Methodology
CFSR4: Permanency Performance Area 4
Re-entry to foster care
Notes on Source Data
IMPORTANT NOTE: The following methodology may include references to report features not available on the public site version. On the public site, masking is performed to protect the privacy of individuals served by CDSS and comply with CDSS data de-identification guidelines. Values of 1 to 10 and calculations based on values of 1 to 10 are masked ('M' or '*'). In stratified views of the data, additional values (the lowest available) are masked to prevent calculation of values 1 to 10.
Federal/CWS Outcomes Measure: Of all children discharged from foster care to permanency (reunification or guardianship) during the year, what percent reentered foster care in less than 12 months from the date of the earliest discharge to reunification or guardianship during the year?
Denominator:
The denominator is the total number of children who exited foster care to permanency in a 12-month period. The Trial Home Visit adjustment, applied to 4-P1, is not applied, consistent with the federal definition of this measure.
Numerator:
The numerator is the count of these children who then reentered care within 365 days of the discharge date.
Performance:
Performance for this measure is the numerator divided by the denominator, expressed as a percentage. An decrease in the percentage indicates an improvement in performance.
National Performance:
The National Performance for this measure is ≤ 5.6%. For details, please see CFSR Technical Bulletin 13 (PDF).
Extension of Federal Measure:
Users may view reentries to foster care within 24 months of the permanency discharge date for those time periods where the data exist (24 full months beyond the 12 month time period shown). In contrast to CFSR3, the CFSR4 re-entry measure does not exclude children in care whose foster care episode(s) lasted less than 8 days. The default settings reflect this change, however, the report also allows you to stratify by time in care (7 days or less, 8 days or more).
Notes: Discharge to permanency is defined as a discharge to parents, primary caretaker(s), or guardianship and includes the following CWS/CMS subcategories:
- Reunified with Parent/Guardian (Court) [5439]
- Reunified with Parent/Guardian (Non-Court) [5440]
- Child Released Home [5513]
- Guardianship [5434, 5516]
If a child is discharged to permanency more than once during the specified year, the first discharge to permanency is considered.
Agency Type indicates the responsible agency at permanency (reentry can be to any agency).
Cells containing a period (".") represent a value of zero. In cells representing quotients, a period may also indicate the indeterminate form 0/0.
Stratification and Filters: This measure may be run with filters to restrict the data to various subgroups of other variables (e.g., Black subgroup of the Ethnicity variable, <1 year old subgroup of the Age variable, etc.). Please see the links below for details:
Agency Type
Days in Care
Episode Count
Age Group
Ethnic Group
Sex at Birth
Placement Type
Caregiver Relationship
Permanency Type