An adoptive mother knew that caring for three children from the Kansas foster system meant nurturing those kids through some truly serious problems. Yet the mother dramatically underestimated what she was taking on. Particularly the danger. Two of the adopted children made shanks out of broken glass and damaged toys. They busted up the bedrooms […]
Foster care
Posted inState Government
Kansas teen got handed over to the state to get him sober. Now he’s in foster care and missed months of school
A high school junior based in Salina regularly came home at night drunk. Sometimes he passed out in the front yard of his mother’s home. Other times, he’d sleep off a night of heavy drinking in the passenger’s seat of a car. The teen’s mother didn’t know what to do. She’d lost the boy’s father, […]
Posted inKansas State Government
A Kansas grandmother couldn’t adopt her grandchild. The case points to larger issues in foster care
Takeaways: Mindy Mathes was thrilled when a foster agency picked her and her husband to adopt their granddaughter. The girl had been weathering the chaos of the Kansas foster care system, living in multiple homes before finding people to call family. At the Mathes home, she’d have stuffed animals — unicorns and a beloved Grinch […]
Posted inKansas State Government
A new specialized court aims to help Kansas families dealing with substance abuse to get kids out of foster care
Takeaways: Drug addiction can rip families apart. Nearly one in 10 Kansas kids who landed in foster care last year were there because they or their parents had an addiction, according to state foster care data. Another 4% were taken from a family because an infant was affected by drugs. Nationwide, about 8.7 million kids […]
Posted inState Government
Kansas foster kids could soon pick their families
Takeaways: Kids who age out of foster care face a heightened risk of homelessness, unemployment, drug and drinking problems or stubborn mental health issues. They leave the system with few close, personal connections. But Kansas is preparing for a drastic shift that would give them more say in their lives. The state could be the […]
Posted inKansas State Government
Kansas foster kids could soon pick their families
Takeaways: Kids who age out of foster care face a heightened risk of homelessness, unemployment, drug and drinking problems or stubborn mental health issues. They leave the system with few close, personal connections. But Kansas is preparing for a drastic shift that would give them more say in their lives. The state could be the […]
Posted inEnvironment, Kansas State Government
An EPA grant is helping Kansas foster kids get environmental jobs
Takeaways: A growing program in Kansas and Missouri aims to set up more kids for environmental jobs — and it’s focusing on foster kids. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is spending more than $450,000 to help foster children in the two states land environmental jobs. Those kids spend days in the classroom studying for key […]
Posted inEnvironment, State Government
An EPA grant is helping Kansas foster kids get environmental jobs
Takeaways: A growing program in Kansas and Missouri aims to set up more kids for environmental jobs — and it’s focusing on foster kids. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is spending more than $450,000 to help foster children in the two states land environmental jobs. Those kids spend days in the classroom studying for key […]
Posted inHealth, Kansas State Government
Kansas foster kids need mental health care, but trying to add more is expensive
Takeaways: Kansas foster kids get too little behavioral and mental health treatment, audits find, but expanding those services can prove so costly that it slows expansion of those programs. Foster kids got mental and behavioral health treatment just 70% of the time in 2022, a lawsuit settlement found. That’s well below the 85% court-mandated requirement. […]
Posted inKansas State Government
A 15-year-old’s suicide while in Kansas foster care came amid a shortfall in mental health care
Takeaways: A 15-year-old took his own life in October while in the care of a private Kansas foster care agency. That agency, KVC Kansas, fell short of court-mandated benchmarks for getting mental health treatment for children in its care. Yet KVC actually comes closer to hitting the mark than other agencies hired by the state […]