TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican lawmakers on Monday advanced a measure to create a Kansas child advocate's position in the attorney general's office, rejecting a bipartisan alternative in a debate clouded by the 2022 governor's race...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A new initiative in Tennessee aims to partner the faith-based community and the state to help find foster care and adoptive parents for children...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Treating and addressing drug addiction cost West Virginia an estimated $11...

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Volunteers are being sought in nearly half of Kentucky's counties to review cases of children in the foster care system, officials said...

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A House committee on Monday approved a bill that would create an independent agency to oversee Kansas' foster care system...

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The Maine Department of Health and Human Services allowed six foster children and others across the state to be given psychotropic drugs without appropriate safeguards or oversight, according to advocates who filed a federal lawsuit on their behalf...

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire has “unnecessarily warehoused" foster care teens in institutional and group care facilities instead of with families and has not acted in their best interests, according to a federal class-action lawsuit filed by several legal groups on Tuesday...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Rhode Island has received a nearly $95,000 grant to help prevent youth homelessness and housing instability, issues exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, officials say...

SOMERSET, Ky. (AP) — More than $5 million in federal grants have been awarded to six projects in southern and eastern Kentucky, officials said...

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona's child welfare agency has agreed to boost behavioral and health services for children in foster care and limit use of group homes for those children to settle a lawsuit filed by child advocacy groups...

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A state-run web portal that signed up hundreds of thousands of people for health coverage before its dismantling was relaunched Monday by Kentucky's governor, who gave it an expanded mission to guide people seeking help from an array of assistance programs...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana is the top state in the nation for increasing the number of children adopted from foster care, according to state and federal officials...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A new state audit says Oregon is failing to make sure vulnerable children and families are receiving needed mental health care through the Oregon Health Plan, even as taxpayers give millions of dollars in performance bonuses to healthcare administration companies...

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky has been awarded nearly $1 million in federal money to develop a program that will educate teens and young adults on how to be a responsible parent...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge in Texas said Friday that she is “concerned" about the high rate of coronavirus infections in the state's troubled foster care system...

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The head of the Kansas agency responsible for foster care in the state told lawmakers improvements have already been made in response to a scathing federal report and the settlement of class-action lawsuits over care foster children are receiving...

The number of children in the U.S. foster care system has dropped for a second year in a row, and a record number of children in the child welfare system were able to find adoptive homes, according to new federal data released Monday...

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A 33-year-old Lincoln man has been found guilty of taking two teenage girls to Colorado and Iowa to have sex for money...

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A new program will launch this month for young people who are transitioning out of foster care, Kentucky officials said...

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly issued an executive order on Tuesday that will require the state to track foster children’s progress in school, shortly after having vetoed a similar bill last month...

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered the state’s Department of Health and Human Services to no longer work with a company that provided staffing for a facility where a 16-year-old died this year while being wrongly restrained...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The number of children entering foster care in Minnesota has dropped significantly since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, yet the number of inquiries about becoming a foster parent has doubled, state officials say...

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico has reached a settlement with foster youth and their advocates that will allow for the creation of a trauma response system for all children in state custody, officials said Thursday...

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — House lawmakers must approve a bill that would require Kansas to develop annual academic report cards on all children in foster care because few graduate from high school on time, a state legislator said...

GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — A former employee of an emergency foster care program in Great Falls has been given a deferred sentence after hitting a 7-year-old girl in her care in January 2019...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Foster parents may soon get more money for adopting children under a measure passed by the House of Delegates Tuesday aimed at alleviating West Virginia's overburdened foster care system...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee has become the latest state to assure continued taxpayer funding of faith-based foster care and adoption agencies even if those organizations exclude LGBT families and others based on religious beliefs...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced a plan Tuesday to offer up to 12 weeks of annual paid family leave for state workers who become parents, have to care for a family member or experience other life-altering events...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A proposal that would require Minnesota employers to extend paid leave in response to a new child, a close relative’s serious illness or a military family member being deployed stalled in the Legislature earlier this year, but supporters of the measure hope that Congress’ approval of paid parental leave is a sign that the ground has shifted in their favor...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A foundation named for one of America's highest profile adopted children says its signature program has topped 1,000 successful adoptions from foster care in Ohio since the program started in 2004...

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana's social services agency says 893 children in foster care were adopted over the last year...

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas' lone congressional Democrat is urging her Kansas Republican colleagues to speak out against a policy that would allow faith-based foster care and adoption agencies to get taxpayer funding even if they turn away same-sex couples based on religious beliefs...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia's Health and Human Resources Department says 651 foster care children, mostly teen boys, have run away from group care settings or schools in less than a year...