Kansas Civic Organizations Support Local Families

In Southeast Kansas, civic organizations have stepped up to create a safe, healthy community by supporting children and families that are part of Cornerstones of Care’s Family Preservation program.

Cornerstones of Care is contracted by the Kansas Department for Children and Families to support families in 16 counties in the southeast part of the state, stretching down to the Oklahoma border. Families in that region face economic challenges, with a 17 percent poverty rate in Crawford County, above the Kansas average and a median household income of $22,000. When a family is in crisis, living paycheck to paycheck creates an additional burden.

Fortunately, several community organizations have stepped in to support Cornerstones of Care’s Family Preservation program.

“The funds from community grants provide the extra support for the family,” Director of Family Preservation Services Allison Jay said. “Housing is a struggle down here and keeping the utilities on can be a challenge.”

State funding can only go so far, and the Family Preservation team receives support from civic organizations, including the Community Foundation of Southeast Kansas, the Knights of Columbus Endowment Fund, and the Fort Scott Area Community Foundation. Some of the funding particularly supports struggling families in Crawford and Bourbon counties.

For several years, the Family Preservation team has built relationships with civic organizations by attending coalition meetings in some of the communities. That led to applying for grants through community foundations to provide resources to children and families in the area.

Family Preservation provides services for families in crisis without the added disruption of removing children from the home and placing them in foster care. The Family Preservation team works alongside the family by providing access to mental health services, food assistance, addiction recovery, helping to secure payments for deposits, reconciling unpaid utility bills, and solving a variety of other challenges to keep families, safe, healthy, and intact.

“Families aren’t aware of what’s out there,” Allison said. “It may be that they are unaware or that DCF is scary to them, but if we come forward and say, ‘here’s a service that’s available for your kiddo,’ they tend to believe the services are for them.”

The Family Preservation team receives a referral from Kansas DCF and works with families over about a three-month period to meet a series of goals to resolve issues that the family faces. Families who face challenges will renew for another 90 days to achieve their goals. One recent case involved a family in which the mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The team worked with the family to get grief counseling to manage the depression weighing on the family.

“Dad struggled to get out of bed and function, and their children struggled to get out of bed to go to school,” Allison said. In addition to therapy, Family Preservation assisted the father in putting down a deposit to rent a smaller and less expensive home. From there, the team helped get furniture for the new home and worked alongside the family to ensure therapy was effective.

In 2025, the Family Preservation team supported 213 families. Cornerstones of Care’s Family Preservation teams in Southeast and Northeast Kansas were able to safely keep children in their homes 93 percent of the time.

The community organizations earn a share of credit for family stability, including support over the holidays last year. The Fort Scott Community Foundation donated $2,500 to purchase holiday gifts for about 65 Bourbon County children and families.

“I’m a serious clearance shopper and a lot of my team members are as well,” Allison said. “When we walk into our local Walmart, we head straight toward the clearance section to stretch the donation dollars. We’re messaging with each other about sale prices. We purchased some items that were originally priced at $25 or $30 and bought them for a dollar or two.”

Cornerstones is grateful to its partners that create safe, healthy communities.