A state senator says he’s working on a bill that would give some foster parents more say in the legal process for determining whether children in their care should be returned to their biological parents or put up for adoption.

“It seems to me that foster parents are the ones who spend the most time with these kids, but they have no authority, no power,” said Sen. Forrest Knox, an Altoona Republican. “They’re just babysitters.”

Knox said he plans to propose creating a “new tier” of foster parents who would be allowed to participate in the decision-making process in exchange for being better trained and taking on more difficult children.

“We’d expect a lot more out of them, but we’d pay them a lot more, too,” he said.

Knox and his wife, Renee, have nine biological children, two of whom still live at home. The couple adopted four brothers — then ages 5, 7, 8 and 13 — two years ago after caring for them two years as foster parents.

Too little say

Knox said he thought more “good people” would agree to become foster parents if they knew they “would be given the tools to make a difference in kids’ lives.”

Many compassionate adults, he said, don’t become foster parents because they know they would have little or no say in what happens to the children placed in their care.

“The kids get jerked out of their homes and they’re not told why,” Knox said. “They have no standing. They’re just a place to put kids.”

Knox said his proposal would not increase overall costs.

“I’m looking at spending less money total,” he said, “but spending it more effectively.”

In Kansas, foster-care decisions are the subject of court proceedings during which a judge rules on evidence presented by attorneys representing the state, the children, and the biological parents.

Foster parents are allowed to file written reports with the court, letting the judge know how the children in their care are faring. But they are not considered an ‘interested party’ with legal standing in the case.

Decisions affecting the services children receive while in foster care are made by the Kansas Department for Children and Families, which contracts for services with two nonprofits: KVC Behavioral Health and St. Francis Community Services.

St. Francis and KVC, in turn, each have networks of licensed foster homes. They also rely on networks developed by other charitable organizations.

‘A lot of inefficiencies’

Kansas privatized most if it’s foster care responsibilities in 1996.

“I haven’t seen (privatization) really work,” Knox said. “I see a lot of inefficiencies.”

According to the latest reports on the DCF website, 5,780 children were in the state’s foster care system last month. Currently, the system includes 2,546 licensed foster parents.

Knox said he hoped his proposal would be the subject of a pilot project somewhere in the state next year.

Bruce Linhos, executive director with the Children’s Alliance of Kansas, an advocacy group that helps train foster parents, said similar proposals similar have been tried in the past with varying degrees of success.

All of the foster care contractors and subcontractors, he said, have foster parents who have more training than most and who are willing to take on children with especially difficult behaviors.

“That kind of family has always been around and they’re of huge value,” he said.

‘Entirely plausible’

Still, Linhos said, Knox’s proposal appears to be “entirely plausible” in light of an ongoing effort to lessen the state’s reliance on residential facilities for mentally ill children. He said it might also complement a recent Office of Judicial Administration initiative aimed at helping parents and children better navigate the foster care system.

Marcia Allen, who runs Kansas Family Advisory Network, a Wichita-based group that advocates for parents whose children are in state custody, said Knox’s proposal would raise several issues that have proven to be contentious in the past.

“I fully support more training for foster parents and I understand that they want more say in the process,” she said. “But is that to say they should have more say than the birth parents? Should they have more say than the children? And what about grandparents? Shouldn’t they have a say? Everybody wants more say in the process. And you know what? They all probably deserve more say.”