Kansas DCF: foster care caseload down, Family First prevention credited; permanency and placement metrics flagged for improvement

Kansas Department for Children and Families Secretary Laura Howard and Deputy Secretary Tonya Keyes told the House Committee on Child Welfare and Foster Care that foster care entries and the overall caseload have fallen in recent years, and that the agency credits expanded prevention services under the federal Family First Prevention Services Act for much of the decline.

"Our mission is to protect children, strengthen families, and promote adult self sufficiency," Secretary Laura Howard said as she opened the department's overview of child welfare services and recent trends.

The presentation said 2,578 children entered foster care in 2024 and that the point-in-time foster care population on Dec. 31, 2024, stood at about 5,574 children. Deputy Secretary Tonya Keyes said the statewide foster care population has decreased more than 25% since 2018 as exits from care have exceeded new entries.

Howard and Keyes emphasized prevention work, especially programs created under Family First. "We know that 90% of children and youth who've been referred to Family First have remained safely in their home without the need for foster care 12 months after the time of their referral," Howard said. She also told the committee that only about 5% of families with an open Family First case had a child placed in foster care during that case.

Committee members heard that the department has five statewide case management contractors—Saint Francis Ministries, KVC Health Systems, TFI Family Services, Cornerstones of Care and Amber Hope Connections—responsible for day-to-day case management and placement decisions in assigned regions. Ke y placement statistics included that about 47% of children in care were living in a licensed family foster home and roughly 37% were with relatives or kin at the most recent point-in-time data reported to the committee; the department said nearly half of children in care statewide are placed with a caregiver they knew before entering care.

Officials also reviewed performance measures required by federal law and by the court settlement in McIntyre v. Howard. The department reported it is in a formal performance improvement process for outcomes including placement stability and timely permanency. Deputy Secretary Keyes told the committee Kansas is not meeting the federal timeliness measure for permanency within the first 12 months for children in care and that the state’s placement-stability metric (measuring number of placement moves) remains above the federal target.

Committee members asked about several programmatic concerns: how relatives are vetted and supported when they become caregivers; how often visits occur (the department said at least one face-to-face visit per month, with half the visits occurring in the placement setting over time); and how the agency is addressing youth who are absent from placement. Keyes described a statewide special response team for youth missing from placement and said as of the day before the committee meeting 44 young people were absent from placement—down from higher averages in previous years. The department said a small fraction of youth have repeated "night-to-night" placements and that such moves contribute to the placement-stability measure used in federal reporting.

Agency witnesses described steps to expand supports to kin and foster families (including a kinship reimbursement at 70% of a licensed foster-home rate, kinship navigators and in‑home supports such as functional family therapy), licensing reforms to streamline relative licensing, and investments in workforce wellness and debriefing supports for staff.

The committee also heard a short historical timeline from the Legislative Research Department and reminders about open meetings and public records from the Revisor's office. Natalie Nelson of the legislative research staff summarized major reforms dating from the 1937 Kansas Welfare Act through privatization phases in the 1990s and the 2020 McIntyre settlement; Jesse Pringle of the Revisor's office summarized obligations under the Kansas Open Meetings and Open Records acts.

The committee’s conversation closed with officials noting legislation under consideration and departmental priorities, including bills introduced that same day that would amend the state code for care of children on secure care, permanency hearings and the definition of neglect.

Looking ahead, DCF officials told the committee they are pursuing additional community-based capacity and technology to improve family finding, that they continue to evaluate Family First contracts through university partners, and that they have performance incentives and penalties in case-management contracts tied to several outcomes the state is working to improve.