Approve audit of state foster care system

Credit Gov. Sam Brownback for acknowledging the need Tuesday to “look at overall the foster care and adoption system in the state” – an endorsement that should persuade a legislative committee to approve an audit Thursday.

Too bad that in the process, the governor failed to assure Kansans that his administration does not discriminate in foster care and adoption on the basis of the potential parents’ sexual orientation. Instead, he echoed Department for Children and Families officials when he said there’s no policy other than “to do what’s in the best interest of the child,” “try to keep sibling groups together” and “try to have preference to place with relatives.”

Those are essential goals. But the continued emphasis on the lack of a policy increasingly sounds like an excuse that could be enabling discrimination such as that alleged in multiple cases involving same-sex couples in the Wichita area and elsewhere.

Brownback even sicced reporters on the Johnson County family whose case was the basis of the 2013 document recently circulated to media outlets in which a judge accused the administration of conducting a “witch hunt” against the lesbian foster parents.

“Where is that child today?” Brownback asked The Eagle’s Bryan Lowry, wondering whether Lowry had done any “checking on that or digging into it.”

Lowry responded: “Are you saying that you know the answer to that, where that child is today?”

“I’m saying I would hope people would get the full story,” Brownback said. “And it would seem that would be a point of curiosity, if we’re talking about a 2013 case, well, where’s the child today?”

Not surprisingly, given the governor’s unseemly hint, an Eagle check of court records found that one of the women, who had been together for 17 years, obtained a protection from abuse order against the other last year.

That leaves the “full story” of the child untold. But it’s a safe guess that Brownback had hoped evidence of alleged domestic violence later in the relationship would discredit the judge’s scathing ruling a year earlier – and let DCF off the hook regarding other claims of discrimination against same-sex couples.

It doesn’t, which is why looking at the claims should be part of a full audit of the privatized system that also examines the growing numbers of children in foster care and the length of time they spend there.

This story was originally published December 9, 2015 at 6:07 PM with the headline "Approve audit of state foster care system."