Preventing and responding to the needs of children outside of family care presents many challenges; however without an accurate understanding of the magnitude and distribution of this population, success towards meeting these challenges cannot be measured. Objective 2 of the U.S. Government Action Plan on Children in Adversity (APCA) emphasizes the reduction of numbers of children outside of family care by enabling families to care for their children and promote protective and permanent family care. These guidelines were prepared to help national actors enumerate children outside of family care and monitor trends in this population over time. The approach described is meant to be a discrete, repeatable, manageable and feasible mechanism to quantify the problem at the national level so that reduction targets can be set and solutions proposed and funded to achieve those targets.

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