After roughly a decade of a trend of decreasing numbers of children in foster care in the US, 2014 saw a sharp uptake.

The reason for the significant increase is not known, but the diminishing numbers over the previous decade are largely a result of politics, that is, changing policies and procedures whose goal was to shorten and avoid stays in foster care regardless of circumstances.

Read more in this San Franciso Chronicle article: Number of US children in foster care up sharply .