Child-Protection Issues in Kansas
Links to Other Websites' Information:

The Wichita Eagle

Last updated November 14, 2001
2007 OpEd added on Dec. 16, 2019

NOTE:   MOST OF THE FOLLOWING LINKS CONNECT THE USER
TO THE WICHITA EAGLE'S WEBSITE.

Wichita Eagle newspaper, articles and comments:
copyright 2000, 2001 by The Wichita Eagle / Knight-Ridder Newspapers, Inc.
(The Wichita Eagle is Kansas's largest-circulation newspaper.)

SRS example of tough choices facing state
Wichita Eagle Editorial
November 4, 2001

Lawmakers who think it's simple to balance the state's budget without raising taxes should consider the painful cuts being made by the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services.

SRS ordered reductions last month in services aimed at keeping children out of foster care and with their families. Demand is such that family preservation services were projected to cost $12 million this year, but SRS told its private contractor, Lawrence-based DCCCA, to live within a $8.4 million budget.

In the past, SRS has been able to provide extra money when social-service costs exceeded expectations, such as spending federal welfare funds on foster care. Also, many private contractors have absorbed extra costs through fund raising or by dipping into their endowments. a

Not this time. SRS no longer has extra money; it's facing a $123 million budget shortfall. DCCCA doesn't have the money, either. Neither does the state, as Friday's new revenue estimates showed. As a result, DCCCA has begun laying off workers, including five in Sedgwick County. And SRS will significantly reduce the number of referrals for family preservation services.

But such cuts can create bigger expenses later on. For example, it costs about $4,000 a year to provide preservation services to a family with three children, but it can cost $75,000 a year if those children end up in foster care. ...

...Cutting such services in order to balance the budget won't be simple and, in many cases, won't be smart. (click here for full editorial)

Graves finally intervening on foster care
Wichita Eagle Editorial
August 12, 2001

Gov. Bill Graves said last week that he will become more personally involved in the state's privatized foster-care and adoption systems. Good -- because there are pressing concerns, and his leadership has been sorely lacking. ...   (click here for full editorial)

Foster care drains agencies
by Steve Painter
Wichita Eagle, Topeka Bureau
August 12, 2001

Judges are requiring more services for kids, but there's no extra money from the state. Meanwhile, agencies' reserves dwindle: Foster care drains agencies.

TOPEKA -- Five years ago, state officials decided they were doing a lousy job of caring for children in troubled homes. They turned the task over to nonprofit groups who had a history of helping families and kids. By many measures, the move has worked for children. But the change has come at a high price for charities. ...   (click here for the full story)

Lawmakers wise to doubt foster care
Wichita Eagle Editorial
July 29, 2001

Recent foster-care financial problems appear the fault of previous state contracts, not current ones. Nonetheless, lawmakers are wise to be skeptical and want better oversight of the privatized system. ...   (click here for the full editorial)

SRS to Agencies: Time to Live Leanly
by Steve Painter
August 9, 2001

TOPEKA - The state is likely to cut or redesign social programs in the years ahead because money is tight, Kansas' social services chief says. Janet Schalansky, secretary of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, warned lawmakers in a recent letter that spending cannot continue to rise. Her agency administers programs that include home health assistance, foster care and services for the disabled. "It appears that state government in general does not have enough revenue to continue...   (click here for the full story)

Precarious Youthville has Little Margin for Error
Wichita Eagle Editorial
July 8, 2001

It's encouraging that United Methodist Youthville has paid most of its debts. But doing so wiped out nearly all its cash reserves, leaving this region's foster-care provider - and the state's privatized child-welfare system - in a precarious position. ...   (click here for the rest of the editorial)

OUT OF LINE: County May Hurt Child-Welfare Audit
Wichita Eagle Editorial
July 1, 2001

State child-welfare officials worry that Sedgwick County [the Wichita area] may hurt them during an upcoming federal audit. And with good reason, as Sedgwick County's foster-care statistics are out of line compared with the rest of the state and nation.   The Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services is preparing for a federal review of its child and family services. The audit is a requirement of the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997...

