Parental alcohol or drug abuse at removal, by state, FY2025

What this dataset measures

The federal foster care data (AFCARS) is the only source that records removal reasons the same way in every state. The state's own dashboard and research office add age groups, King County and treatment.

Geography

Washington, United States, United States

Unit of observation

Varies by table: state, year, circumstance, age group or figure

Update cadence

Yearly, when NCSACW posts the next state table (about May) and DCYF updates its dashboard

Curator

FactHub Research Team

Curated data tables

Parental alcohol or drug abuse at removal, by state, FY2025

Children in out-of-home care at any point in federal fiscal year 2025 whose removal records list parental alcohol or drug abuse.

Unit of observation: One state, DC or Puerto Rico

states-fy2025.csv text/csv · 1.7 KB (1,690 bytes)

All 52 rows 7 columns Download the file

All 52 rows

state	usps	fips	pct percent	children children	estimated_from_entries	rank
Alaska	AK	02	65.1	2233	no	1
Alabama	AL	01	42.6	3784	no	17
Arkansas	AR	05	37.9	2043	no	30
Arizona	AZ	04	37.6	5191	no	31
California	CA	06	14.2	7933	no	49
Colorado	CO	08	48.9	3264	no	10
Connecticut	CT	09	39.4	1904	no	27
District of Columbia	DC	11	15.7	112	no	48
Delaware	DE	10	26.5	198	no	42
Florida	FL	12	45.7	11429	no	13
Georgia	GA	13	41.6	6553	no	21
Hawaii	HI	15	20.5	310	no	45
Iowa	IA	19	51.3	3117	yes	7
Idaho	ID	16	31.3	690	no	37
Illinois	IL	17	11.9	2771	no	50
Indiana	IN	18	53.8	10353	yes	6
Kansas	KS	20	25.8	2199	yes	43
Kentucky	KY	21	34.5	4576	no	33
Louisiana	LA	22	3.0	230	no	51
Massachusetts	MA	25	33.7	3882	no	35
Maryland	MD	24	38.7	1958	no	29
Maine	ME	23	48.0	1510	no	11
Michigan	MI	26	41.8	5495	no	20
Minnesota	MN	27	46.2	4244	no	12
Missouri	MO	29	45.6	7566	no	14
Mississippi	MS	28	41.9	2626	no	19
Montana	MT	30	39.1	1297	no	28
North Carolina	NC	37	42.4	6811	yes	18
North Dakota	ND	38	40.4	757	no	23
Nebraska	NE	31	28.6	1582	no	40
New Hampshire	NH	33	17.4	292	no	46
New Jersey	NJ	34	39.9	1715	no	26
New Mexico	NM	35	44.0	1425	no	16
Nevada	NV	32	24.9	1627	no	44
New York	NY	36	29.7	6176	no	39
Ohio	OH	39	30.0	7218	no	38
Oklahoma	OK	40	55.0	5292	no	4
Oregon	OR	41	50.3	3385	no	9
Pennsylvania	PA	42	33.6	5863	no	36
Rhode Island	RI	44	28.6	656	no	41
South Carolina	SC	45	17.1	1017	no	47
South Dakota	SD	46	54.2	1433	no	5
Tennessee	TN	47	34.4	4731	no	34
Texas	TX	48	58.4	15645	no	3
Utah	UT	49	59.6	1661	no	2
Virginia	VA	51	37.2	2924	no	32
Vermont	VT	50	41.3	553	no	22
Washington	WA	53	51.3	4525	no	8
Wisconsin	WI	55	40.0	3527	no	25
West Virginia	WV	54	40.4	4292	no	24
Wyoming	WY	56	44.9	550	no	15
Puerto Rico	PR	72	16.2	495	no	—

7 field definitions

Field	Type	Meaning	Units	Value type
state	string	State name	—	observed
usps	string	Postal code	—	observed
fips	string	Two-digit FIPS code	—	derived
pct	number	Percent of children in out-of-home care during the year with parental alcohol or drug abuse recorded as a circumstance at removal	percent	observed
children	integer	Number of those children	children	observed
estimated_from_entries	string	yes where NCSACW estimated the percent from entries because of missing data (IA, IN, KS, NC)	—	observed
rank	integer	Rank among the 50 states and DC, highest first; ties share consecutive ranks in table order; empty for Puerto Rico	—	derived

Supporting files

Source snapshots, manifests, quality reports, documentation, and other materials used to produce or review this release.

