By RACHEL MIPRO Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — The death of a homeless 5-year-old girl has reignited anger and conversation about the efficacy of the state’s child welfare services.
During a Wednesday meeting on child welfare oversight, lawmakers questioned Kansas Department for Children and Families secretary Laura Howard about the case.
“There’s a very tragic murder that took place here in Shawnee County just a couple of days ago, where a 5-year-old child was brutally killed,” Howard said. “Very, very tragic circumstances.”
On Monday, officers were sent to a gas station in southeast Topeka, where first responders were treating a young child who had been sexually assaulted, according to police. She was taken to a local hospital for treatment of life-threatening injuries and was later pronounced dead.
Her former neighbors said she had been living in a homeless camp at the time of her death, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported.
Howard said she couldn’t legally say anything about the case in a public setting before investigation protocols had been settled but would speak with lawmakers privately during an executive session. During the meeting, lawmakers talked with Howard behind closed doors.
“I know it sounds technical, but it’s the law,” Howard said. “It’s really about protecting children and families. I can make comments in a closed executive session that this committee has the authority to do.”
In cases where a child dies in state custody, or in cases that had been referred to DCF investigators before the child’s death, DCF has to decide whether the child’s death was the result of abuse or neglect. If it is, DCF has seven days to release information on reports of abuse or neglect received by the agency, as well as the department’s response to these reports when the information is requested.
That law grew out of another case that sparked public horror and outcry — a 7-year-old boy who was killed in 2015 after DCF ignored repeated warnings about his living conditions.
His case, along with repeated oversight failures within the foster care system, was the impetus for the creation of the Office of the Child Advocate. In a recently released report on adolescent deaths in the state for 2021, officials asked for more oversight of the child welfare system.
A board of health professionals, law enforcement officers, educators and attorneys examines each child death in Kansas, and the resulting report in 2021 recommended consistent case monitoring and better communication within child welfare agencies.
Between 2019 to 2021, 392 out of 1,074 child fatalities reviewed by the board had history with DCF’s child protective services, according to a yearly analysis, with situations like being held in state custody, having siblings removed from the home, or having open child protective services cases.
There were 32 child homicides in 2021. Twenty-three of those families had been involved with child protective services before death.
“Additional child welfare improvement is needed in Kansas to reduce the number of child abuse and neglect deaths,” according to the report.