How We’re Strengthening Kansas Children & Families

KVC Kansas is a team of social workers, therapists, family support workers, and other child welfare and behavioral health professionals who are passionate about strengthening children and families. Our agency is one of four nonprofits providing foster care case management on behalf of the Kansas Department for Children and Families (DCF).

We recently shared how KVC Kansas is doing on federal performance measures for state foster care systems here.

2021 Foster Care Case Management Providers

Case management for children in foster care is handled separately from the work of supporting foster families:

Foster Care Case Management, Reunification and Adoption (Permanency) – Every four years, DCF conducts a competitive process to award foster care case management provider grants/contracts to nonprofit organizations. Currently there are four nonprofit case management providers. KVC Kansas provides foster care case management, reunification and adoption services in 11 counties including Johnson (Olathe/Overland Park area), Douglas (Lawrence), and Shawnee (Topeka) for the next four years. Read the details and see a map here.
Foster Family Training & Support (Child Placing Agency) – KVC Kansas recruits, trains and supports foster and adoptive families across the entire state of Kansas. We currently support 900 foster families, making KVC the largest child placing agency in the state and making it more likely that children can be matched with a family in their community. This work is not based on state grants or contracts. Learn more here.

Safely Reducing the Number of Kansas Children in Foster Care

Several years ago, we shared an article called “Too Many Children in Foster Care: KVC Kansas Shares Challenges and Solutions.” The article contains an infographic that explains major changes that happened in the 2010s, and how we can work to address several challenges.

KVC Kansas Exceeding Federal Performance Standards

KVC Kansas is exceeding federal performance standards in some of the most important areas like child safety, placement in family settings, and placement with relatives. View all of the statewide performance outcome reports here.

Child Safety in Foster Care – KVC is exceeding the federal performance standard for preventing maltreatment in foster care. Compared to the national standard of 8.50 victimizations per 100,000 days in foster care (lower is better), our rate is 3.75 in the Kansas City Metro region and 4.77 in the East region.
Placement in Family-Like Settings – In both regions (Kansas City Metro and East), we are caring for appx. 93% of children in family-like settings instead of group homes. This exceeds the performance standard of 90%. Nationally the average for states is to care for only 86% of children in family-like settings, and some states are as low as 66%. Read more about why and how we right-sized congregate care.
Placement with Relatives – Also in both regions, we are placing nearly 50% of children with relatives or familiar caregivers which exceeds the federal performance standard. In addition to grandparents, aunts and uncles, we also match a high percentage of youth with non-related kin such as neighbors, teachers, and coaches. The familiarity of these caregivers has a positive influence on children and safely reduces their time in foster care.
See all data here.

Learn more about our vision for transforming foster care in America: