children

Rainbow House, an emergency shelter in Columbia, shuttered unexpectedly in September after providing thousands of children with a temporary home over nearly four decades.

Incoming Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin said Missouri’s Children’s Division has failed in its core mission and needs to be restructured to protect vulnerable children.

A literacy program has helped mothers and grandmothers in prison improve their reading abilities while also giving them the chance to bond with their loved ones.

Nonprofits in Platte County collected signatures to get a quarter-cent sales tax on the Nov. 5 ballot after resistance from the county commission.

The former Jefferson County judge has served as the leader of the agency investigating child abuse and neglect since 2021. Missey inherited an agency with major staffing issues and a huge backlog of unfinished cases.

Twice this year, emergency response crews were called to a foster care contractor's office in Topeka to save the lives of children in state custody. Poor supervision at such offices has been a problem for years.

The Children’s Division is almost fully staffed now — a “remarkable turnaround” from the hundreds of vacancies it had in recent years. Now, the majority of overdue cases are from the Kansas City area.

Thirty-four Missouri residents — aged 11 months to 96 years — died last year due to heat-related illness, according to the Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services.

Eligible low-income children will receive $120 in grocery benefits as part of a federal program that is administered by states. More than 400,000 kids are eligible.

Starting salaries for Missouri Children’s Division investigators are often much lower than those in other governments and the private sector.

Teenagers now average nearly five hours per day on social media. But as Kansas and Missouri kids head back to school, experts say it's important to limit their screen time. Plus: We'll hear from a new teacher in Kansas about what she’s hoping from her first year on the job.

Corazones Azules was founded two years ago as a way for Latina mothers in Schuyler to share the joys and challenges of raising disabled children. Now, they have helped raise thousands of dollars to fund a safety program.