‘Wake-up call’: Kansas foster care system makes minimal progress toward promises made in court

Laura Howard, secretary of the Kansas Department for Children and Families, administers the state foster care system. An annual report documents the state's failure to make adequate progress for foster kids. (Morgan Chilson/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — Kansas for the fourth straight year failed to meet legal requirements to improve the severe instability of the foster care system or provide mental health services to children who need them, according to an annual report from an independent evaluator.

The failings include an alarming spike in the number of kids who were stuck sleeping in offices, minimal progress in the high rate in which kids who enter the foster care system are moved from one location to another, and the one-third of foster kids who need but don’t receive mental health services.

The report released Monday by Judith Meltzer and the Center for the Study of Social Policy documented the broken promises the state made in January 2021 when it agreed to settle a lawsuit with Kansas Appleseed over severe instability within the foster care system. The state promised to achieve specific outcomes for foster children, such as lowering the rate of placement moves and meeting mental health needs of foster children. The settlement agreement calls for an annual progress report by an independent evaluator.

“The report should be a wake-up call for anyone who cares about the well-being of children in Kansas,” said Leecia Welch, deputy legal director at Children’s Rights, which is part of Kansas Appleseed’s legal team.

“Each of these data points reflects a child whose life is in limbo — not knowing where she will sleep that night, missing school, and disconnected from family and friends,” Welch added.

In the report, which examines performance from the 2024 calendar year, Meltzer praised the state’s commitment to improving outcomes. That includes new contracts for foster care providers KVC Kansas, Saint Francis Ministries, Cornerstones of Care, TFI Family Services and EmberHope that set caseload limits based on national accreditation standards.

“We, along with our partners, have worked diligently to meet eight of the obligations agreed to under the settlement agreement and I’m proud of what we have accomplished and how we are improving the experience for young people in Kansas foster care,” said Laura Howard, secretary of the Department for Children and Families. “But there’s more to do. We remain committed to maintaining these results and pressing forward to fulfill the remaining commitments.”

Most foster kids are in stable placements, the report found.

But the few who aren’t are subjected to extreme instability.

Children who entered the foster care system in 2024 were moved at a rate of 7.24 times per 1,000 days, a slight improvement from the 7.94 moves in 2023 but still much higher than the target of 4.4 that the state agreed to meet when it settled the lawsuit.

About 83% of children experienced one or fewer moves during the year, below the target of 90%.

The report highlighted an alarming increase in the failure to place kids, which refers to a child sleeping in an office, hotel or other unlicensed setting. In 2024, there were 100 children who spent 316 nights without a placement, compared with 57 children with a total of 83 nights the year before. In 2024, almost all of those kids were in the Wichita area.

The report found minimal progress in eliminating night-to-night placements, where a child is picked up in the morning, sometimes as early as 6 a.m., and spends all day in an office or unlicensed center before returning to a placement after 8 p.m. That happened 2,006 times for 824 children.

“Overall findings related to placement stability are consistent with previous reporting — case reviews found that most children in DCF custody are in a stable placement, but children without stable placements continue to experience a concerning number of nights without placement (FTPs) and night-to-night and short-term placements that do not meet the needs of children,” Meltzer wrote in the report. “For a number of children, this placement instability is extreme.”

Just 4% of foster kids account for 50% of the total moves, the report said.

The state showed significant improvement in providing timely mental health and trauma screenings for kids entering foster care, with 94% receiving the initial screen. In 2023, just 69% did.

However, just 66% of foster kids who have an identified mental health need are actually receiving services. That’s an improvement from 52% in 2023, but still below the performance of 70% in 2022, and well below the target of 90%.

The report cited placement instability as a factor in delaying mental health services to kids who need them.

Meltzer identified the new contracts with foster care providers as a reason to be optimistic about future progress. The new caseload requirements, which were only in effect for half of last year, are “very promising” and already leading to “positive results,” she wrote, based on conversations she had with contractors.

The report notes that the Legislature rejected DCF’s request earlier this year to fund more specialized case management teams.

Meltzer said the state should look at investing additional resources in the Wichita area ,where the placement instability is concentrated. That could include adding more behavioral health intervention teams, support for kinship caregivers, and more therapeutic family foster homes.

EmberHope took over the contract for the Wichita area in July 2024. Saint Francis formerly held the contract.

Teresa Woody, litigation director for Kansas Appleseed, said it was concerning that western Kansas, which is still served by Saint Francis, and the Wichita area “continue to have severe, if not worsening, placement problems.”

“It is especially concerning that many of the children in these regions who lack stable placements are children as young as 2 years old,” Woody said.

Kansas Appleseed filed the lawsuit in 2018 on behalf of foster kids who were being failed by the state’s privatized child welfare system, which is administered across three agencies — the Department for Children and Families, the Department for Aging and Disability Services, and the Department of Health and Environment.

The two sides entered mediation earlier this year.

In addition to Children’s Rights, the Kansas Appleseed legal team includes the National Center for Youth Law and child welfare law specialist Lori Burns-Bucklew.