Kansas foster care not ‘capable of making the changes,’ advocates warn

1. Kansas could go to mediation over its failures to fix foster care. That can be avoided if concrete plans are presented to improve outcomes for kids.
2. Mediation wouldn’t be about financial penalties. It focuses more on how to address issues raised in the reports.
3. State officials say they are creating accountability plans to address concerns.

It’s hard for Kansas foster children to get adequate mental health care. And if they do, an audit of the state’s foster care system said, it may not come quickly.

The report released this week concluded that caseloads run too high, children get moved to new homes too often and they still sleep in offices years after a court settlement ordered an end to the practice.

Those continued failures mean Kansas could find itself back in court.

“It doesn’t seem like the state is really capable of making the changes that need to be made,” said Teresa Woody, litigation director with Kansas Appleseed. “This is the third year (since the state settled a lawsuit with promises of improvements), and rather than things getting better, in many instances, they’re actually getting worse.”

Kansas Appleseed was one of three groups that sued Kansas in 2018 over poor treatment of foster children. In 2020, the state settled the lawsuit with promises to fix issues plaguing the system and agreed to 14 ways to measure progress. Failing to meet the court-mandated settlement agreement means Kansas could go into mediation.

Last year, Kansas failed to meet six benchmarks the court set. A report released Monday found that Kansas again failed to meet eight of those goals.

One positive in the 144-page report was that fewer children were sleeping in office buildings in 2023. But preliminary data for 2024 show office stays are dramatically increasing, meaning what little progress was made might disappear. Cornerstones of Care, one of the private contractors that run the system, was also caught shipping kids out of state while it bragged about reducing office stays.

“Unless (major changes) happen,” Woody said, “we’re pretty close to taking next steps.”

The Beacon asked the Department for Children and Families if it’s concerned about future litigation. The agency didn’t answer the question directly, but it said it is creating accountability plans to prevent future issues.

The groups that sued the state mostly want to see children’s lives improve. That means mediation will focus more on improving foster care rather than financial penalties.

Mediation through the courts isn’t guaranteed. Woody said her team will talk with the state and see if any reforms are in the pipeline. The groups that sued Kansas in 2018 — Kansas Appleseed, National Center for Youth Law and Children’s Rights — want to see outside experts come in and help Kansas fix its problems.

To avoid mediation, Woody said Kansas needs a plan to get its contractors in compliance with the settlement. She said Kansas does few quality checks and relies on its private contractors to report what’s happening.

The state has been too hands-off with its contractors, Woody said, and that’s created problems.

Some contractors still file reports on paper and each contractor uses its own data collection system. Kansas is looking for a single, unified data system, but the search is dragging on.

Woody said the state’s foster care issues highlight the lack of resources.

The private contractors who run the system agree with that. The Beacon reported in August that families will willingly put children into foster care because they think the system has additional resources. It doesn’t.

Linda Bass, president of KVC Kansas, told The Kansas City Star that the group isn’t happy with the settlement report results. The agency is trying, she said, and noted that some issues lie with a small group of children with extreme needs. Those needs make it hard to find a home that can manage their issues.

Foster children bounced around to new homes too often, the audit found. The settlement report found that 131 were moved a combine 1,500-plus times in a year.

“I don’t think we can just discount that for the majority of kids, the system is working just as intended,” Bass told the Star. “They’re safe in care. They’re stable in care, they have their mental and physical health needs met, and they go home to their families, or they’re adopted.”

But Woody said she’s talked to those children and hears stories of kids not getting medicine or being cut off from therapy because they moved to a new home.

Woody said the groups that sued Kansas will talk with the state to see what can happen next.

“We don’t have a date in mind,” she said. “We hope it will be soon.”

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