KANSAS FOSTER CARE:
OFFICIAL FINDINGS & MEDIA REPORTS

 Following are quotes from various government documents, media reports and academic journals, providing verification of the various claims about Kansas foster care, with quotes from victims of the system... 
[Annotations by Richard Harris enclosed in square brackets.  ~RH]
State of Kansas
Legislative Division of Post-Audit
(official auditors for the State Legislature)

Performance Audit Report: 
Assessing how well the foster care program in Kansas is working,
Part I. 
Legislative Div. of Post-Audit, State of Kansas
Nov. 1998
99-03

"Department [SRS] social workers didn't attend children's initial case reviews nearly one-third of the time.  This meeting is where the major decisions about a child are made." p.ii

"Families received just over half the services recommended for them, and one-fourth of those services weren't started for at least two months after they'd been recommended." p.iii

"In reviewing cases at [a major child-protection contractor,] therapy was provided in unusual places, such as a drive-in restaurant." p.iii  

    [on p.23: the reports cites other venues: "while driving foster children to other appointments" and "the social worker provided individual therapy to a child in the hall outside a courtroom shortly after the judge chided the social worker for not providing the therapy earlier."]

"Benadryl had been given to children at [this contractor's] facilities, even though there was nothing in the files to suggest they had allergies.  The psychiatrist at [the contractor] said children often come [there] far over-medicated.  [However,] he explained that Benadryl is useful for children who become aggressive... because it has a sedative effect." p.iii.

    [on p.23, the reports adds: "We'd also heard that [the contractor's] residential facilities sometimes used drugs to control children's behaviors," and repeated Benadryl details above, adding "the psychiatrist... explained that children often arrive [at the contractor's facility] having been prescribed multiple psychotropic drugs, sometimes in unsafe dosages. 

    For example... one 3-year-old child who'd been taking three different drugs for six months -- one was a strong stimulant and the other two were psychotropic drugs -- all in adult dosages.  One of the psychotopric drugs is used only fin adults, and only for short periods because it is addictive and has severe side effects."]


"On average, the [foster] children in our [audit] sample were moved every 2-3 months..." p.iv

"There were several indications that foster children weren't always placed in the most appropriate types of housing, given their needs. ...  Nearly half the children were housed in residential facilities [(orphanages, psychiatric wards, disciplinary barracks and jails)]. ... At least 8% of the time [(one in every 12)] children weren't placed in the type of housing recommended in their latest case plan, and there was nothing in the file to support the need for that type of housing." p.iv.

Graph: Reports of children abused or neglected in Kansas foster care in 1994 (before privatization) increased to over 2-and-a-half times that rate by 1998 (after privatization).
"The number of reports of abuse and neglect by foster parents or staff in group homes or residential facilties increased from 166 in 1994 to 434 in fiscal year 1998, [increasing] 161%." p.iv.

"We found that criminal history records checks had not been done for 5% [(one in every 20)] of the facility workers whose names we checked.  We also found that [SRS] had entered the names of only 38% of the confirmed child abusers into its central child abuse registry.  In some cases then [(statistical probability 62%?)] a background check could be done on a confirmed child abuser, and the report would come back clean -- allowing the person to be cleared to work with children." p.v.

"...between 30% and 46% of [SRS] and former contractor social workers responded that children were placed in safe and nurturing environments 'about half the time' or 'almost never.'" p.v.

"Families received only 57% of the services recommended for them. ... KCSL and Youthville had  the lowest rates of family participation in services." p.21


    [Yet families seemed ready and willing to use whatever services were finally provided, since...] "As of August 1998, families had completed or were still participating in 94% of the services they started." [Note that these "services" generally consist of nothing more than assessments, therapy and parenting classes.]  p.21



Performance Audit Report: 
Assessing how well the foster care program in Kansas is working,
Part II. 
Legislative Div. of Post-Audit, State of Kansas
Dec. 1998
99-03.2
"...many of the staff available to manage foster care cases or provide services were very inexperienced... one-third to two-thirds of the social workers responding to our survey said they thought the initial training they received was inadequate." pp.15-16

