Methodology
Out-of-County Placements [static]

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.

These reports provide point-in-time counts of children and youth placed in foster care and represent the relationships between supervising and placement counties. The count of children and youth is constructed from an unduplicated point in time count of all children and youth who have an open placement episode in the CWS/CMS system (see the Point In Time methodology for additional details). Supervising county—on the user-specified count day—is the county in which the child or youth has an open case or referral (for cases under the supervision of Child Welfare or Probation) or state id county code (for cases under the supervision of Probation). Placement county is determined by reference to the variable placement_home.government_entity_type (plc_hm_t.gvr_entc), as indicated for the user-specified count day.

Users may select report data for children placed in all placement types or in one of four selected placement types: ‘foster homes’, ‘foster family agency homes’, ‘group homes’, or ‘relative/NREFM’ (NREFM is non-related extended family member). In addition, a summary report is available. Please note that in all placement grid reports by placement type the category ‘All Placement Types’ includes placement types in addition to the four types listed above, therefore ‘All Placement Types’ will be equal to or, in most cases, exceed the sum of the four types. Please see the Placement Type link below for a complete list of placement types. Placement type in this analysis is assigned by the record that corresponds with the user-specified count day.

Report structure
With the exception of the summary table, the structure of the tables is the same. Rows represent the supervising county, that is, the county responsible for the child or youth. Columns represent the placement county, that is, the child or youth’s current county of residence. Therefore, the cell at the intersection of the row for County X and the column for County Y indicates the number of children and youth supervised by County X and placed in County Y.

Columns two and three provide summary data: The first row of data, ‘All Counties’, provides a count of all children in care at the selected point in time (column 2) and the percentage placed in their supervising county (column 3). The rows that follow provide these same summary data broken out by county; that is the total number in care who are the responsibility of that county (column 2) and the percentage placed in that same supervising county (column 3).

The remaining columns break out the county of residence in detail. By examining a row of data for any given supervising county, users are able to see the distribution of placements across all California counties, as well as a count of children and youth placed out of state (second-to-last column). The final column of the table, ‘Missing’, provides a count of children and youth for whom a placement county could not be determined in CWS/CMS.

Rows represent supervising counties. Examining a column for a particular county allows you to determine which supervising counties have placed children and youth (and how many they have placed) in that placement county.

The summary tables indicates the number and percent of children and youth placed in their supervising county, summarized in the ‘All Placement Types’ column and stratified by the placement types ‘foster homes’, ‘foster family agency homes’, ‘group homes’, and ‘relative/NREFM’.

Further stratification
There are two age ranges available: on the left of the index page, the general tables include children and youth in care age 0 to 21 years. On the right, tables for a subset of youth, age 16-21, are available. For each age range, data tables are available by Agency Type by selecting the radio button ‘Child Welfare’ or ‘Probation’. Please see the Age and Agency Type links below for additional coding details.

Cells containing a period (".") represent a value of zero. In cells representing quotients, a period may also indicate the indeterminate form 0/0.

Agency Type

Age Group

Placement Type