Because other options have not been available, thousands of Kansas children have been taken from their homes and communities and inappropriately placed in state custody and foster care over the years.

State custody and foster care are designed to provide protection for children who have been abused or neglected. But the children in question here do not need state protection in their homes – they are children who come into state custody because they’ve been truant, are beyond their parent’s control, or have behavior disorders. Removing these children from their families and communities and placing them in foster care in many cases is the worst thing for them.

"These are the children we have tried to serve in a system not designed to serve them," said Janet Schalansky, Secretary of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. "These are not children that need protection. These are children who need community services."

With Senate Bill 633, SRS is proposing amendments to the Kansas Code for Care of Children, creating the category ‘Youth in Need of Community Services.’

"This initiative is designed to assist the young people of Kansas for whom we have not yet made the right decisions," Secretary Schalansky said. "We have failed these kids because we tried to address their problems outside of their family and community. We have served them by removing them from their homes and families when the very thing they needed was to be served with their family and within their community."

SRS recently completed an analysis of foster care caseloads in Kansas. It showed that during state fiscal year 1999, one in every five children in foster care – up to 1,800 children – were placed there for reasons other than abuse or neglect. Most of these children were in foster care for reasons attributed to learning disorders, behavior disorders, or medical needs.

SRS officials have been meeting with people who provide services to children and families to find a way to serve these children without bringing them into state custody. The meetings involve judges, prosecuting attorneys, educators, juvenile justice officials, mental health specialists, community service providers, parents, and advocates.

The proposed amendments to the Kansas Code for Care of Children that create the category ‘Youth in Need of Community Services’ will accomplish the following:

*Enhance safety and permanence for children;

*Ensure children are served where services can be most effective;

*Only remove children from their homes when it is necessary to protect them;

*Ensure actions of the child protection system occur in a timely fashion.

*Reduce duplicative or unnecessary burdens on the child protection system and on both biological and foster parents and children; and

*Keep the state eligible for federal funding to serve these children in order to use limited state funding to its maximum effect.

Joyce Allegrucci, SRS Assistance Secretary for Children and Family Policy, said under the current code, judges in Kansas are given few alternatives to state custody.

"We have failed our courts because we offered them either inadequate alternatives or no alternatives to bringing children into state custody," she said. "When we give judges only a choice of two systems -- one to remove children who have been abused or neglected and one designed to lock up violent adolescents to protect public safety – we have been unable to effectively serve an entire group of Kansas children who will not get better in foster care or in detention."

Allegrucci pointed out that Governor Bill Graves has recommended an investment of $5.1 million to provide a match dollars with local resources to help provide community services for these children. Funding from local sources -- including cities, counties, courts, school districts, health departments, community, private and corporate foundations, juvenile justice systems, substance abuse services, mental health centers, and faith and charitable organizations -- could receive matching federal funds to provide services needed for children in need of community services.

Another reason for the need for alternatives to state custody involves new federal rules which will require enhanced efforts by SRS, the Juvenile Justice Authority, county and district attorneys, and Kansas courts to assure reasonable efforts to keep a child home are made prior to removing a child from home. The new federal regulations to implement the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 will go into effect March 27 and an audit of the state’s compliance will take place between July and September. If the state fails the audit, it could mean the loss of millions of dollars in federal child welfare financial assistance.

To Allegrucci, though, the damage being done to children is what must be stopped.

"This legislation comes from the realization that damage does occur to children when they are removed from their home," she said. "We have failed these kids because we tried to address their problems outside of their family, home, and community. The solution which we propose will be dictated not by the behavior of the child at the moment or by the funding stream, but by the needs of the youth and family."

Page Last Updated: May 29, 2001