State Makes Children in Out-of-Home Care a Priority

I am thrilled to report that Sunrise Children’s Services and the many other agencies who care for victims of child abuse and neglect in Kentucky have had their state funding restored to the rates they were at before devastating cuts began in February. For months, we spread the message about these unacceptable cuts to our supporters, and you responded by taking that message to our elected officials in Frankfort. They finally made children in out-of-home care a priority by using federal economic recovery money to restore our funding levels effective June 1 and keep them intact through the end of 2010.

We never should have been forced to advocate to this extent for our children, whose care is an essential responsibility of the state. We never should have had to worry about how we were going to pay the bills without compromising the care of the children. But we are extremely grateful to have our reimbursement rates back.

The front-page headline in The Courier-Journal read “Stimulus aid rescues child services.” That is exactly what happened – a rescue. Gov. Steve Beshear said he understood Sunrise and other providers had suffered under the cuts of up to 7 percent. Thank you to everyone who spoke up for our kids and brought about this rescue.