The call from the convenience store manager came at 6:30 a.m. on a Friday in early January, and Tanya Creason didn’t hesitate to help her boss.

She headed to the New Star Mart outside Kirksville to open the store after the scheduled employee did not show up. Creason had been working as a cashier (and pizza maker) for less than a year, but she sensed her dedication was about to be rewarded with a promotion to assistant manager.

Along with job success, Creason was celebrating nine years of being free from the methamphetamine addiction that had led the Children’s Division within the Missouri Department of Social Services to remove her three kids (then ages 6, 4, and 1) from the home she shared with her boyfriend in Joplin. 

Creason, 38, reunited with her children in December 2017, nearly three years after the state removed them, though the youngest went to live with his father in Joplin. She married in June 2021, and even with typical everyday stresses, her life now contrasts starkly with the dark days in Joplin.

“There’s always a little bit of worry,” Creason said, “but there are some days where I just couldn’t be happier because of what I’ve got – and enjoying it, and not worrying about tomorrow, just sometimes living it day by day, trying to make the best out of every day.”

Creason’s journey navigating Missouri’s child welfare system has given her insights that those working in the system need to hear. She and her 16-year-old daughter, Kalena McHenry, are helping Connected Communities – Thriving Families, a $2.7 million initiative of the Missouri Coalition for Children, reimagine how the state supports families.

Funding is coming through a three-year grant from Missouri Foundation for Health with additional support from the Children’s Service Funds in Jackson and St. Louis counties. 

Started in 2022, Connected Communities’ underlying premise is that the Children’s Division is creaking under the weight of unrealistic expectations – that its hotline is the default response of teachers, social workers and other professionals required by state law to alert authorities when they suspect abuse or neglect.

Connected Communities’ overarching goal is to tilt the system toward community-level social service interventions that ameliorate home life issues – often caused by poverty – to keep families intact. 

The aim is to limit calls to the child abuse and neglect hotline to truly life-threatening situations, persuading mandatory reporters to become mandatory supporters.

Creason’s experience with the hotline is one way she is helping inform Connected Communities participants about ways to improve the system.

The visit that prompted authorities to remove Creason’s children began when a caller, most likely a neighbor, expressed concern on the hotline that some kids were crawling around unattended in a truck in Creason’s driveway.

The kids and the truck belonged to a friend who had visited the day before, but investigators were concerned about the safety of Creason’s kids when they found the house littered with trash and boards with protruding nails propped near the fireplace.

Creason was cleaning up the trash strewn about by her boyfriend’s puppy that morning when authorities knocked on the door, and she acknowledged the safety hazard from the boards, which had been there since she dismantled a broken couch the night before.

Police and state workers were familiar with Creason from previous hotline calls – one of which Creason believes was retribution from a landlord – and it seemed they were intent on removing her children even if her kids were not the subject of the most recent call.

A more helpful approach, she said, would have been to recognize her depression and connect her with someone who  “actually cared and actually wanted me to succeed. It felt like their goal was to take my children. They were talking about adoption almost from the very beginning – like that’s all they were focused on.”

Taking action

Creason is one of approximately 300 stakeholders the Missouri Coalition for Children has convened in meetings around the state. 

The coalition is piloting Connected Communities in nine counties that include the cities of St. Louis, Kansas City, Kirksville, Sikeston, Springfield and Joplin. Coalition CEO Mary Chant said the goal for 2025 is to have as many as a dozen communities involved with Connected Communities.

The coalition is creating a menu of solutions to reduce hotline calls, leaving it up to each community to determine which interventions fit their needs and capabilities. With Connected Communities, it’s analyzing data on topics such as homelessness, housing costs, violence and hotline calls to work with state officials and lawmakers on revising policies to improve assistance for struggling families.

Chant said avoiding the one-size-fits-all approach is key.

“Because we have a long history of dropping services into communities that is sort of like, ‘Well, we hope whatever you have is appendicitis, because no matter what, you’re getting an appendectomy,’” she said. “And then we wonder why it’s not effective and people don’t get engaged.”

Meanwhile, Connected Communities’ exploration of best practices has already borne fruit in the form of a social services hub that advocates are establishing in Kirksville. Such family resource centers are one solution identified by the National Family Support Network.

Michelle Curry, court services administrator for the state judicial district covering Adair, Knox and Lewis counties, has been one of the Connected Communities coordinators in Kirksville.

The center is housed in a large space donated by Kirksville Housing Authority. Curry said the community rallied around the center when about 50 volunteers showed up to paint, refurbish cabinets and make other improvements during a day of service on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Services envisioned for the resource center include nutrition classes in its kitchen, parenting classes, a computer lab, wellness checks and a dental clinic.

Just having current information on where families can access programs such as the federal supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, known as WIC, will be helpful, Curry said. That means schools and emergency rooms can refer families to the resource center rather than handing overwhelmed parents an outdated list of resources they can follow up with for help paying utilities or other needs.

