An abused or neglected child, their few belongings likely in grocery bags, with no home to go to is heart-wrenching. Many of these children are difficult to place because they have complex needs, including psychiatric care. Our state is failing our most vulnerable, and the failures are tragically predictable for anyone closely following the foster care system in Kansas over the past few years.
Child welfare advocates have expressed alarm for many years about a dropping number of psychiatric care beds for foster children in spite of increasing need.
Two psychiatric residential treatment facilities operate in Topeka: Pathways Family Services and Florence Crittenton. These organizations also offer emergency care for children not in need of psychiatric residential placement. They do difficult work with vulnerable children and are worthy of support. Both have shared concerns, alongside other such facilities across the state, about their ability to care for children in need in the midst of cuts to Medicaid reimbursement rates.
Since 2013, the number of psychiatric residential treatment facilities in Kansas has dropped from 11 to eight, with 222 fewer beds, even as the number of children needing services in Kansas trends upward.
Contracted Medicaid providers can also limit the amount of time children can stay in psychiatric residential treatment facilities. Disturbingly, the average time in which children stay in such facilitates varies significantly based on the provider. In light of foster care contractor revelations that many of the children sleeping in offices have had multiple trips in and out of residential psychiatric care, the state should take a careful look at how long children are allowed to receive care and if the amount of time is meeting their needs.
In addition to demanding a stronger safety net for abused and neglected children, concerned Kansans should consider becoming foster parents. Foster parents have the opportunity to provide much more than an office space to children in need, offering safe, loving environments to those who need them most.
The Topeka
Capital-Journal
