BARBER COUNTY — Five people were injured in an accident just before 7a.m. Tuesday in Barber County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2003 Dodge Ram 1500 driven by Shawn Edwin Read, 44, Hazleton, was northbound on Tri-City Road at Crooked Post Road five and a half miles south of U.S.160.

The vehicle traveled off the road to the right as it rotated counterclockwise, crossed both lanes, entered the west ditch and rolled.

Read and passengers Victoria Alize Roberts, 4; Trinity Leeann Roberts, 9; Gerald Henry Constantine, 13 and Alexander Michael Constantine, 11, all of Hazleton, were transported to the hospital in Medicine Lodge. None of the occupants of the pickup were wearing seat belts, according to the KHP.

OFFICE OF GOV.

TOPEKA – In an effort to expand and improve voting opportunities in Kansas, Governor Laura Kelly signed House Substitute for Senate Bill 130 Monday afternoon, amending the law concerning advance ballots, signature requirements and polling places.

“Over the past decade, we have seen countless efforts aimed at making voting more difficult in this state,” Governor Laura Kelly said. “I hope this will be the first of many laws that help ensure that every voice is heard in our democratic process and that every vote is counted.”

House Substitute for Senate Bill 130 will give county election officials the discretion to allow all registered voters to cast their ballot at any polling place in their county on election day. It also requires county election officers to attempt to contact each voter who submitted an advance voting ballot without a signature or with a signature that does not match the signature on file. The voter will be allowed to correct their signature before the commencement of the final tallying of votes in that county.

“This law is about local control and protecting every vote,” Kelly said. “I applaud all of the local and state officials who worked together to make this law a reality, especially those in Sedgwick County who were the driving force behind it.”

This brings the total number of bills signed in the 2019 Legislative Session to 37, with one being vetoed. By law, the Kansas governor has 10 calendar days to sign bills into law, veto bills or allow bills to become law without her signature.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly has signed a bill that requires election officials to notify voters before their mail-in ballots are thrown out because of signature problems.

An Associated Press analysis of rejected ballots in the 2018 primary in the state’s most populous county found that 153 mail-in ballots were not counted because of signatures that didn’t match county voting records.

Then-Secretary of State Kris Kobach defeated then-Gov. Jeff Colyer for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in that race by only 343 votes. The close Republican primaryhighlighted differences in how Kansas counties handled mail-in ballots.

The legislationKelly signed Monday gives voters an additional week or longer to provide a signature.

By NOMIN UJIYEDIIN
Kansas News Service

A new law standardizing Kansas’ response to child-on-child sexual assault could cost $126,000 and result in more than 3,200 treatment referrals a year.

The new statute also requires the department to document whether treatment was provided to the child accused of abuse, the reasons for needing it and the outcome.

The agency estimates 3,264 children a year would need to be referred to treatment. That estimate includes both foster children in the agency’s care and children who are the subject of reports from the DCF child abuse hotline.

Agency officials say the added counseling work means DCF will have to hire two more staff members at a cost of more than $126,000 per year for salary and benefits. The Legislature did not appropriate additional funding to pay those costs this year.

Republican state Sen. Molly Baumgardner of Overland Park introduced the bill after stories broke last year of foster children assaulting other children in DCF custody. She pressed to make sure the agency had a consistent response to such incidents.

“It was very disconcerting to me, learning that there wasn’t a set process,” she said. “We need all of our kids to be safe.”

Baumgardner said she was inspired by a similar law that passed in Missouri in 2015, requiring the state’s Children’s Division to perform assessments and offer voluntary services after receiving a report that one child sexually abused another.

The Kansas law also states that the services for children who commit abuse are voluntary — unless DCF determines that the risk of future sexual behavior problems is high if the child does not receive treatment. It defines “a child with sexual behavior problems” as a minor who has allegedly committed sexual abuse against another child.

DCF says it already has procedures in place for handling reports of abuse allegedly committed by children. In an email, a department spokesman said a worker first determines whether a report of abuse is substantiated and what kind of treatment might be needed. The information is also passed to a committee, who makes a final decision on the reliability of the report and the need for treatment for the child who allegedly committed the abuse.

Currently, law enforcement is also required to conduct an investigation of reported sexual abuse of a child.

Alicia Johnson-Turner, a special assistant to DCF secretary Laura Howard, said  DCF would only provide referrals, rather than direct treatment. She said the agency may pay for treatment on a case-by-case basis.

Johnson-Turner said two organizations in the state, in the Kansas City and Wichita areas, provide evidence-based treatment for children with problematic sexual behavior. She said children who live outside those areas may be referred to community mental health centers for psychotherapy.

“That might be targeted at sexual behavior,” she said. “It just wouldn’t be one of the evidence-based models.”

The Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault, based in Kansas City, Missouri, treats Kansas children who demonstrate age-inappropriate sexual behavior.

Such behaviors are different than a child’s curiosity about their own body, or consensual sexual behavior between teenagers of the same age, said MOCSA’s director of counseling services, Rene McCreary. It’s often caused by sexual abuse, early exposure to pornography or other types of trauma, such as witnessing domestic violence.

Children who demonstrate problematic sexual behavior — such as exposing themselves, touching other children’s genitals, using inappropriate language or gestures, or touching themselves in public — are unlikely to repeat it, she said.

“When kids act out in a sexual way, it’s pretty unusual for them to do it again,” McCreary said. “Especially after receiving treatment.”

But it’s still important for children to learn the social skills and impulse control taught at MOCSA’s 18-week program, she said. The treatment involves both group and individual therapy for children and their families. Children round out the program by writing an apology letter.

“It’s really important to us,” McCreary said, “to provide this model in the way that it’s been studied and proven to work.”

Foster children are at risk of developing inappropriate sexual behaviors due to their living conditions and their exposure to trauma and abuse, said Heidi Olson, a pediatric sexual assault nurse at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.

Olson told lawmakers that almost half of the sexual assaults treated at Children’s Mercy in the past several years were committed by minors, with 11- to 15-year-old boys being the most likely to do so.

“Those kids aren’t even old enough to drive, and yet they are acting out with this sexually harmful behavior,” Olson said in an interview. “The way to approach this is to get kids into therapy and treatment that really works and addressing those behaviors, versus them being adjudicated and going to jail.”

It’s essential for treatment to be administered at a young age so a child can heal and learn about boundaries, she said.

For adults, “the recidivism rate is much higher,” Olson said, “so I think this is really significant.”

Nomin Ujiyediin is a reporter for the Kansas News Service.  You can reach her on Twitter @NominUJ.