People

It's easy to forget that the big names of history still have living relatives today.

More than a quarter of Missouri's population lives in rural areas. The series "My Life, My Town" documents the lives of teenagers from small Missouri towns. These are the youth who make up the future of rural life -- IF they decide to stay.

There are about three or four thousand abused or neglected children in Kansas City’s social services system. While the rate of child abuse has been declining nationally, that number has been growing in Kansas City. And as the problem swells, both Kansas and Missouri continue to privatize more and more of their child welfare services.

On this episode of Central Standard we examine the state of our child welfare system, but through the eyes of the kind of private non-profit charities increasingly being asked to fill the void: the Midwest Foster Care and Adoption Association, and Court Appointed Special Advocates from both Missouri and Kansas.

We’ll get a look at the real impact of child abuse in our communities, why this problem is getting worse, and what the obstacles are to overcoming it.