any other state in the nation.35 By 2009, almost 300,000 of
California’s children lived in households headed by a grandparent
and 75, 349 of those children had no legal parent present in the
home.36 Further, by 2010, almost a quarter of California’s 126,000
same-sex headed households were raising children.37 The growing
number of non-traditional families should not be ignored.
As the number of non-traditional families increases, so do
their representative numbers in the child welfare system. In 2011,
approximately 6.2 million children came into contact with child
protective services through 3.4 million referrals of abuse or neglect.38
In 2011, there were over 400,000 children in foster care
nationwide.39 California’s foster care population was the highest of
any state in the nation with 55,000 children in foster care
placements.40 The state with the second largest foster care population
35 Meredith Minkler & Donna Odierna, California’s Grandparents Raising
Children: What the Aging Network Needs to Know as it Implements the National
Family Caregiver Support Program 1 (2001),
http://cssr.berkeley.edu/pdfs/CAgrandparents_entire.pdf.
36 CHILDREN’S DEF. FUND, STATE OF AMERICA’S CHILDREN 2010, at C-5 (2010),
http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/state-of-
americas-children-2010-report-family-structure.pdf. In 2002, California’s
Legislature acknowledged the concerning number of children in foster care with
the adoption of Welfare & Institutions Code Section 16010.4, which states, “[t]he
Legislature finds and declares all of the following: The State of California is
guardian to more than 90,000 children in foster care, more than any other state in
the nation. As of 2002, California has a disproportionately high number of children
in foster care. While the state is home to 12 percent of the nation’s population, it
guards over 20 percent of the nation’s children in its foster care system. Thirty-five
percent of foster children live with relatives.” CAL. WELF. & INST. CODE §
16010.4(a) (West 2013) (emphasis added).
37 Lanz Christian Bañes, Vallejo Among the Top Cities in the Bay Area for Gay
Couples, VALLEJO TIMES-HERALD, June 26, 2011,
http://www.timesheraldonline.com/news/ci_18356679?source=pkg.
38 CHILDREN’S BUREAU, U.S. DEP’T OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVS., CHILD
MALTREATMENT: 2011, at viii (2012),
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/cm11.pdf.
39 CHILDREN’S BUREAU, U.S. DEP’T OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVS., THE AFCARS
REPORT 1 (2012), http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/afcarsreport19.pdf.
40 CHILDREN’S BUREAU, U.S. DEP’T OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVS., FOSTER CARE
FY 2003-FY 2011 ENTRIES, EXITS, AND NUMBERS OF CHILDREN IN CARE ON THE
