More Louisiana Youth Are Aging Out of Foster Care: 127 to 209 in Two Years

In state fiscal year 2025, 209 young people left Louisiana foster care because they reached adulthood, not because they went home or were adopted. Two years earlier, in SFY 2023, it was 127.

The series, from DCFS's HCR 74 management reports: 167 (2020), 152 (2021), 140 (2022), 127 (2023), 181 (2024), 209 (2025).

Teens are a growing share of the need

A rise like this usually reflects the age mix of the children in care. Teens who enter care at 15 or 16 have little time to reach permanency before they turn 18. Louisiana offers extended foster care to young adults ages 18 to 21: DCFS's 2026 fact sheet counted 384 youth in extended foster care in calendar year 2025.

There is good news in the same reports. At DCFS's 2025 Adoption Celebration, 50 teens were adopted, up from 36 the year before. Families do say yes to teenagers.

What helps

• Foster or adopt a teen. Many teens want a family, even when they say they don't.
• Mentor. A consistent adult in a young person's life changes outcomes.
• Support extended foster care youth with housing, jobs and the everyday know-how most of us learned at home.

Nationally, between 31% and 46% of youth who aged out of foster care in a three-state Midwest study had been homeless at least once by age 26. Those numbers don't have to be Louisiana's.