Volunteers are needed to help endangered kids after record caseload increases in Kansas and Missouri
The area agencies that seek volunteers to advocate for abused and neglected children have a recruiting pitch they never wanted to use.
Help is needed, they say, because record numbers of children in Kansas and Missouri are entering court protection.
“Caseloads are so overwhelming that no one has the time to take care of these kids except our volunteers,” said Martha Gershun, executive director of Jackson County CASA, which stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates.
Gershun’s counterpart in Johnson and Wyandotte counties, Lois Rice, is making a companion plea.
The CASA chapters recruit and train volunteers to follow children who fall under court jurisdiction because of abuse or neglect. The volunteers visit the children, check on their progress in school and provide vital information to judges.
It is crucial but hard work. Children in the Kansas City area who would benefit from a CASA volunteer include an infant whose mentally ill mother put bleach in his bottle; a young girl with a drug-addicted mother who was sexually molested by a relative; two school-aged children who lived with their drug-addicted mother in a shabby hotel room before she abandoned them; and four siblings who were found physically abused in a filthy home with little food.
The need locally should not be as great as it is. Nationwide, foster care caseloads have leveled off. Federal data shows 402,000 children in state custody in July 2014. That’s about 108,000 fewer cases than a decade earlier; numbers moved steadily down from 2003 to 2012 before jumping slightly last year.
But Missouri and Kansas have been speeding in the wrong direction.
Missouri reported record highs in January and February of this year of more than 13,000 children who had been removed from their parents’ care and placed in foster care, with relatives or in other settings. Almost 2,000 of those children were in Jackson County.
Kansas had an all-time high of 6,507 children in out-of-home placements in April. In Johnson County, the numbers have grown so rapidly that the district court added a second judge to handle cases involving abused and neglected children. Wyandotte County saw a 42 percent increase in children coming under court protection in 2012.
Caseload numbers rise and fall for a variety of reasons, and not all of them are bad. More people could be reporting suspected child abuse, for instance. But the increases in the two-state region are too dramatic and longstanding to qualify as a blip.
Gershun offers a succinct explanation: “The failure of the Kansas and Missouri legislatures to provide for families.”
She and Rice know the danger signs all too well. Substance abuse. Mental illness. Worries about finances. Erratic work schedules that lead parents to take chances on babysitters or leave children alone.
Missouri has chronically ranked among the bottom of the states in its investment in child care, substance abuse and mental health treatment and cash assistance to families. Kansas, after choosing tax cuts for wealthier residents over adequate funding for state services, is headed in that direction.
Neither state has expanded Medicaid eligibility, which would help families with access to mental health care and fewer health and financial worries.
And conservative legislatures in both states chose to make it harder for the poorest families to obtain cash welfare benefits. Lawmakers said they were helping parents escape dependency by imposing stricter work requirements. But child advocates believe increased stress and demands will put more children in danger.
Court-appointed special advocates have a proven success in achieving positive outcomes for children at risk. The two area agencies are hoping to recruit 183 qualified new volunteers, and we fully support their efforts. For information, visit www.casakc.org or call 816-984-8208 in Jackson County or 913-715-4040 in Johnson and Wyandotte counties.
The best course of action is to keep children out of protective court custody in the first place. For that, we need a change of heart, mind and leadership in Jefferson City and Topeka.
This story was originally published May 30, 2015 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Volunteers are needed to help endangered kids after record caseload increases in Kansas and Missouri."