• dataset-metadata.json Documentation · application/json · 44.3 KB (45,399 bytes)

  The dataset's sources, table definitions and saved analyses (with every result row), as JSON.

Sources

1. National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare (NCSACW), Parental Alcohol or Drug Abuse as a Circumstance Reported at Removal by State, 2025 Share and number of children in foster care with parental alcohol or drug abuse recorded at removal, by state, federal fiscal year 2025

   Retrieved November 12, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Public domain; figures restated, document linked

   Reliability: Government. A center funded by the federal Children's Bureau and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Figures are the Center for Children and Family Futures' analysis of the federal foster care data (AFCARS) that every state reports, as archived by the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect.

2. NCSACW, Prevalence of Parental Alcohol or Drug Abuse as a Circumstance Reported at Removal in the United States, 2000 to 2025 National share by year, 2000 to 2025

   Retrieved November 12, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Public domain; figures restated, document linked

   Reliability: Government. Same center and method as the 2025 state table.

3. NCSACW, Parental Alcohol or Drug Abuse as an Identified Condition of Removal by State, 2021 (archived copy) Washington and national shares in the 2021 edition of the state table

   Retrieved November 12, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Public domain; figures restated, document linked

   Reliability: Government. An earlier edition of the same center's state table, no longer posted on its site; read from the Internet Archive copy. Its footnote cites 'AFCARS Data, 2020 v1' while its title says 2021.

4. NCSACW, Parental Alcohol or Other Drug Abuse as an Identified Condition or Removal by State, 2019 (archived copy) Washington and national shares in the 2019 edition of the state table

   Retrieved November 12, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Public domain; figures restated, document linked

   Reliability: Government. An earlier edition of the same center's state table, read from the Internet Archive copy.

5. U.S. Children's Bureau, AFCARS state data reports for Washington, fiscal years 2021 and 2022 Circumstances recorded for children entering foster care in Washington (FY2021 report: https://acf.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/afcars-tar-wa-2021.pdf)

   Retrieved November 12, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Public domain; figures restated, document linked

   Reliability: Government. The federal agency's own summary of the foster care data Washington reports to it. Preliminary estimates as of June 28, 2022 (FY2021) and May 9, 2023 (FY2022). Reports for other years were not posted at the same address.

6. Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), Prevention Dashboard V1.16, Factors tab Contributing factors for children entering out-of-home care, statewide and King County, by age group, 2017 to 2024

   Retrieved November 12, 2026. Public record (Washington state government). Public record; figures restated, dashboard linked

   Reliability: Government. The state agency that removes children reports on its own cases from its case management system (FamLink), using the federal AFCARS definitions. Read from the dashboard's hover values on November 12, 2026 (dashboard updated September 2025).

7. Washington DSHS Research and Data Analysis Division, Report 7.121: Substance Use Disorder Treatment Penetration among Child Welfare-Involved Caregivers (December 2020) Share of caregivers with a substance use disorder and share treated, state fiscal years 2015 to 2018

   Retrieved November 12, 2026. Public record (Washington state government). Public record; figures restated, document linked

   Reliability: Government. The state's own research office, writing for DCYF. It links child welfare records to Medicaid diagnoses, prescriptions and treatment and to drug-related arrests; treatment counts cover Medicaid-paid care only.

8. National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect, AFCARS Foster Care File Codebook Definitions of the removal-reason fields (elements #37 and #38)

   Retrieved November 12, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Public domain; figures restated, document linked

   Reliability: Government. The federal data archive's codebook for the AFCARS file; definitions come from federal regulation 45 CFR 1355, Appendix A.

License: FactHub's selection, cleaning and combined tables are licensed under CC BY 4.0. Source data keeps the terms listed above (terms).

Limitations and reproducibility

Reproducible from public sources: Every figure is printed in the cited PDF, except the DCYF figures, which are the dashboard's hover values (Factors tab, Bar Chart age filter, Statewide or County - King).

• Removal reasons are yes/no fields, so a child can have several; parental drug abuse usually appears with neglect.
• States record these fields differently and some send only the primary reason, so comparisons between states partly reflect recording practice (NCSACW's caveat).
• The NCSACW figures count every child in care during the year, including those removed in earlier years; the share among new removals is lower (42% for parental drug abuse alone in FY2022).
• The treatment figures are from 2015-2018 and count only Medicaid-paid care.
• We could not read the July 2025 DCYF slide deck that reportedly gave a 27% figure; it has been taken down.