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Kansas could be the first state in the U.S. to allow foster youth ages 16 and above to pick the adults who help support and make decisions for them. The SOUL Family program aims to help create a network of support as foster teens transition into adulthood.
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Kansas could be the first state to pilot the SOUL Family Legal Permanency Option, which would give foster youth 16 and up a say in who supports them as they transition into adulthood. A bill that would implement the program has a hearing in a Senate committee tomorrow.
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Substance abuse contributes to around 13% of Kansas children entering foster care. Now, Kansas is testing a new Family Treatment Court in rural counties that will help parents complete addiction treatment and reunite with their kids.
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Missouri’s child welfare agency took at least $6.1 million in foster kids’ benefits last year to reimburse itself for the cost of providing care. It’s a longstanding practice that has come under increased scrutiny across the country.
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Sister Berta Sailer, one of Kansas City's greatest advocates for disadvantaged chidlren, died last week at 87. In the 1960s, she opened an at-home day care that eventually grew to become Operation Breakthrough. Plus: A rural Missouri school district is one of the first in the U.S. to receive electric buses from a new EPA program.
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Foster youth are more likely to be unemployed, food insecure or homeless. They're the focus of an EPA grant program with a specific goal of training a workforce capable of cleaning up polluted brownfield sites — unused, polluted plots of land.
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A Missouri investigative team has helped locate 628 foster kids this year who were missing from state custody, lawmakers were informed this week.
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Attorney General Andrew Bailey claims the proposal amounts to religious discrimination. But Missouri’s child welfare agency already offers guidance to foster care providers to use a child’s "preferred name and pronouns" and provide "physically and emotionally safe and supportive care and resources regardless of one’s personal attitudes and beliefs."
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The private foster care agency, KVC Kansas, has fallen short of court-mandated benchmarks for getting mental health treatment for children in its care. And other agencies perform even worse.
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Cornerstones of Care has had 17 kids sleep in a new shelter. The agency says it's an improvement over an office stay, but it's at a campus that critics call "grim.”
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The reports, which range from September 2022 to little more than a month before her death, warned that the child wasn’t supervised, was living in a home without utilities and was around drugs, among other allegations. A 25-year-old man has since been charged with capital murder, first-degree murder and rape.
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Kansas was one of the first states in the country to access federal Family First prevention money. Programs it is funding have spent years growing.