Mother returns to Kansas Statehouse with photo of boy who died in foster care, pleading for change

Nun warns of impact mass deportation on child welfare system

BY: BY: GRACE HILLS
Kansas Reflector

Sherry Lesher stood before lawmakers Thursday holding a photo of her son — who died seven years ago in state custody — pleading for reform.

In 2017, Lesher’s 17-year-old son, A.J. Iverson, died by drug overdose. The day before he died, Lesher begged Saint Francis Ministries, one of the state’s foster care contractors, to take Iverson to a psychiatric residential treatment facility. Saint Francis sent a therapist to his home, but when Iverson, a teenager who struggled with substance abuse, impulsive decision making and who had an autism diagnosis, promised he wouldn’t do drugs again, the contractor refused to intervene. Iverson died in his sleep that night.

Lesher and Iverson’s sister, Ashley Crego, have spent years calling for reform. Last year, Lesher held her son’s ashes up to lawmakers asking for change. 

On Thursday, as part of two days of hearings aimed at evaluating the state’s progress on child welfare, Lesher continued the fight. 

“I don’t want to keep doing this,” Lesher said. “I want to grieve my son, without having Saint Francis attached to it, but I’m still waiting for the state to do the right thing by us in every way possible. These kids — we are losing them.”

The hearings before the joint committee on child welfare system oversight offered a public comment section Thursday. Sister Therese Bangert, social justice coordinator for the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth shared a wide range of concerns for the child welfare system.   

With President-elect Donald Trump’s promises of mass deportations, Sister Therese brought forward concerns for vulnerable children who are citizens but whose parents are not. 

“I want to lift up some of the children that are on my heart these days,” Bangert said. “If the mass deportations are carried through, we will have citizen children in Kansas who will lose a mother or father, sister or brother and more. I believe we will have families losing the person who financially supports them. Please be mindful of the needs of these children and their extended families and how we will address these needs.”

She encouraged committee members to consider the words of Republican Senate President Ty Masterson, who said children don’t care if someone is a Republican or Democrat.

A 2018 class-action lawsuit against the state that challenged the state’s poor treatment of foster children led to a settlement that agreed on deadlines for making gradual improvements to the foster care system. At Wednesday’s committee meeting, court-appointed monitor for the improvements Judith Meltzer said the state failed to meet the majority of the targets. 

Meltzer found that there was a decline in delivery of behavioral and mental health services. Those were the services Lesher requested back in 2017 for her son. 

Laura Howard, secretary of the Kansas Department for Children and Families, acknowledged the deficiencies, but pointed to the lowering number of children in foster care — 7,600 in June 2019 compared to 5,800 in June 2024. 

When some parents, like Lesher, aren’t provided the help they need for their children, some children are relinquished to the foster care system or end up at psychiatric residential treatment facilities. In 2023, the state removed 57 children with special needs from their homes because their families could not meet their level of care.

When Iverson was 4, Lesher applied for the intellectual and developmental disability waiver but never received help. The current waitlist to access these services is about nine years, meaning children often age out before they can access them. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly proposed $23 million to assist the families waiting on disability waivers, which Republicans opposed. Republicans invested $17.8 million in the waivers, and have successfully reduced the waitlists. 

Iverson was placed in family preservation services, meaning he stayed with his family but was given a foster care caseworker. Lesher said she spent Iverson’s entire life fighting for him to get support he never received. 

Iverson’s sister, Ashley Crego, stood by Lesher at the 2023 committee meeting. This year, note the disillusionment she feels, she provided a written statement instead of appearing in-person.

“This is going to keep happening to other families in a multitude of ways,” Crego wrote. “This is what we were trying to prevent. Agencies will change their names and pass any accountability onto the next and leave a trail of dead kids, or kids that ‘fell through the cracks’ in their path and if it turns a profit, no one will bat an eye.

“You will all go home to your families and mine will go home to A.J.’s urn. These meetings in the last two years have made me lose every bit of faith in any regulatory system or oversight committee and that has been the most discouraging thing of all.”