By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
WICHITA, June 21
Most years, Sedgwick County has between 400 and 600 children in foster care.
Not this year.
“We”re at 700-something now,” said Sedgwick County Juvenile Court Judge Jim Burgess. “If things keep going like they are, we”ll be at 1,200 kids by the end of the year. What we”re seeing here, I think, is the law of unintended consequences.”
In a 2006 overhaul of the state”s juvenile code, lawmakers made it clear the courts have 72 hours to rule whether a child taken into protective custody truly belongs in foster care.
For years, Sedgwick County Juvenile Court had interpreted the law differently, giving itself up to 144 hours to make the determination: 72 hours to investigate the child”s circumstances; another 72 hours to hold a hearing.
But it was alone in its interpretation. Of the state”s 31 judicial districts, only Sedgwick County”s allowed itself 144 hours. The rest held hearings within 72 hours.
The clarification took effect Jan. 1, 2007.
“Our time to work a case has been cut in half,” said Ron Paschal, chief attorney of the juvenile division of the District Attorney’s Office in Sedgwick County .
Historically, Sedgwick County has accounted for about one-fifth of the children in the state”s foster care system. But if Burgess” prediction proves true, by year”s end almost one-third of the Kansas children in foster care would be from Sedgwick County.
Before the clarification, Paschal said, social workers in Wichita had enough time to put together plans that helped about 80 percent of children in protective custody avoid being put in foster care.
“Let”s say police come upon a two-year-old child at night, wandering the streets. They do some investigating and they find out the child had been left with a six-year-old,” Pashcal said. “Now, maybe the children were unsupervised because mom was passed out drunk or maybe she”s working two jobs, doing everything she can to make ends meet
she didn”t have anybody she could leave the kids with.
“If she”s working, it may be that she needs (public) assistance or some parenting classes or some other form of support,” he said. “Maybe the child can stay with an aunt or uncle or a grandparent while all this is being worked out? If they can, that child may not need to be in foster care.”
“Go with safety”
But figuring out a troubled family”s options isn”t easy.
“Investigations take time,” Paschal said. “I get the feeling sometimes that people watch shows like “CSI” and “Law and Order,” and they think everything falls into place in 30 minutes. But that”s not what we”re dealing with here. A lot of times, these are people who don”t know where their relatives are living or if they do, they don”t have an address or they don”t have a phone. It may take you a whole day to find out how many kids are in the family. I”m not kidding.”
When these investigations don”t come together in three days, judges are expected to choose between the uncertainty of a sending a child home and the safety of foster care.
“It”s a no-brainer,” Burgess said. “You go with safety.”
But separating children from their parents is often traumatic.
“Anytime a child is removed from their known environment, it”s a harm to them,” said Kellie Hogan, a staff attorney with Kansas Legal Services” office in Wichita. She often represents children in court proceedings.
“If we”re going to inflict harm on kids, we need to be sure that it”s necessary, and that there”s not another way to meet the safety concerns without harming the child,” Hogan said.
Foster care isn”t cheap. The projected increase in Sedgwick County”s foster care numbers is expected to cost the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services an additional $2.5 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1.
Statewide, SRS expects to spend about $138 million on foster-care services in Fiscal 2007. That”s $16 million more than it spent the year before.
“We don”t want kids in foster care,” Paschal said. “We want them safe at home.”
Lawmakers clarified the 72-hour limit amid concerns that allowing 144 hours violated parents” rights to a fair and timely hearing and harmed children.
“The 144 hours doesn”t include weekends or holidays so, really, you could be looking at a kid going seven, eight or nine days without knowing if they”d ever see their parents again,” said Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita. “For a child, that”s a huge amount of time.”
Ward, an attorney and a member of the House Judiciary Committee, has represented children, parents and grandparents in foster care hearings. He has also represented the state.
“We had a long debate about this issue,” Ward said. “A lot of people on the committee didn”t like the idea that it was 72 hours everywhere except Sedgwick County.”
Ward no longer handles foster-care cases.
What benefit?
Burgess bristled at the notion that the benefits of requiring hearings within 72 hours offset the consequences of children ending up in foster care because their social workers didn”t have enough time to come up with a safe alternative.
“Tell me which is worse: Taking an extra 72 hours to get things resolved or ending up with a kid in custody?” Burgess said. “Because that”s what we”re doing. There”s no other reason our numbers have spiked the way they have.”
Typically, children spend months in foster care, waiting on their parents to comply with court-ordered expectations
sobriety, steady employment, mental health counseling, parenting classes, or avoiding abusive relationships. In Kansas, the average stay in foster care is 18 months.
Paschal said he doubted that other judicial districts” hearings are truly held within 72 hours of a child entering police custody.
“A lot of times what happens is, yeah, they”ll have a hearing and the judge will say (to the parents), “You want a hearing? OK, here, let”s schedule a hearing. When can you be here?”” he said.
“That”s not really a hearing” Paschal said. “It”s certainly not the way it is in Sedgwick County. When we have a hearing, the evidence is presented, there will be witnesses, and you will have the opportunity to cross-examine your accusers.
“That”s the way it was when we had 144 hours and that”s the way it is now,” he said. “The only difference is the social worker doesn”t have as much time to come up with an alternative” to foster care.
A recent compilation of
state foster care data
found that while Sedgwick County had the most children in foster care, it also had the lowest “removal rate”
3.5 children per 1,000 removed from home
and the second highest safety rating.
“What that means, is that while Sedgwick County is seeing a lot of kids due to its population size, it”s also doing a good job in keeping families together,” said Terry Moore, a research associate at Kansas University. And for the most part, the kids who are kept out of the system aren”t coming back in. They”re safe.”
SRS response
Earlier this week, SRS proposed putting four of its social workers in offices at the
Wichita Children”s Home
, which serves as Sedgwick County”s emergency shelter.
That arrangement, because it provides immediate proximity, would give social workers a quicker start sorting out a child”s circumstances and when feasible, coming up with safe alternatives to foster care.
“We”d like them to be immediately available when a child is put in police protective custody,” said Abbie Hodgson, a spokeswoman for SRS.
Plans call for relocating the social workers by the end of August, Hodgson said.
But Sedgwick County won”t be getting additional social workers.
SRS uses a “weighted workload” formula to figure out how many social workers are assigned to each of its regional offices. There are 54 social workers assigned to child protective services in Sedgwick County
The Sedgwick County office has its quota, said Candace Shively, deputy secretary for service delivery at SRS.
“All the other regions have been practicing the 72-hour standard in tandem with the court system,” Shively said. “So I wouldn”t necessarily see resources being shifted from another part of the state.”
More time
Burgess has asked the Kansas Judicial Council to reconsider the 72-hour requirement.
“We either need more time or more people working cases
and it”s not looking like we”re going to get more people,” he said.
The judicial council has agreed to review the requirement before the start of the 2008 legislative session. The review has been assigned to the council”s Juvenile Offender/Child in Need of Care Advisory Committee.
Whether lawmakers are willing to relax the requirement remains to be seen.
“If every place else can handle it, Sedgwick County should be able to handle it,” said Rep. Janice Pauls, D-Hutchinson.
-Dave Ranney is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
dranney@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 128.