Kansas kids in foster care still face severe placement instability despite some marginal improvements to the state system.
An audit by the Center for the Study of Social Policy reviewed the state’s performance in helping children in the state’s custody over the last year. Advocates described the annual report from the independent evaluator reviewing the state and its foster care contractors as a “mixed bag.”
The Kansas Department for Children and Families has now met eight of 14 obligations laid out in a 2020 lawsuit settlement. But the state is coming up short or falling behind for the other commitments.
Leecia Welch, Deputy Legal Director for Children’s Rights, says the number of children struggling to find a permanent home in some parts of the state is still a major concern.
“The report should be a wake-up call for anyone who cares about the well-being of children in Kansas,” Welch said. “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.”
In 2020, the state settled a lawsuit with child welfare advocacy group Kansas Appleseed over issues relating to instability for foster care children. The agreement included an annual evaluation and report by an independent party to check on the state’s promises to improve.
This year, the state agency met four additional obligations relating to placement stability, mental health and trauma screens, and capacity and crisis intervention teams. In a statement, Secretary Laura Howard touted how the audit showed most kids were in stable placement in the 2024 calendar year.
“We remain committed to maintaining these results and pressing forward to fulfill the remaining commitments,” Howard said.
Still, advocates say the report shows there is more work to do to improve the foster care system, with many issues from the previous audit popping up again. While 92% of children in state custody are in stable placement, children without a permanent home continue to experience “extreme” instability.
In 2024, 341 kids bounced around temporary homes six or more times. These kids account for just 4% of children in custody, but experienced 50% of the total moves last year.
In addition, 100 children spent more than 300 nights without placement, compared to 57 kids and 83 nights the year prior. The study also showed that Black children were more likely to face instability.
Many regions of the state showed improvements in placement stability, but Teresa Woody, litigation director for Kansas Appleseed, pointed to worsening rates in Sedgwick County and western Kansas. Most of the Kansas kids who experienced placement instability were in those areas. She said short-term placements have more than doubled in those regions since 2021.
“It is especially concerning,” Woody said, “that many of the children in these regions who lack stable placements are children as young as 2 years old.”
That corresponds with an increasing need for foster care in Sedgwick County, which includes Wichita, over the past five years. One in four Kansas kids in the foster care system are from Sedgwick County, according to the state.
Placement instability is also feeding into unmet behavioral and mental health needs, Woody said. While Kansas met its obligation to provide initial mental health and trauma screens and expanded access to crisis intervention services, the study showed a little more than one-third of kids who need mental health services did not receive appropriate care.
“Too many children in Kansas’s foster system…go without desperately needed mental health care,” said attorney Kamala Buchanan-Williams of the National Center for Youth Law. “Kansas has a long way to go to meet the needs of all the children in its care.”
Noah Taborda reports on health care for the Kansas News Service.
The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy.
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