localized date
Current Time
.png)
Fewer families are stepping up to foster — just as experts warn a surge of children could soon flood the system if the state and federal budget standoffs drag on.
Allegheny County is now preparing for an increase in referrals to the Office of Children, Youth, and Families.
“Parental stress is a big predictor of child maltreatment,” said Julia Reuben, an administrator for Allegheny County’s Department of Human Services. “And so, when there's not enough money to feed your children, to get a job, I think we can surmise that that will lead to increased maltreatment.”
In 2010, over 1,000 families took in foster children for the first time or became certified to be a foster parent in Allegheny County. This number dropped to 429 in 2024. According to data from the state Department of Human Services, there are currently 1,077 foster care approved families in Southwestern Pennsylvania including Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Green, Indiana, Washington and Westmoreland counties.
“I get calls and emails everyday about children needing to be placed,” said Tanya Johnson, Pressley Ridge Director of Allegheny County Foster Care. “If we have a teen bed open, it’s gone immediately.”
Pressley Ridge is one of a dozen foster care agencies under contract with Allegheny County. There are about 60 families in the county certified to provide foster care through their agency, Johnson said, and about 75% of them have foster children placed currently.
“The numbers don’t stop,” Johnson said. “We’re grateful that these families are stepping up...but we need more [foster parents], especially those willing to take on teens and to replace those who have gone from fostering to adopting if reunification wasn’t possible.”
Reunification refers to the process of returning a child in foster care to their biological parents or primary caregivers when it is deemed safe and appropriate by the courts, caseworkers, and foster agencies.
Pressley Ridge also has 32 families with foster children placed in their homes outside of Allegheny County. Senior Director Rachel Duvall helps oversee their Southwest Counties program.
The agency has had to look for foster homes across and outside of the state because of the lack of openings, she said.
“We're often asked, ‘do you have a family that you're onboarding that could be escalated to the emergency certification because we have a child that has nowhere to go,’” Duvall said. “These are typically kids with more complex needs...an open family might not have the required training.”
Duvall also said she is seeing a decrease in court-ordered referrals of community residential rehabilitation, a combination of therapy with psychiatric care and other mental health resources.
“The need is there. Unfortunately, what we've noticed is a decrease in referrals because of the lack of homes [certified to provide CRR],” Duvall said. “They’re having to refer to resources farther away from the home...putting more stress on these kids and families.”
In Washington County, Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children Executive Director Kelley Swift said finding foster care is difficult.
“The child welfare system is very overwhelmed... We've had kids linger in hospitalizations for longer than they needed to because a foster home couldn’t be found that could provide a kind of therapeutic aspect to it,” Swift said. “The burnout and turnover of caseworkers is super high.”
Allegheny County Director of Child Welfare Mandeep Gill said whenever possible, out-of-home placements for children are in homes of relatives or friends of the family, also known as kinship care.
For more than a decade, this approach has been the main out-of-home placement, with 66% of children in the county in kinship care last year; 22% were placed in traditional foster homes. The other 12% were placed in group homes or independent living centers.
The decline in foster parents is due to both the nature of fostering and lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gill said.
“A lot of our children who do come into care have a high acuity of needs, and there are families who do want to do this. But equally, they're dealing with their own challenges, and I think we've seen a real shift since COVID,” Gill said. “It's something that we're definitely working on with our providers on how we can really engage the community in trying to understand the need is still there, and we need their support to address this.”
Since 2021, the number of children entering foster care in Allegheny County has decreased, with a slight increase from 2023 to 2024 of 51 more children. As of January, there were 1,028 children placed in out-of-home care. Across Pennsylvania, there are about 15,000 children in temporary foster care, according to the state Department of Human Services.
Experts say that the budget impasses at the state and federal levels could exacerbate the situation for at-risk children and families.
Payments to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients in Pennsylvania were supposed be stopped due to the federal government shutdown. Nearly two million Pennsylvanians — including more than 713,000 children and 697,000 older adults — are estimated to lose access to more than $366 million in monthly food assistance. However, two federal judges ruled on Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration must continue to fund SNAP throughout the shutdown, according to reporting by the Associated Press.
Governor Josh Shapiro joined 24 other states and Washington, D.C. earlier this week in suing the Trump administration for suspending these payments.
Foster families also receive a monthly stipend funded by the state. Rates can vary based on the foster agency. Allegheny County has been covering the monthly payments to foster families from their reserve funds since July due to the state budget impasse, Mandeep said.
“We're committed to making sure those payments are made at least until through November,” he said.
Pressley Ridge is prepared to take over foster parent payments if the county can no longer provide the funding, Duvall said.
Beaver-based foster and adoption agency Adoption Connection PA said they would be able to sustain foster family payments for six months before having to lay off employees or make other budget cuts.
“Foster families do have to meet certain financial requirements, but [payments] help establish some savings for kids that foster families might not have had before the child entered the system,” said Jakie Pleska, recruitment and outreach supervisor at Adoption Connection PA.
The agency served 159 children last year primarily in Southwestern Pennsylvania, according to the group’s most recent data. They have served children from as far as Philadelphia, but most of their work is connecting and providing services to prevent children from being placed into foster care, she said.
“Neglect is often another term for poverty,” Pleska said. “A lot of these parents grew up in the system themselves. They don't have good parenting role models. It's not usually a lack of love. The best case is to keep those children within the home and see what services can be placed in the home.”
Prevention work at Pressley Ridge has already been impacted because of federal funding cuts to services like Medicaid.
“A lot of the services we connect families with, that funding is going away,” Duvall said. “We can’t connect this family with that community resource because the funding is on hold.”
McKeesport-based human services agency Auberle is the largest provider of foster care services in Allegheny County, serving 50% of teens and 25% of children in the county’s non-kinship foster system in 2024.
The agency is doing their best to keep services running amid the government shutdown and state budget impasse, Chief Operating Officer Aimee Plowman said.
They also experienced a decline in the number of foster parents during the COVID-19 pandemic and have recently bounced back to pre-pandemic numbers, registering about two families per month, Director of Foster Care Susan Rosati said.
“Finding the right match for kids is very difficult,” Rosati said. “Even if you have an influx of people waiting for a child, they might only be able to house a female or a male or whatever those unique circumstances are. Sometimes we have children where English is their second language.”
A directory of county children's youth service offices can be found here. Foster care agencies encourage parents to call 211 to be connected with food, home, and other community resources.
If you are a current or former foster parent or kinship placement, we would love to hear about your experiences. We are looking to speak with families throughout Southwestern Pa., including Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Green, Indiana, Washington and Westmoreland counties. We would also love to speak with current or former child welfare caseworkers. Email Erin Yudt at erin.yudt@pointpark.edu.
Erin Yudt is a reporter with Pittsburgh Media Partnership Newsroom, part of the Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University. She most recently was a multimedia content producer and digital reporter at WKBN in Youngstown and is a graduate of Point Park University. Reach her at erin.yudt@pointpark.edu.
The PMP Newsroom is a regional news service that focuses on government and enterprise reporting in southwestern Pennsylvania. Find out more information on foundation and corporate funders here.
Header image: Adoption Connection, PA Recruitment and Outreach Supervisor Jackie Pleska stands for a photo outside her office in Beaver. Pleska said the agency can sustain payments to their foster families for six months without aid from the counties they serve. With no state budget, payments have been made to foster families from county reserve funds since July. Photo by Erin Yudt.
.png)
.png)
