State-run system to place children from abusive or otherwise damaging homes in temporary substitute care, usually through licensed families. The fostercare system, once seen as a partial substitute for adoption as well as a means of protecting children, has been accused of neglect in regulation and reliance on financial incentives to foster parents, resulting in cases of crowding, insecurity and sometimes abuse from foster parents which turns already troubled children into potential drop-outs, homeless children, runaways or criminals. Nonetheless, roughly 500,000 children pass some time in foster care each year while reforms move slowly ahead.