By Anna Kaminski, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — A recent report examining the Kansas foster care agency’s performance in 2024 improved from last year, the agency head said, but one region is especially struggling to meet expectations.
The agency’s annual progress is measured by benchmarks outlined in a 2021 federal court settlement that holds the state to certain promises, including lowering the number of times a child is moved, eliminating overnight stays in offices and offering timely mental health services. A neutral third party released the report analyzing 2024’s progress in September.
Laura Howard, secretary for the Kansas Department for Children and Families, said at a Monday committee hearing in Topeka that improvement plans look different in each part of the state.
“We can’t just look at the aggregate,” she said. “We have to look at what’s happening in each area in each part of the state. What’s going well? What still needs to improve?”
Five private foster care providers serve eight areas in Kansas, and those organizations are also bound by the requirements of the settlement agreement. One in four Kansas kids in foster care lives in Sedgwick County, which is now served by EmberHope Connections after it replaced Saint Francis Ministries in 2024.
That county, which is home to Wichita, has had the most significant struggles in meeting the settlement requirements.
In 2024, 100 kids experienced more than 200 instances of spending nights in unsuitable places, such as offices. About 83% of those instances were in the Wichita area. It is the only region in the state that continues to have significant issues with placement, Howard said.
The state will no longer be monitored for one metric that ensures placements don’t exceed a home’s licensed capacity. It also improved in decreasing the number of children who had delayed mental health services, but still hasn’t met the settlement’s benchmark.
The one outcome the state did not improve upon was the failure to place measure, which refers to a child sleeping in an office, hotel or other unlicensed setting.
“While we’re seeing progress, and this is definitely a better report than last year’s report, where we saw some declines in performance, it’s just important that we continue to really place the focus on plans for improvement,” Howard said.
Brenda Watkins, president of EmberHope, said her organization is facing three main challenges: high acuity children, the rising cost of liability insurance and struggles to recruit and retain a qualified workforce.
Other Kansas organizations said the same thing at Monday’s hearing, and Watkins said other states are facing similar issues.
In Sedgwick County, EmberHope struggles to find placements for children because, often, no placements are available, Watkins said.
“Truly, there is no placement,” she said.
That means either no beds exist or households and facilities are not willing or able to take a child, she said.
One 6-year-old boy spent 48 nights in an EmberHope office and 40 nights in a hospital in a three-month span.
“He has been wrapped around with community services and supports to meet his needs,” Watkins said.
The boy, who was eventually diagnosed with a neurological condition, has been living in a residential psychiatric treatment facility and is expected to soon be discharged into a therapeutic foster home, Watkins said.
“When the system comes together across the shared parts to share the client that we serve, which is the child and the family, we can be very successful,” she said. “However, that doesn’t happen all the time, and we do need to continue to increase our focus on how we can coordinate care (and) achieve better outcomes for kids in care.”
In fiscal year 2025, which stretches from July 2024 to June 2025, EmberHope had 450 total instances of failure to place in Sedgwick County. In the first four months of the 2026 fiscal year, there have been 527 instances among 75 children, Watkins said.
Organizations are required under the terms of the settlement agreement to end all instances of failure to place by February 2026.
Watkins said the situation in Sedgwick County is at a crisis level. She described “pandemonium,” staff and child injuries and security troubles. One security company fired EmberHope, and off-duty Wichita Police Department officers now help in place of private security guards.
Watkins was among several organization representatives who asked legislators for help in covering the rising cost of liability insurance.
The cost of liability insurance for Cornerstones of Care, which serves foster children in the Kansas City region, is going up 131% in 2026 compared to 2025, said Justin Horton, the chief programs and innovation officer for the organization. Compared to 2022 costs, it is up 235%.
The issue is not unique to Kansas, he said.
“But, nonetheless, if you license foster homes, if you case manage foster homes, (if) you run a residential facility — and I check all three of those boxes — it’s very costly,” Horton said.
Rep. Susan Ruiz, a Shawnee Democrat, speculated that finding liability insurance carriers willing to cover foster care organizations was also an issue. Horton affirmed.
“I would hate to see insurance dictate how we serve our kids,” Ruiz said, “but it seems like in this kind of scenario, that’s what we’re looking at.”
