Natalie Zarate (via Topeka Capital-Journal): The Legislature must act

2/15/19

"The system is broken. What’s the Legislature doing about it?

​I’m 22 years old. I spent seven years in foster care in Kansas. For the past 18 months, I’ve heard legislators promise to fix a system they said was broken, but first, they said they needed to hear the recommendations from the Child Welfare System Task Force.

Many of those recommendations are now in Senate Bill 12, which would improve families’ access to critical safety net programs. The chairman of the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee, Sen. Gene Suellentrop from Wichita, is refusing to hold a hearing on the bill, so it isn’t going anywhere.
I’d like to know why that is. I keep hearing people say they care about what happens to kids who are going through what I went through, but when it comes time to do something, they just sit there."

Read more: Topeka Capital-Journal