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KC Family Programs urges kin-first, community-based approach to reduce trauma of child removals
Summary
At the Resilient Tennessee Collaborative Summit, Mario Johnson of KC Family Programs urged officials and community partners to prioritize kinship placements, kin-first practices and community supports to reduce trauma and shorten time in foster care.
Mario Johnson, senior director and strategic consultant at KC Family Programs, told the Resilient Tennessee Collaborative Summit that child welfare practice should prioritize relatives and close family friends when removal is necessary and focus resources on keeping families together when it is safe to do so. Johnson said placing children with kin reduces placement instability, helps maintain sibling connections and improves behavioral and mental health outcomes for children.
Johnson urged a shift from a child-welfare mindset that treats removal as default to a child- and family-well‑being model that centers supports in communities. “Providing the right resources and support should be our absolute first course of action,” he said, adding that poverty is a major driver of many child‑welfare cases and that supports that address housing, food and employment can prevent unnecessary removals. He cited national estimates that about 377,000 children are in foster care and that roughly 35 percent of those are placed with relatives — statistics he used to argue kinship placement should be pursued when safe and appropriate.
Johnson described practical policy and practice change he said communities should adopt: kin-first placement practices and kinship navigator programs that help relatives find resources and complete licensing or guardianship paperwork; trauma‑aware removal practices that reduce the punitive tone of many investigations; and a prevention‑to‑permanency continuum in which communities provide primary prevention services and aftercare supports.
Johnson acknowledged limits in some local capacity and said a lasting change depends on aligning service partners — behavioral health, Medicaid and local nonprofits — so families can access supports without long delays. He called for centering families in planning and for communities to assume greater responsibility for solutions where possible.
Ending: Johnson closed by asking the audience to reflect on the supports that helped them in difficult moments and to use those reflections to build community-based “systems of hope.”