Curry said the family resource center is a perfect example of the power of Connected Communities. The community engagement broadened the voices that are not usually at the table, and then the coalition’s staff followed up to ensure that potential solutions did not fall by the wayside.

A veteran of more than 20 years in child welfare, Curry has worn out her staff from talking excitedly about the center so much and even crowed about it to her mom.

“We’ve all throughout our careers had good ideas and things that we know we need, but rarely do they come to fruition,” Curry said. “And so for us to be this far, it’s amazing. I’m just elated. Because we’re going to help people. We’re going to keep kids out of foster care.” 

 Remove the danger, not the child

One example of redirecting calls from the hotline might be a teacher referring struggling parents to a community provider that can give them laundry detergent or get their water turned back on rather than hotlining the family because the children continually come to school dirty and smelly.

“We do not want anyone to not make a hotline call when they suspect there is abuse or willful neglect,” Chant said. “What we are saying is, If the family is stuck, are there other ways we can support them? How can we remove the issue, not the child? How can we remove the danger, not the child?”

The challenge with walking that tightrope is overcoming a fear among mandatory reporters who can lose their licenses or face misdemeanor charges for failing to report suspected cases of abuse or neglect.

The coalition hopes to improve Missouri’s child welfare system by strengthening cooperation among safety-net organizations and between that community network and the Department of Social Services.

Children’s Division Interim Director Kayla Ueligger said via email that the department “recognized the importance of a robust child welfare community, which encompasses all aspects of our services to vulnerable children and families.”

She added, “It is essential for everyone to come together to strategize on how to keep children safe while promoting productivity and well-being. Our communities play a crucial role in supporting one another to ensure the safety of our children, and the state of Missouri is well-equipped to continue nurturing healthy partnerships.”

“It felt like their goal was to take my children. They were talking about adoption almost from the very beginning – like that’s all they were focused on.”

Tanya Creason

Hurdle

The school setting could complicate the solutions Connected Communities has identified.

On the one hand, Kirksville Superintendent Robert Webb welcomed the move to better coordinate services within the community and to bring all the interested parties to the table to talk about improvements.

But he said it’s unrealistic to expect teachers and administrators to be educators and social service navigators for families.

Webb said he is more than happy to feed kids and provide other such services but working with parents to resolve issues like poverty and homelessness is out of bounds. That’s an adult issue, he said, and “we don’t deal in the adult world.”

Ueligger, also, said it puts too much pressure on teachers and staff to make a judgment call about whether an issue rises to the level of a hotline call.

“I would never want to be the teacher that didn’t call on something because I was unsure, and then something bad happens,” she said. “We’re the safety authorities. … There are other ways for us to address (the situation) rather than telling mandated reporters that maybe they should make the decision when to call.”

The best approach, she said, is to call the hotline and also help address the family’s needs.

Ueligger said the department has an effective triage system to determine whether a situation calls for the removal of the child or some other intervention.

Webb, who plans to retire June 30, said the children’s division needed to do a better job of following up on hotline calls. He claims the school district made upwards of 20 calls in particular instances and never heard anything back.

At its peak, according to the Coalition for Children, the number of children in foster care in Missouri increased by almost 50% between 2009 and 2022.

Chronic problem

Officials with the social services department have been frequent visitors to the state capitol in recent years as lawmakers – and the officials themselves – decried staff turnover, low morale, unfilled positions and overwhelming caseloads within the department.

Addressing the personnel issues in April 2022, Children’s Division Director Darrell Missey told members of the Joint Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect that the agency was “treading water” and “doing our best to stem the bleeding.”

Missey had taken over the division a few months earlier, the latest in a string of directors. He retired in November.

As an advocate of the type of front-end services contemplated through Caring Communities, Missey helped the department reduce the number of children in foster care from more than 14,000 when he started to approximately 11,400 when he left.

Efforts under his watch included a push to get legislative funding for 100 new Children’s Division staff positions to focus on prevention efforts and a focus on family-centered service workers, who work on cases not severe enough to remove the child by connecting families with resources.

The Children’s Division will make continued improvements in the next 12 to 18 months, said Ueligger, who served as the department’s operational excellence director before stepping into the interim role. She is a social worker with frontline experience as a child abuse and neglect investigator.

Initiatives she mentioned included temporary alternative placement agreements, which remove children from their homes to the care of relatives for no more than 90 days, clearing legal hurdles preventing a child from exiting foster care and providing financial assistance to help relatives with the legal side of becoming guardians.

“I come at this with the idea that nobody wants to bring kids into foster care,” Ueligger said. “If you’ve ever worked in this space, it is not a joyful day. It is a really hard thing on every single person that’s involved – worker, family, kid, foster parent, judge – everybody that has to show up to that.”

Chant lauded the division’s efforts but believes a state agency with the authority to take away your children is not well-positioned to be a trusted provider of social services. 

