© 2025 Kansas City Public Radio
NPR in Kansas City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Who will help Kansas foster families?

Kinship families in Kansas say the state doesn't do enough to support the people who foster children of relatives or friends. Plus, how more young people around Kansas City are reviving the art of letter writing.

More people in Kansas are taking in foster kids at a moment's notice because they’re relatives or friends. Called kinship placements, these arrangements are seen as a better alternative to regular foster homes because the children are with people they're familiar with, often in communities they know. But Blaise Mesa of the Kansas News Service reports these kinship families are asking for more help from the state and are skeptical of promises of improvement.

While the U.S. Postal Service reports that household mail, including greeting cards, has steadily declined over the past 20 years, that hasn’t stopped some young people from trying to bring back the art of snail mail. Kansas City Today host Nomin Ujiyediin reports on how some Kansas City millennials and Gen Zers use cards and letters to express love and friendship, unplug from the internet, and connect with others in an unstable time.

Contact the show at news@kcur.org. Follow KCUR onTwitter andFacebook for the latest news.

Kansas City Today is hosted by Nomin Ujiyediin. It is produced by Byron Love with Trevor Grandin and edited by Gabe Rosenberg and Lisa Rodriguez.

You can support Kansas City Today by becoming a KCUR member: kcur.org/donate

As a newscaster and a host of a daily news podcast, I want to deliver the most important and interesting news of the day in an engaging and easily understandable way. No matter where you live in the metro or what you’re interested in, I want you to learn something from each newscast or podcast – and maybe even give you something to talk about at the dinner table.
As an on-demand producer, I am focused on using my skills and experiences across multiple digital applications, platforms and media fields to create community focused audio, video and on-demand products for KCUR Studios. The media that I produce aims to inform, entertain and connect with the Kansas City metro area as we continue to learn from each other. Email me at byronlove@kcur.org.
Trevor Grandin is a contributing producer for KCUR Studios.
KCUR prides ourselves on bringing local journalism to the public without a paywall — ever.

Our reporting will always be free for you to read. But it's not free to produce.

As a nonprofit, we rely on your donations to keep operating and trying new things. If you value our work, consider becoming a member.