By DAVE RANNEY
KHI News Service

WICHITA — The director of a private child welfare program that has drawn fire from some parents for allegedly impeding their efforts to be reunited with their children after they were taken into state custody was in court here Tuesday, asking a judge to reverse a Kansas Department for Children and Families’ decision to place a two-year-old girl with the child’s great grandmother.

The child, who is in foster care, has been living with Andrea Dixon, founder and director of FaithBuilders, since the girl was two days old and has bonded with Dixon and her family, said Leah Gagne, the attorney representing the Dixon family.

The case was the subject of a seven-hour hearing Tuesday in Sedgwick County Juvenile Court and was of greater public interest than the usual child custody hearing because of concerns that have been raised by state legislators and others about a possible improper relationship between Dixon and the former top DCF official in Wichita.

FaithBuilders is a church-sponsored organization that provides respite- and foster-care services for at-risk children in Sedgwick County.

In November, DCF officials stopped referring children to the group’s foster homes pending the outcome of an agency review of Dixon’s dealings with Diane Bidwell, then director of the DCF regional office in Wichita.

The review was sparked by some parents’ allegations that workers in the local DCF office may have shared confidential information about potential foster-care cases with Dixon, and that Dixon and Bidwell had stymied efforts to reunite them with their children.

Those allegations were communicated to some state legislators. Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau, a Wichita Democrat, took those concerns to officials at DCF headquarters in Topeka.

Bidwell resigned her position shortly after the DCF headquarters investigation began. She had run the regional office for two years.

News of the investigation subsequently prompted Sedgwick County Juvenile Court Judge Tim Henderson to order DCF reviews of cases that had been handled by Bidwell. Those case reviews are ongoing, according to DCF officials. It wasn’t immediately clear if the case under court consideration Tuesday was among those being looked at.

DCF’s decision to allow the great grandmother to adopt the child was made after Bidwell’s exit. The great grandmother is in her late 60s and lives in South Carolina.

The great grandmother has been caring for the child’s 3-year-old brother since December. A great uncle and his wife have had the girl’s three sisters, ages 4, 5, and 6, since July. They live in North Carolina.

While in Wichita, the 2-year-old girl’s brother and three sisters lived with another foster family.

Dixon testified that she thought the girl was not as attached to her brother and sisters as she was to Dixon’s family.

But attorneys for DCF, the child, and the great grandmother each argued that state and federal laws favored placing the child with relatives and that both the great grandmother and the great uncle had proven to be fit parents. Causing the child to remain with the Dixons, they said, would deny her access to her biological family, which is black. Dixon is white.

The racial distinction was one of the issues raised in the hearing, by the lawyer representing the girl’s great grandmother.

The attorney, Lynette Herrman, also cited several instances in which Dixon reportedly resisted social workers’ efforts to foster a relationship between the girl and the great grandmother.

Herrman said she plans to call as a later witness the girl’s CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) worker who filed a report that recommended limiting Dixon’s access to the great grandmother because of the animosity that had developed between the pair.

Prior to the hearing, Henderson, the juvenile court’s administrative judge, directed reporters not to identify by name the children or the adoptive parents. The case was heard by Judge Robb Rumsey.

The hearing was scheduled to continue on April 14.