Over the last two years, near-record numbers of children have entered the state’s foster care system.
At the same time, fewer children have exited and the number of adoptions involving children in state custody has fallen to a six-year low.
“It’s a trend,” said Lois Rice, executive director with CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of Johnson and Wyandotte Counties. “In just our two counties, we had 610 CINC (child-in-need-of-care) petitions filed in 2008; in 2012 we had 975. That’s a 60 percent increase in four years, and this year’s numbers are looking like they’ll be higher than last year’s.”
Across the state, CASA offices recruit, train, and coordinate the activities of volunteers who befriend children in state custody, listen to their wants and needs, and advocate on their behalf.
Children are placed in foster care after a judge rules their safety or welfare is in jeopardy, usually due to parental abuse or neglect. They’re allowed to return to their families once a judge decides those problems have been resolved.
The average stay in foster care in Kansas is 16 months, though it’s not unusual that a child might spend several years in the system.
In Sedgwick County, the state’s most populous after Johnson County, the average number of children in out-of-home placements has increased from 950 in fiscal 2011 to 1,319 in fiscal 2013.
On June 30 across Kansas, there were 5,719 children in out-of-home foster care settings, a mix of foster homes, relatives’ homes, group homes, psychiatric facilities, and juvenile detention facilities.
That’s only the second time in the past 10 years that the number has exceeded 5,700 on the final day of the state’s fiscal year. The last time was in 2008, the onset of the Great Recession.
The actual number of children in out-of-home placements varies from month to month. The numbers posted on June 30 provide a “snapshot “of annual trends.
Concerning trend
Also on June 30, there were 975 children in foster care whose parents’ rights had been terminated and who were available for adoption. The most in at least the past four years and perhaps ever, if the memories of a former state welfare official are correct.
“I know that the definition of ‘awaiting adoption’ has changed over the years, but I don’t think we ever got where we had 975 kids in the system and available for adoption,” said Joyce Allegrucci, an assistant secretary for child and family services at the state Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services from 1998 through 2001. “If we ever got to 975 kids, we weren’t there for very long.”
Allegrucci said “something is wrong” when the state’s foster care system has “500 more kids than it did a year ago or 18 months ago…and it’s a trend we should all be concerned about.”
Officials at the Kansas Department for Children and Families said they were aware of the foster care situation.
“The current administration inherited a difficult economy and troubling trends when it comes to the numbers of children entering and exiting state custody,” Theresa Freed, a spokesperson for the agency, wrote in an email to KHI News Service.
“We are looking at how we can integrate more preventative services with our community partners, so that families never reach the point of crisis and require state intervention,” she wrote.
The agency, she said, is committed “…to keeping families together when it is safe to do so.”
Though the total number of Kansans ages 0-19 has increased during the same period that foster care cases have gone up, the increase in foster care has outpaced the rate of population growth.
DCF officials have attributed the increase largely to the weak economy and parental drug abuse. But the numbers have not improved as the economy has and the percentage of foster care cases attributed to drug or alcohol problems has remained steady over the past few years.
By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service