... based on the raw data, Sedgwick County appears to be placing too many children in foster care and terminating the rights of too many parents.   For example, of the foster-care cases resolved in Sedgwick County from July through December last year, 62 percent were referred to adoption. That compares to a statewide average of 28 percent and a national average that has been about 22 percent.   (click here for the full editorial)

UPDATES since 2001:

Too Many Kansas Kids Are Under State Control
  or:   PHOTO of CLIPPING
critique of Kansas juvenile justice & child-protection
by Richard Harris, former Wichita Civil Rights Commisioner
Wichita Eagle Opinion Essay
Oct. 4, 2007, page 7A

Columnist Mark McCormick rerported that there's a shortage of juvenile correction officers ("Do juvenile correction offenders get enough help?" Wichita Eagle, Sept. 30 Local & State section). That's not the problem.

There are too many kids under state control, in systems designed to fail, produced by politicians eager to pretend to help society, while actually preying upon it.

The basic problem is that Kansas is much too eager to arrrest, prosecute and seize control of children. It's the same as the problem with the child protection system. Control freaks from the governor on down to the average voter have made Kansas one of the most aggressive and reckless states in the nation for intervening forcibly in the lives of young people.

Our Kansas politicians, liberal and conservative alike, acting through state government, cannot resist the temptation to exert unnecessary (and often unreasonable and destructive) control over others -- without real, analytical, sober regard to cost or outcomes.

The Kansas child-control industry -- juvenile "justice" and child "protection" -- has a long history of over-intervening in the lives of children, at a rate higher (often much higher) than the national average:

Current data from the renowned Kids Count Data Book, of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, shows that Kansas fairly consistently ranks among the 15 states most likely to lock kids up, and clearly above the national average for placement in foster care.

This is further fueled by an entire industry of people-controllers (tens of thousands in Kansas alone) -- judges, lawyers, court service officers, law enforcement officers, social workers, psychologists, wardens, jailers, prison builders, commercial foster care operations, and entire government agencies of bureaucrats. They all feed off the poor judgement and misfortune of the least powerful among us, mostly at taxpayer expense.

The result is children going from fair to bad to worse -- often in a system of amateurish mind games and incarcerations that leave a child much worse after the horrors of reckless state intervention than before it.

The No. 1 solution is a system of performance measures, based in scientific research. These must be applied to a set of rational, explicitly defined criteria that take into account all the costs of public intervention in children's lives -- including the massive cost borne by those in whose lives the intervention happens. Then apply these rational performance measures against all the government and private players who claim to be "beneficial" in their interventions -- rewarding the constructive and terminatinng the destructive.

We need to discipline ourselves. before we take too much control of others and destroy what we claim to be saving: the next generation of Kansans.

ADDITIONAL ARTICLES:
UPDATE: 2016

"Foster care system doesn't meet
two-thirds of requirements, audit finds."
  September 21, 2016, Wichita Eagle
[paraphrased:]
  An audit finds that Kansas's Department for Children and Families (DCF) child-protection system only complies with about a third of federal requirements checked by state auditors, says a report released Wednesday.

The findings follow a July audit, which had found that the DCF system failed to properly ensure the safety or stability of Kansas children in foster care (sometimes disrupting education), nor arrange adoption for an expected percentage of children who had been in the system for a year or two. However, it did meet requirements for placing foster children with their siblings and relatives.

Wednesday's report was the second in a three-part series of audits.

  • The first (in July) was to determine whether DCF was adequately providing for the safety of children. (It found that the state did not do background checks on all residents of a foster home, did not always conduct monthly case-management visits with foster children, and didn't ensure that foster homes had sufficient money to care for the foster child.

  • The second, released Wednesday, was about compliance with state and federal laws that govern the child-protection / foster care systems, and about the monitoring and payment of contractors (another area where DCF failed to meet all requirements).

  • The third, to be released in 2017, will evaluate the costs, resources and outcomes of Kansas foster care. Kansas has apparently already conceded it did not meet nearly half of the outcomes expected. ...

UPDATE: 2018

"Improving child welfare system a high priority,
[Gov.] Kelly says."
  Nov 19, 2018, Wichita Eagle
  "DCF has been working for the past year to reduce the number of missing children in foster care after revelations that upwards of 70 children [in Kansas foster care are missing, and cannot be accounted for.]" ...

UPDATE: 2020

"Docs: KS foster care leader
charged $469K to credit cards"
  Dec 22, 2020, Wichita Eagle
  "The former CEO of Saint Francis Ministries, a Salina foster care [contractor]" .. [engaged in controversial use of foster care money.]... DCF in January hired a Topeka accounting firm to audit finances at [the contractor]" ...

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