Children’s Cabinet: Upstream prevention investments tied to sustained drops in foster care

Dr. Kayla Byers, associate director at the University of Kansas Center for Public Partnerships and Research, told the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund on Feb. (presentation date not specified) that Kansas’ investments in upstream prevention and early childhood supports are reducing foster care placements and producing measurable cost avoidance.

Why it matters: Byers said early, community-based services help keep families together and reduce expensive foster-care placements. "When we provide those upstream primary prevention services, those are tools that can help empower families and caregivers to take charge of their well-being," she said.

Byers outlined national and state programs that she said form a coordinated prevention system: the Family First Prevention Services Act (adopted in Kansas in 2019), the Thriving Families, Safer Children initiative (Kansas joined in 2021), CANLINK (Kansas Linking Infrastructure for Nurturing Kids) and community-based child abuse prevention (CBCAP) grants and family resource centers. She said Kansas received about $13 million in federal funding tied to Family First and that the state’s approach spans primary prevention through family preservation services.

Evidence and impact: Byers cited several analyses and state findings: - A KU pilot of the Kansas Early Childhood Integrated Data System (ECIDS) found that participation in early childhood services reduced the likelihood of removal to foster care by 28 percent (an increase from an earlier 23 percent estimate). - Statewide prevention services have been credited with avoiding more than $21 million in foster-care and related costs, according to Byers’ presentation. - Kansas saw a 23 percent reduction in children placed in out-of-home care between 2019 and 2025. - Family First–linked services have served more than 6,000 families to date; Byers said more than 90 percent of children and youth who received services 12 months after referral remained safely at home.

Byers supplemented Kansas data with national and out-of-state examples showing return on investment: a Kentucky analysis found that a $9.8 million increase in prevention funding coincided with a more-than-$58 million drop in out-of-home expenditures; analyses in Alabama and California and a Teller County, Colorado, partnership also showed multi‑dollar returns for each dollar invested in family resource centers.

Program highlights and next steps: Byers described CANLINK as a three‑year discretionary effort focused on policy and local linkages to early childhood services; she said Year 2 work includes recommended policy changes to Kansas DCF to improve referrals when young children are identified in reports. The cabinet’s “well‑being pathway” and an upcoming county‑level well‑being dashboard and toolkit were previewed; Byers said the dashboard will launch later this spring and will include strengths‑based indicators for health, community environment, financial well‑being, learning and development, and family/household measures.

Board response and questions: Chair Don Heinemann thanked Byers for the report. Board members praised the synthesis and discussed practical next steps for communicating the findings to legislators and other stakeholders. Board member John Wilson called the presentation “relatable” and said he planned to share it beyond the meeting; Melissa Rooker, director of the cabinet, offered to coordinate outside presentations.

Scope and limits: Byers and board members emphasized the analytic and programmatic bases for the claims presented; the cabinet did not adopt new policy or formal actions at the meeting on the basis of the presentation. When asked how fiscal savings show up in state budgets, Rooker clarified that savings often appear as lower caseloads rather than a single identifiable line‑item surplus.

The cabinet posted the presentation slides and the recorded meeting to its website and said it will email a direct link to board members.

Ending: The cabinet’s work to align prevention programs and to expand community linkages — via CANLINK, family resource centers, the well‑being pathway and continued Family First implementation — will continue, with more evaluation and local pilots reported back to the board in future meetings.