Kansas foster children are not getting proper mental health treatment, they’re moved between too many homes and caseworkers carry excessive workloads, a report released Monday auditing the state’s foster care system says.
The court-mandated report paints a bleak picture of Kansas foster care system — a system that is not only showing no improvement in key areas, but getting even worse.
“Children in the foster system are being let down at every turn and left to fend for themselves in a broken system,” a press release from Kansas Appleseed said.
Kansas Appleseed, National Center for Youth Law and Children’s Rights all sued Kansas over poor treatment of foster kids in 2018. In July 2020, the groups and the state’s child welfare system reached a court-mandated agreement to improve outcomes for children. Failing to make progress could land the case back in court.
The foster care audit released Monday is the third report on changes the state has made or failed to make. It tracks data in 2023.
Gov. Laura Kelly said the report showed great progress in foster care, despite data to the contrary.
“There is more work to be done to improve access to mental health services,” Kelly said in a press release.
Youth in offices
The lawsuit settlement required Kansas contractors to completely end having children sleep in offices by Dec. 31, 2021.
Yet in 2023, 57 children spent 68 nights in an office. That’s an improvement from 2022 when 85 kids spent 257 total nights in offices and from 2021 when 53 kids spent 167 nights in an office. The state may not have sustained that success, though.
The lawsuit settlement said preliminary data for 2024 shows that office stays are substantially increasing. Cornerstones of Care was also cited for sending children to an out-of-state facility while bragging about sparing children from having to sleep in offices.
Foster care agencies have basic sleeping arrangements for their offices. The private contractors who run the state’s foster care system don’t want children in offices. But severe mental and behavioral health needs make it hard to place children.
Linda Bass, president of foster care contractor KVC Kansas, told lawmakers at a September meeting that one child slept in an office after being kicked from their foster home at 11 p.m. The agency found an alternative placement, but the child refused to go.
“The youth didn’t go and I understand why,” Bass told lawmakers. “That was a really difficult night for the youth. Their foster family told them to get out of the home. Law enforcement dropped them in a parking lot.”
The longest office stay was eight nights. Children spent more than one night in an office five times.
Mental health access is lacking
Kansas failed to provide adequate mental health services for kids in need, the foster care audit said.
The state needs to provide mental health services to 85% of children in custody to meet the goals of the settlement agreement. In 2022, 70% of youth got adequate help. That number dropped to 52% in 2024, the audit states, and some of those children did not get that care quickly.
The report identified 197 children who needed mental health treatment out of 263 cases.
Of those 197 children:
- 43 got treatment in a timely fashion. That’s 22% of cases reviewed.
- 60 were helped, but it was delayed. That’s 30% of cases reviewed.
- 94 didn’t get appropriate treatment. That’s 48% of cases reviewed.
“We filed this lawsuit and negotiated a settlement in good faith to stop harmful practices, but the State and contractors have not fulfilled their obligations,” Lori Burns-Bucklew, attorney and child welfare law specialist, said in an emailed press release. “The State demanded control, but they have consistently failed to exert oversight. The State needs to consider whether or not self-reform can be effective in Kansas.”
Foster youth move too often
The average Kansas foster child lived in 7.94 different locations in a 1,000 day period, which is about two years and nine months. That’s slightly worse than the 2022 data and a large step back from 5.84 homes every 1,000 days in 2021.
The report wants Kansas youth to live in fewer than two homes every year, yet foster care had children in almost three new placements every year.
A small number of children were moved around a lot. The settlement report said 131 children were moved over 1,500 times. Younger children were less likely to move, and teenagers were more likely to live in multiple places.
Twelve-to-17-year-olds lived in just under 15 homes per every 1,000 days, on average.
Leecia Welch, deputy legal director of Children’s Rights, said the group sued Kansas six years ago because kids moved so much they were effectively homeless.
“Sadly,” she said in a press release, “almost six years later, that grim picture looks much the same.”
High caseloads
Kansas social workers often carried too many cases at one time.
The foster care audit said 39% of permanency caseworkers had more than 30 cases at once. St. Francis, a private contractor, was the worst of the agencies with 48% of its children assigned to a caseworker with 30 or more cases.
Kansas hands out contracts for its foster care work. Those contracts include a requirement that permanency caseworkers have no more than 25 to 30 cases at once. That goal was not met.
What Kansas did right
Kansas rarely exceeded the licensed capacity at its foster homes — 99% of homes complied with capacity requirements.
Kansas has been making strides in its foster care system. The state is leveraging federal family-first money to prevent children from ever entering foster care. It’s also dramatically dropping the number of minors in state custody.
“I’m proud of the steps we’ve taken and the changes made so far to improve our state’s child welfare system,” said Laura Howard, secretary of the Department for Children and Families, in a press release. “I recognize this is a process, and there is more work to be done.”
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