"Second, the [SRS] sometimes reported that the contractors had met certain requirements when they clearly had not." p.25



from the
Lawrence Journal-World
(copyright 1998 by the
Lawrence Journal-World)

SPECIAL REPORT:  
"A Troubled System"
 Sunday, August 16, 1998
by Mike Shields
    [Webmaster's note:
    This text is excerpted from a detailed multi-part "Special Report" -- an expose' revealing scandalous troubles with the state's dominant foster care private contractor, Kaw Valley Center — run by Governor Graves' former chief fund-raiser, banker and Kansas Senate President, Dick Bond, and Bond's wife.
        (Bond later became an official of other "child-protection" and "child-advocacy" organizations in Kansas.)

      The various articles appear on pages 1, 4 , 5 of this issue. All three pages can be viewed online at the Newspaper Archive at: Key excerpts follow, below:]
About 18 months ago, the administration of Gov. Bill Graves launched a privatization initiative, unprecedented in the United States, that has dramatically changed the state's child welfare system.

* * *

Unheard in the government committee rooms and at confabs studying foster care are the voices of the children who know the system from living in  it.  The identities of children in foster care, in most circumstances are cloaked by the confidentiality laws that bar social workers, court officers, care providers and welfare bureaucrats from revealing the children's names or details of their lives in custody from which their names might be deduced.

As a result, foster children are rarely, if ever, quoted in newspaper reports or heard in public forums.

INSIDE INFORMATION:
The Lawrence Journal-World recently interviewed nine girls between the ages of 14 and 17 who have recently exited, or remain in, the state's foster care system....

Although they sometimes spoke well of individual Kaw Valley [Center] workers who cared for them, they were all critical of Kaw Valley [the foster care contractor privately run by Kansas Senate President Dick Bond and his wife] as a whole. 

In separate interviews, the girls alleged sexual improprieties between staff workers and teenage girls in their care, and illegal drug use by children and staff, sometimes together. They complained of excessive physical restraint by the staff, and the use of medications to control children.

* * *

...Nancy Wynn, head of the child care inspection office at Wyandotte County Health Dept., which inspects [contractor] Kaw Valley facilities for the Kansas Dept. of Health & Environment... was nearly as critical of Kaw Valley as the children who have lived there.

"We've always had complaints on Kaw Valley, and the number has just multiplied by more than 50% since privatization, about a year ago," Wynn said. 

The day she was interviewed at her office she had an 8-inch stack of complaints on her desk.  "This is just from today's mail," she said.

Most lettters in the stack were complaints yet to be investigated, or complaints that investigators couldn't confirm.  But there were three in the pile that had been "validated," by SRS abuse investigators, Wynn said.  They were typical of the sorts of complaints she frequently sees, she said.

  • In one case, a child... "sustained a lacerated cornea, due to inappropriate restraint by the staff."

  • The second, a child residing on the Level 6 ward... suffered a broken nose and a sprained ankle, "due to inappropriate restraint by the staff."

  • In the third validated instance, [the contractor] was cited for medical neglect after a child beaten by fellow residents... failed to receive proper medical attention.

"Injuries to children are the most common" type of validated complaint to cross her desk, Wynn said.  "Everything from bruises to a fracture." ... But she also has seen validations of drug abuse and sexual relations between staff and clients, she said.
* * *

Wynn says she has relayed her concerns about [the contractor] to Topeka, but remains frustrated by officials' inaction.... "We're line people," she said.  "It's very frustrating.  We send our concerns to Topeka, and nothing happens."
* * *

    • "Running days are over since custody ended"
       (part of SPECIAL REPORT, Lawrence Journal-World, August 16, 1998)
    Kari, 17, of Lawrence, has been on her own for a year now, living in in a boarding house, working two to three jobs to support herself... and later attend Kansas University.  She was in state custody from 1993-97. She says...
    I was in custody for four years.... I ran away.  That's why I'm not there.

