Taking money from vulnerable Missouri kids is too risky. Put the funding back | Opinion
Details of Missouri’s state budget unveiled last week showed Republican-proposed cuts to Family Resource Centers that would devastate a child welfare operation supporting thousands of our most vulnerable children and their families.
I can’t figure out, for the life of me, why anyone would want to wipe out funding for and hobble a statewide agency set up to save so many Missouri children from falling through cracks in an already challenged child welfare system.
Family Resource Centers across the state — including FosterAdopt Connect in the Kansas City area — stand to lose more than $10 million in state funding if the cuts proposed by Missouri House budget committee chairman Dirk Deaton stand. Deaton is a fiscally conservative Republican representing McDonald and southern Newton counties.
Deaton’s budget proposal passed through the budget committee intact last week, despite pushback from some Democrats and efforts by state child welfare advocates to educate legislators on how vital the agency is to this fragile system. Still, advocates say they are hoping lawmakers put that money back when it gets to the full House.
If state dollars disappear, Family Resource Centers, which are independent nonprofits contracted by the Missouri Department of Social Services, would also lose another $15 million in matching federal funds. Altogether, that’s about $25 million, roughly 70% of the program’s budget — obviously a huge blow.
A cut that deep guts the program, leaving kids and families without sorely needed support. That is not OK. Worse, it’s shameful, because what could be more worthy of the support of taxpayer dollars than making sure Missouri’s children, all of them, are safe?
The three Family Resource Centers in Missouri serve about 39,000 individuals in 15 rural and urban communities across the state. Losing any amount of state funding would reduce services everywhere, but rural areas would be hit hardest. Those areas are what Josh Hollingsworth, chief advancement officer at FosterAdopt Connect, calls “service deserts.”
He said Family Resource Centers “exist to fill the gaps in services for families and individuals that are affected by the child welfare system.” In many cases, especially in rural areas, the centers are the only stopgap keeping these youths from landing on a path to living on the street or ending up in prison. That is no hyperbole. A 2019 award-winning Kansas City Star series addressed the foster care-to-prison pipeline. Hollingsworth said some 60% of Missouri’s inmates spent time in the foster care system.
The truth, it seems, is that either we pay now and give children the help they need, or we could end up paying later. It’s quite obvious to me that the latter is far more costly for everyone.
“These young people deserve a chance,” Hollingsworth said. “They are all our kids. We have to wrap around them as a society. If we don’t, the outcomes are not great.”
Prevent child abuse, strengthen families
These centers are designed to prevent child abuse and neglect by providing resources that strengthen families before a crisis occurs. They provide housing for youth, crisis intervention, in-home behavioral support and trauma therapy. They provide specialized training for families caring for children with elevated needs, and work to help keep children with their families and out of an already overtaxed foster care system whenever possible.
During a budget hearing last week, where House Democrats argued in support of restoring funding to the agency, Deaton said he knows the importance of family resource centers and expressed interest in possibly restoring a portion of the money when the budget measure goes before the full House next week.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate what they do,” he said. Deaton was not able to be reached at his Missouri offices on Friday or Monday.
Putting just a portion of the money back isn’t good enough, though. Without the full $10 million, the agency won’t get the federal match it depends on to continue fully serving our kids. As it is, the three centers spend an average of $250 per individual they serve. That is not a lot of money to keep harm at bay.
“If they remove these services, where do these kids go? What happens to them?” Hollingsworth asked.
I agree with Hollingsworth and other child care advocates that the state should fund this agency at least at the same rate recommended by the governor, and return state funding to its 2025 levels.
Missouri’s vulnerable children and their families should not pay the price for fiscal failures that our state legislators are supposed to keep watch for and avoid.
When lawmakers return to the House after this spring break, they need to vote down any proposed cuts to family resource centers, and in favor of putting every penny back where it belongs. Find a way to trim those dollars from somewhere else that won’t hurt our children.
This story was originally published March 17, 2026 at 5:07 AM.
