Child Advocate, alliance push reimagining proposals: more prevention, peer legal teams and kinship support

Topeka, Kan. — Two oversight and advocacy bodies told the Joint Committee on Child Welfare System Oversight on June 2 that Kansas should further expand prevention investments, increase oversight of congregate placements and pilot new models for legal representation and kinship licensing.

Office of Child Advocate: complaints and priorities Carrie Leonard of the Office of the Child Advocate summarized complaint trends for 2024 and the first quarter of 2025, saying the office continues to receive the largest number of contacts about agency conduct, delays in achieving permanency and concerns about family time and placement stability. She said the office typically can notify reporters whether a referral was assigned but cannot disclose confidential case findings. Leonard repeated an earlier recommendation to clarify and standardize expectations for family time, and to consider an extra unannounced inspection requirement for congregate care settings to assure safety.

Children’s Alliance: reimagining child welfare The Children’s Alliance presented recommendations derived from a multi-stakeholder “reimagining” process. The alliance said its working group recommends: - Prioritize community-level prevention and build family resource centers to help families without opening CPS investigations; the alliance estimated a multi-site family-resource investment would cost several million dollars to stand up in high-volume counties. - Pilot multidisciplinary legal teams (attorneys plus social-work support and parent advocates) for dependency representation; alliance members cited out-of-state evaluations that found improved reunification and accelerated permanency with multidisciplinary representation. - Expand kinship and relative-placement pathways and reduce licensing barriers where public-safety checks permit; the alliance urged an easier path for relatives to be licensed as foster parents where appropriate.

Why it matters: The recommendations reinforce key themes from the hearing: (1) Kansas can reduce foster-care entries by expanding upstream community services; (2) removal pathways and emergency custody usage need clearer measurement; and (3) better, earlier legal advocacy and stronger kinship supports can shorten time in care or prevent removals.

Sources and attribution: Office of the Child Advocate (Carrie Leonard); Children’s Alliance of Kansas (Crystal Hedrick) and stakeholder working groups.