Most Texas Children Who Leave Foster Care Go Home to Family

The story of foster care is usually told at the front door: the removal, the emergency placement, the shortage of beds. The back door matters just as much. It is where children go home.

In FY 2025, children left DFPS custody 9,876 times. The largest single outcome was family reunification: 3,223 children went home to the parents they were removed from.

Another 2,837 left to the permanent custody of relatives, and 1,201 were adopted by relatives. Add those together and 7,261 exits, 73.5%, ended with a parent or a relative. Another 1,741 children were adopted by non-relative families.

Kin are the quiet backbone

Grandparents, aunts, older siblings and family friends often step in first. Their homes keep children connected to their family, community and culture. Texas data shows relatives finishing the job, too: through custody or adoption, they became the permanent home for more than 4,000 children in a single year.

The hard part, honestly

772 youth aged out of care in FY 2025 without exiting to a family. That is the lowest number in the ten years of data shown here, down from 1,250 in FY 2016. Even so, it is 772 young adults starting out without a permanent family, and the reason teens need foster and adoptive homes too.

Reunification is not a failure of foster care. It is what foster care is for whenever it is safe. Foster parents who support a child's way home — through visits, shared parenting and simple kindness to a struggling parent — are part of how these numbers happen.