: “Top 25 Impacted Zips” refers to the 25 zip codes that had the highest rates and volumes of child welfare impacts across investigations, court supervision, foster care entries and impacts by race/ethnicity in 2019.
7,600 Fewer Cases Were Substantiated in 2024 Compared to 2019
When an investigation is “substantiated” or “indicated,” parents are listed on the State Central Register and can be barred from employment in childcare, schools, or home care—even when allegations do not involve child safety, such as “educational neglect.” An indicated case can have serious economic consequences, particularly for women of color, who are more likely to be employed as care workers and to be investigated.
Two policy changes have reduced indications. First, in 2022, a new law raised the standard of evidence to substantiate an investigation, from “some credible evidence” to “a preponderance of evidence,” in line with nearly all other states. Second, ACS began routing far more lower-risk cases to CARES. These cases are neither substantiated nor unsubstantiated. As a result, the percent of substantiated cases fell to 22.6% in 2024 from 33.7% in 2019. This means that approximately one-third fewer families were placed on the register in 2024 compared to 2019.
Preventive Service Enrollment Has Remained Below Pandemic Levels
Enrollment in preventive services fell post-pandemic as fewer families were reported in 2020 and 2021 and many providers struggled with staffing. Preventive enrollments also may have been affected as fewer ACS cases began to be substantiated and more have been routed to CARES. Even though preventive services are technically voluntary, families often feel pressure to enroll to prevent an escalation of the case.
Typically, 4 in 5 families enrolled in ACS preventive services are referred by an investigator. While that number dropped to 71% in 2023, this reflects that families referred through a CARES case are enrolled as walk-ins (also called “advocate cases”). For parents, this means that their case records are not accessible to ACS.
Court-Ordered Supervision Fell By 46%, With a Sharp Drop Post-Pandemic
Court-ordered supervision places a considerable burden on children and parents, subjecting families to months or even years of monthly and unannounced visits from ACS. Families feel the persistent threat that they could be separated. Parents have called it an “endless investigation.”
At the onset of the pandemic, the family court limited court supervision to “exclusion” cases, where an offending parent is barred from the home. With that limit in place through 2022, court supervision fell by almost half.
Since then, ACS has continued to file fewer cases against families, with court supervision falling from about 3,500 cases each year 2020-21 to 2,120 cases (impacting 4,163 children) in 2023.
For the past five years, NYC has funded early legal representation for families facing an ACS investigation or CARES case, or even just concerned about catching a case. Early defense may be playing a role in reduced court filings, as families have legal representation and social work support during critical decision-making.
A 2025 court ruling may have a significant effect on how families experience court supervision. In many cases, domestic violence survivors who have never been charged with abuse or neglect are subject to invasive supervision and home visits when a former partner is barred from the home. That practice was ruled illegal.
Foster Care Entries Fell by 25% in the Pandemic but Have Risen Steadily Since
The number of children entering foster care fell from almost 3,600 in 2019 to 2,700 in 2020 and remained at this historic low in 2021. However, since then, foster care entries have steadily increased, reaching about 3,150 in 2024.
Heightened media coverage of high-profile child fatalities in 2024 raised concerns that NYC might once again experience a “foster care panic.” Even so, removals remained 12% below pre-pandemic levels, continuing the city’s 20-year trajectory in reducing the number of children entering foster care.
Note: Watching the Numbers has more detailed data on foster care.
The Number of Black Children Entering Foster Care Fell Sharply
Black families face extraordinary overexposure to child welfare’s harshest impacts, as documented in ACS’ 2019 racial equity plan.
These disparities remained high in 2023, with about 1 in 325 Black children entering foster care compared to 1 in 500 Latino children and 1 in 5,000 white children. However, nearly 400 fewer Black children entered foster care in 2023 compared to 2019.
Foster care entries for white and Asian children fell at slightly higher rates than for Black children. The number of Latino children entering foster care grew slightly, with more than 100 migrant children entering foster care in 2023.
Note: This data represents unique children, meaning that a child is counted only once even if they entered foster care more than once. JD placements are excluded. Census child race/ethnicity data may miscount Afro-Latino children.
The Number of Babies Entering Foster Care Also Dropped, Outpacing Decreases for Older Children
Investigations of newborns with a drug use allegation fell sharply in NYC after 2020, when NYC’s public hospitals ended a practice of drug testing pregnant patients without their consent, and ACS and NYC’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene also issued updated guidance on the steps that healthcare providers are required to take when newborns may have been exposed to substances in utero.
NYC’s public hospitals now require written consent to drug test a pregnant patient, although newborns can still be tested without a parent’s consent. The city’s guidance also clarifies that, under federal law, a positive toxicology test alone does not constitute neglect and does not require a report to the SCR. Likewise, disclosure of past or current drug use is not sufficient, by itself, to warrant a report to the SCR.
Research has found that fear of being reported to child welfare can be a significant barrier to prenatal care, particularly for those who use drugs and alcohol. However, a bill to require informed consent for all pregnant parents and newborns has not passed the state legislature.
Note: Data does not include Other/Unknown zip codes.
Despite Heightened Media Attention, Child Maltreatment Fatalities Have Not Increased as Child Welfare Impacts Have Fallen
Media coverage of child maltreatment fatalities significantly increased in 2024 even though reductions in child welfare involvement over the past five years have not come at a cost to children’s safety.
No system can prevent every death. However, homicides of children under 10 committed by parents are rare in NYC and were no higher in 2024, according to police data. Deaths of any child “known to the system” through an investigation or other ACS involvement in the past 10 years also declined 18% 2022-24 compared to the previous 10 years, according to ACS, and were typical from 2019-2021. In addition, no child fatalities were associated with CARES, according to ACS.
Ever since ACS began to reckon with the harm of family separation 20 years ago, media coverage has often raised alarms in ways reminiscent of the panic that surrounded coverage of crack cocaine in the 1990s. “The appetite for stories of black depravity” encouraged crack’s bad science to be “swallowed whole, then regurgitated in a racialized form,” as New York Times Editorial Board Member Brent Staples wrote in a Pulitzer Prize-winning essay in 2018. “News organizations shoulder much of the blame for the moral panic that cast [these] mothers…as irretrievably depraved and the worst enemies of their children.”
Note: “ACS Search” refers to the search phrase “Administration for Children’s Services” and the “Child Fatalities Search” refers to the search phrase “Administration for Children’s Services” plus “death.” This chart captures any mention of search terms in select New York print media, including The New York Times, Daily News, The Post, The City, Newsday, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), WSJ Online, Metro NY, The Queens Gazette, The Associated Press, and the New York Observer. Data was obtained using LexisNexis and Newsbank. This section was updated based on new data May 8, 2025.