Wichita lawmaker seeks to limit children in foster homes

A Wichita Democrat wants to more strictly limit the number of children that can be placed in an individual foster home.

SB 315, which will be heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, would limit the number of children who could reside in a foster home to six, including the foster parents’ own biological or adopted children.

The legislation is a response to the arrest of Topeka City Council member Jonathan Schumm and his wife, Alison, on child abuse charges in November. The Schumms had 16 children living in their home, including two foster children, four biological children and 10 adopted children.

“We’re not trying to just warehouse children like they’re in the army in barracks and just have them in a room and bunk beds … if we’re really looking at what’s in the best interest for a child in need of care,” Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau said.

The case has helped prompt scrutiny of the state’s foster care system. One of the children living with the Schumms had previously been fostered by a lesbian couple in Wichita before being moved to the Topeka home based on a recommendation from the Kansas Department for Children and Families, which cited the child’s biological relation to other children living in the Schumm household.

DCF said current law already limits the number of foster children that a family can take in to four and limits the number of children that can be in a foster home, including the foster parents’ own children, to six.

However, under current law, foster parents can ask DCF to grant an exception from this regulation for up to six months at time. Exceptions can be granted based on a variety of factors, including a home’s square footage, the length of time a home has been a licensed foster home and “individual factors related to the child,” according an e-mail from the agency.

Faust-Goudeau said her bill would prevent those exceptions from being granted unless an emergency foster care placement is needed. Those emergency placements would be capped at 30 days.

This story was originally published February 7, 2016 at 10:39 AM with the headline "Wichita lawmaker seeks to limit children in foster homes."