Children entering the Kansas foster care system will soon have a new short-term place to stay in Kansas City.
With kids sleeping in their offices several nights a month, KVC Kansas, one of the states two foster care contractors, has been looking to open some sort of crisis center for the past year.
KVC Kansas kept 28 kids in its offices overnight in March, the most recent month for which data was available. The contractor says no children have had to sleep in its offices since May 18.
KVC had initially planned to open a basic shelter in January, but then realized that wouldnt be enough. The kids most likely to be without a family member or a foster home to go to were kids with more serious behavioral or mental health problems.
The hospital arm of KVCs parent company is setting up and licensing a facility equipped to handle kids who might be violent or prone to run away. The new youth residential center will provide mental health services and 24-hour supervision. The facility is scheduled to open later this month.
Theyve already got a space for boys, so the new space will be a comfortable spot for up to 20 girls.
In preparation, Vanessa Brouillette, KVC Hospitals operations coordinator, has been choosing paint colors, spreading bright comforters over twin beds, and screwing the legs onto cozy couches and chairs.
The entryway, she said, will be a big, open, welcoming space.
Carla Drescher, CEO of the Blue Door Project that will be operating the new youth center for KVC Hospitals, said shes seeing more kids with intense needs than when she started working in child welfare more than 25 years ago.
When I think back to when I first started in the field, its night and day, as far as the acuity level, she said.
Thats been reflected in long waiting lists for psychiatric residential treatment facilities, which provide more intensive psychiatric treatment. Kids on the waitlist have typically ended up in centers like the one to be opened in Kansas City, Kansas. When there isnt enough room there, some have spent a night or two in an office.
Stays in the new youth residential center will also likely be longer than in a shelter like KVC had initially envisioned, where less than a week would be the norm.
KVC is also shifting its plans for a shelter in Wichita to reflect higher acuity needs. Instead, KVC Hospitals will be opening a pediatric psychiatric hospital with more than 50 beds in that city in early 2019.
There are more than 7,500 kids in the Kansas foster care system, a number that has increased more than 40 percent since 2005. KVC spokeswoman Jenny Kutz said the tremendous jump has pushed the organization to consider more group housing options, something KVC has historically shied away from.
