social services

Sara Smith is in her first month as director of the Missouri Children’s Division, which oversees the state’s foster care system and child abuse investigations.

Kansas City has recorded 12 homicides linked to domestic violence so far this year — the same number reported in all of 2024. Domestic violence service agencies fear the problem could get worse if social services lose federal funding.

Under national standards, at least 35% of kids entering foster care should exit with a permanent living situation — whether adoption, guardianship or reunification with family — within one year. But only 12 of Missouri's 114 counties met that goal.

More than 400,000 of Missouri's nearly 1.4 million Medicaid recipients lost coverage after the end of the COVID public health emergency. Almost half were children — one of the highest rates in the nation.

From 2017 through 2023, roughly 2,680 people with developmental disabilities died under the care of the state of Missouri — on average, one person every day.

The Republican-sponsored constitutional amendment would require able-bodied Medicaid participants ages 19 to 49 to prove they are working as a condition for receiving health coverage. Tens of thousands of patients lost coverage in other states that implemented similar requirements.

Jessica Bax is the new director of the Missouri Department of Social Services. She's currently a division director in the Department of Mental Health.

Robert Knodell has been hired to be the next city manager of Poplar Bluff after three years leading the Department of Social Services. Over that time, the department faced criticism over its administration of public benefits and handling of missing foster kids.

Missouri officials say that thieves installed inconspicuous gadgets at grocery store checkouts, many along Independence Avenue in Kansas City’s northeast, and skimmed the data and dollars right off the EBT cards.

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

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.

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.