Jewels53
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Thanks for posting this. I tried yesterday from my phone and was unsuccessful. I'm afraid that with Colyer going out, progress will stall out even more.
That said, it would be interesting to see where KS measures up against other states in meeting this criteria.
There were also some positives in the article:
Department spokeswoman Taylor Forrest said in a statement that the agency has implemented several projects to improve its service to children and families.
The agency did meet some standards, such as a finding that 6.4 percent of the children who had been mistreated were mistreated again, below the standard of 9.1 percent.
About 4,200 children were placed into foster care last year in Kansas, with 3,800 leaving foster care during that time. At the end of June, nearly 7,600 children were in foster care in Kansas.
Since Gina Meier-Hummel replaced Phyllis Gilmore as secretary in December 2017, the department has made several other leadership and policy changes.
Forrest said DCF will begin using a new system with real-time data in January to be more efficient at finding foster homes for children. To improve overall performance, the agency has begun “rapid permanency reviews,” in which case managers and supervisors participate in reviews and must take steps to improve.
The agency also is testing a new program called Icebreakers, which is intended to facilitate conversations between birth parents and foster parents within 10 days of a long-term foster care placement. The program will be implemented statewide in 2019.
DCF is shifting its focus to the entire family rather than individual children to “change the culture around non-abuse and neglect assignments,” Forrest said.
They need to hurry up and implement these programs for anymore children die. We have lost so many already, especially the last couple of years. imo