The unfortunate reality is that headlines like, “Affordability concerns rise as Fed hikes key rate, mortgage rate reaches nearly 7%,” and “More than 10,000 Kansas children lose food assistance in wake of One Big Beautiful Bill Act” have become common and, in many ways, expected. The problems these stories speak to are also all too common: Kansans can’t afford basic necessities, and the programs intended to help during times of need are becoming harder and harder to access.
As these issues persist, families struggle to make ends meet with little to no support. Bills go unpaid, utilities are disconnected, and children go hungry. Under the current system of mandated reporting, and a general lack of robust and accessible community resources, these issues of poverty become DCF reports and investigations. While instances of neglect are intended to be distinguished from issues related to poverty, and legislation has been explored to further separate the two, children are still removed from their homes far too often in circumstances of poverty and a lack of resources. Families are reported and children are removed when, instead, those families could be provided with the resources they need to remain safely together.
This is where prevention services have an important role to play. Rather than waiting until a family reaches a point where intervention through the child welfare system becomes necessary, we can provide support further upstream—when a family is struggling, but before that struggle becomes a crisis that threatens family stability.
These reports and investigations lead to children being removed from caring but undersupported homes, placing them in a system that is oversaturated and in many cases, unable to provide basic support to these children, particularly children navigating more complex behavioral and medical needs. Resources are allocated towards paying foster families and the administrative costs of a bloated foster care system, rather than stabilizing families to keep them together.
The system’s goal when a child is removed is safe reunification. But the same intention toward family connection could be applied earlier in the process, potentially avoiding the need for reunification altogether. If we can provide families with meaningful support, eliminating the reliance on removal, we can reduce the need for the child welfare system to intervene in the first place.
This lack of support for families who fall through the gaps, unable to stay afloat because of breakdowns in the social safety net, is an overlooked area where expanding prevention services could make a significant difference. Doing so could improve the lives of struggling families while also reducing strain on the foster care system, allowing it to better support children experiencing true neglect and abuse.
Opportunities for prevention exist in every area affected by affordability, most notably housing, transportation, child care, employment, and health care. The things that keep a family struggling, impoverished, and in crisis mode. If we can take even one bite out of this larger problem, families will be better off, and the system will be better positioned to focus its resources on children who cannot safely remain in their own homes.
So let’s take a bite and zoom in on just one of these issues: child care.
Access to child care can be a major barrier, but that lack of access can also make the other challenges families face even worse. How does someone access employment resources or attend a job interview without someone to care for their child? How can a family navigate a crisis safely without being able to step away from one another for even an hour? The issue just becomes worse when children need higher levels of care due to more complex needs. As these barriers compound, so does the stress on families, increasing the likelihood of dysfunction and creating more opportunities for an otherwise avoidable crisis.
Respite care is a service provided to foster families that allows them to take short-term breaks while continuing to care for the children in their homes. However, this support is not currently widely available as a preventative service for struggling families.
That is a missed opportunity.
Providing similar support to primary caregivers could give families the breathing room they need to continue caring for their children safely at home and avoid unnecessary involvement with the foster care system. It could also be a far less costly intervention than removing a child from their home and placing them in foster care.
For a family already struggling to stay afloat, access to respite care could mean more than simply having an opportunity to take a break. It could allow a parent or primary caregiver to access employment resources, attend a job interview, navigate a crisis, or simply have the time and space necessary to maintain family stability.
This one service could be the first tipped domino in a chain of struggles that puts a family at risk of separation. By intervening earlier, we may be able to prevent that chain reaction altogether.
It is time to recognize that our system has been missing an opportunity to significantly improve the lives of struggling families. Expanding respite care beyond the foster care system and making it available further upstream provides families with the support they need before an avoidable crisis becomes an unnecessary child welfare case.