    I'm 17 now and I live on my own....

    At [the contractor] "every day we saw people restrained.  Everybody there was on medication. They would give you Benadryl just to make you go to sleep at 8 o'clock.... Every day you saw people trying to commit suicide.  The houses were always overbooked.  It didn't matter.  They kept bringing kids in.  They treated us pretty much like dogs."
    * * *

    I was [in state custody] 3 years.  Even when I did get to go to public school... I never got to go because I had so many doctors' and therapists' appointments.  I'm an 'A' student, gifted in some subjects.  But I still failed because they had me out doing something different all the time."
      [(Only a small fraction of Kansas foster kids ever graduate from high school.  ~ RH)]

    ...The main building was totally out of control.  People beating each other up.  They wonder why kids run away all the time.  It's because it's terrible. They treat them like dogs.
    The last time I was there, I was attending GED classes... It seemed like every day was a struggle to get somebody to take me to the class.  Sometimes I wasn't even taken to classes.  Those were important classes. 

    So finally one day I went to GED, and ran away and got my own place.  They released me from custody.   I would call my social worker from SRS every day.  She pretty much knew where I was, but didn't want to find me because [the contractor] wouldn't do anything but negative.  So she just let me go.  Finally she asked Judge Shepard to release me.

    * * *

    Probably the worst thing I had was... a hepatitis outbreak and we couldn't go anywhere , and everybody started rebelling... trying to run away... fighting.  It was terrible....

    ...blood everywhere...

    ...people sneaking out at night, bringing drugs back to the group home, staff helping the girls fight, acting like they didn't see it...

    ...staff putting down kids.  Kids exchanging meds.  The school is not even a school.  It's a waste of time. 

    No one will ever know, because when older people come, they clean everything up.  When people come to inspect, they always call ahead.  Why call ahead?   When the health department said they were coming, they had us cleaning for two days straight.

    I've seen people beaten up really bad and broken arms.  I don't think you get anything out of it except bad memories and the realization that you've been though more than most kids.

    The majority of SRS kids don't make it anywhere.  But if you're already strong, it will make you stronger. 

    There are people so desperate to get out of custody, they'll go get pregnant, just to get out of custody.

    from the Salina Journal

    "Parents, social workers tell of problems in foster care program"
    Lew Ferguson
    Salina Journal
    Sept. 12, 1998
    ... Too difficult for the family to manage because of mental or emotional problems, the boy stole money at age 6, was sexually abused by an older child while in the care of a [foster care contractor's] facility, and now is charged with battery because he bit a worker at a care center, [his mother] said....

    Rep. Peggy Palmer (R-Augusta) a member of the committee who has tried to help [her] told the panel "He's been neglected and abused in our system.  I will not recommend to anyone who comes to me to get involved with SRS." ...

    UPDATES: 2019-2020

    UPDATE: 2019

    Kansas foster care instability
    led to surge in runaways,
    left children vulnerable
    to sex traffickers.

    Special Report published in Salina Journal
    produced by Topeka Capital-Journal
    and KCUR, in conjunction with
    American Public Media
    by Peggy Lowe & Sherman Smith
    Posted Oct 15, 2019
    Updated Oct 17, 2019

    NOTE: While this report  focuses on runaways from the state's child-protection system, and their entanglements with sex trafficking, it also thoroughly summarizes, and provides important details on, the recent history of the Kansas child-protection system, and the various factors affecting it generally.


    UPDATE: 2020

    Governor, lawmakers, advocates
    focusing on Kansas foster care crisis.

    Special Report published in Salina Journal
    January 9, 2020

    This article outlines failures of the current administration and legislature, lawsuits, and organizational restructuring efforts and plans. Provides details on who is attempting to do what, and what is being advocated for -- by whom.

    Note that the problem remains largely one of an entrenched, and self-defending, social work bureaucracy -- something largely advocated for by Governor Kelly, who has a related career background. ~RH



    For other accounts, see: ... or ask a current or former Kansas foster child -- in confidence -- to tell you about life in state custody.