“Children’s Division by design, by statute, is to protect children from abuse and neglect,” she said. “Why would we want that to be the primary place for people to go to for behavioral health, or housing or respite or emergency care? Why would we want them to go there?”

According to 2022 research cited by the coalition, the rate of children in foster care stood at 9.2 per 1,000 children versus the national average of 5.6 per 1,000.

Nowhere but up

Missouri is digging itself out of a deep hole.

At its peak, according to the Coalition for Children, the number of children in foster care in Missouri had increased by almost 50% between 2009 and 2022.

According to 2022 research cited by the coalition, the rate of children in foster care stood at 9.2 per 1,000 children versus the national average of 5.6 per 1,000.

Another reason for reform, according to the coalition, is that authorities substantiated a fraction of the hotline calls in Missouri –  just 6% in fiscal year 2021.

The coalition made the financial case for reform by arguing that halving the number of Missouri children in out-of-home placements would free up approximately $65 million annually for community services designed to keep families together. It derived the figure from the $131 million Missouri spent on out-of-home care in 2022.

Chant explained that it costs, on average, about $30,000 a year for a child to be in foster care in Missouri.

“We’re not saying everything needs to be funded,” Chant said, “but it’s really changing that response, really looking differently at what we’re seeing with families (and) understanding when we are not seeing neglect, but we’re seeing poverty.”

She and Ueligger agreed that the state should be more aggressive and innovative in using Social Security funding earmarked for foster care prevention and family support.

Another reason for reform, according to the coalition, is that authorities substantiated a fraction of the hotline calls in Missouri –  just 6% in fiscal year 2021.

Affinity areas

Chant cited three affinity areas that have emerged as common needs across communities: better legal representation for families pulled into the abuse-and-neglect system, better concrete supports for struggling families (housing being a top priority), and peer support.

The latter idea resonates with parents who have experienced the system, such as Creason, the Kirksville mother, and her daughter, Kalena.

“It’s not just the fear of losing your kids or of not getting them back. It’s just being completely overwhelmed when you feel like you have nobody by your side, nobody who cares enough to listen, nobody who actually empathizes,” Creason said. “I would rather be able to help prevent kids from being taken because I know how much it hurt me, watching my kids drive away in somebody else’s vehicle and not knowing when I’d get to see them again.”

Kalena wants to start a support group at school for kids who have experienced the foster care system.

Parent support groups don’t necessarily have to be just for people who have experienced the foster care system.

Angie Chilton, 54, is an example of someone putting her experience to use for others as a certified family support partner for the state of Missouri. She lives in Sullivan, about 70 miles southwest of St. Louis.

As a young mother, the state placed her son outside her care as she battled substance use issues. Then, as a grandmother, she adopted her son’s daughter after he and his wife also grappled with substance use issues.

Chilton is also a Connected Communities participant.

“That’s my biggest thing,” she said of building up peer support.

One other area of potential reform, Chant said, is the interpretation of the wording in the state statute laying out criminal penalties for abuse and neglect of minors.

Neglect occurs, according to the statute, when the child is experiencing conditions or treatment that present a “substantial probability” of death, physical injury or sexual injury. 

Going back to the dirty student, Chant said that indicates a problem that needs a simple solution, just as it is for a kid who keeps falling asleep in class because of circumstances at home. Neither of those instances, she believes, rise to the severity envisioned in the statute.

Numbers game

Creason is a numbers person.

She can cite the exact dates the state removed her children and when they exited the state system, noting the intervening time was two years, eight months and 17 days. She plans on starting online accounting and IT tech classes in the fall, with the aspiration of running her own accounting business one day.

And her intuition about the job promotion was correct: She started training as an assistant manager in February and assumed that role in May. She loves the work because it largely involves keeping the books.

When she was in the throes of addiction, she chased the next high to cheer herself up.

Motivation today comes from embracing the challenges that give her “more hope for the future, that I can actually do what I need to do and make myself better.”

Creason is participating in Connected Communities to put a face on the struggles that land parents and children in the foster care system.

Because as it turns out, numbers don’t always provide the whole picture for authorities, she said, “and I think that them hearing our stories, I’m hoping they’ll open their eyes and their hearts up enough to say, ‘Hey, we have a serious problem here, and it does need to be taken care of.’”

This story was produced through the Missouri Solutions Spotlight project, which receives funding from Missouri Foundation for Health. Articles for this project were developed by regional journalists working independently of the Foundation and supported by the staff of The Journal, a solutions-oriented nonprofit news outlet based at the Kansas Leadership Center. The Foundation had no editorial involvement, including no control over the selection, focus of stories or the editing process of Missouri Solutions Spotlight. Funders also do not review stories before publication.

You can view the original stories here. Slight modifications were made to this story by Missouri Foundation for Health to ensure alignment with brand standards.