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New data show Indiana’s entries into the state’s foster care system increased by 30%, from just over 6,000 children to nearly 7,900 children, between 2023 and 2024 even as the national average fell from 2%.
The Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System defines an entry as a child who “began an out-of-home care episode” during the time period, which follows the federal fiscal year from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
Between 2023 and 2024, the overall number of children in foster care, measured by those children in care on the last day of the fiscal year, grew from 10,500 children to nearly 12,000 children — a 13% increase.
Nationally, the number of children in foster care during the time fell 3%.
Indiana Department of Child Services Director Adam Krupp called the statistic a “snapshot in time,” noting that rates steadily decreased to a historic low in 2023.
“That historic low generated a lot of questions,” said Krupp, who was appointed in January by Gov. Mike Braun. “… questions like, ‘Are we doing enough to keep children safe?’”
Krupp emphasized before an interim legislative committee that the safety of children would be the first priority under his leadership. Speaking to the Indiana Capital Chronicle, he noted that a 2023 Evansville neglect arrest made national news after authorities discovered a baby with over 50 rat bites. DCS had been monitoring the family for months but ultimately decided the children should stay in the home.
Three DCS staffers were fired over that case and later sued the state.
“… that gets national recognition, and there is an expectation and a predicted outcome that you’re going to see an uptick in cases because we need to look at things a little bit differently,” said Krupp.
He noted that CHINS cases, or Children in Need of Services, had been steady during his tenure, starting at 13,657 in January and falling slightly to 13,510 in August, according to the DCS dashboard. Likewise, the number of children with DCS cases has remained steady during that time, from 16,748 to 16,393.
“It’s hovered in that range for the better part of the last year coming out of what very clearly was an all-time, historic low,” said Krupp. “We’re not going to do anything to swing the pendulum one direction or the other too far. We’re going to prioritize keeping kids safe. And if that means there are 13,510 kids in the system, then that’s what it is.”
Criticisms of DCS
Even in those years when cases were declining, critics flagged concerns about DCS “tear(ing) apart families at rates well above the national average.”
With the 30% increase, the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform noted that families were separated at the sixth-highest rate in the country, specifically saying Indiana’s caseworkers “confuse poverty with neglect,” citing an IndyStar story about “missed red flags” in a foster home.
Nearly four out of every five Black Hoosier kids will experience a maltreatment investigation during their childhood, higher than the statewide average for other races and above the national average of 53% for all Black children.
The 2023 study, spanning from 2015 to 2019, analyzed state-level differences in child welfare agencies. In response to the study, DCS noted that its care rate for Black children had fallen in the following years.
Richard Wexler, the executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, calls child protection agencies “state family police,” and flagged the new foster care entry data in a blog post.
“None of this is because Indiana is a cesspool of depravity with vastly more child abuse than the national average,” said Wexler in the post. “In fact, in Indiana in 2023, 86% of the time, when children were thrown into foster care, their parents were not even accused of physical or sexual abuse. Forty percent of the time, there wasn’t even an allegation of drug abuse.”
Krupp said that, in response to that criticism, he’d explicitly told DCS employees, “we’re not policing poverty.”
“It’s about safety. And just because a home that you walk into to perform an assessment for a report that came through the hotline — that home might look very different from what you grew up in or what you are familiar with,” said Krupp. “That does not mean they are neglecting their child in that home. It’s just different.”
Upon seeing a home with no functioning plumbing or without heat, “an overzealous individual” might try to remove a child, said Krupp.
“Whereas we can remedy that situation either same day, overnight or the next day because we (can) call up a community partner,” he added. “We don’t want that child taken away from their home to become part of the child welfare system for something that is very fixable and solvable in an immediate or short-term situation.”
However, Krupp did say that Indiana’s cases are “much more heavily on the neglect side,” as opposed to abuse.
The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, nonprofit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.
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