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Kansas foster kids need mental health care, but trying to add more is expensive

Takeaways: Kansas foster kids get too little behavioral and mental health treatment, audits find, but expanding those services can prove so costly that it slows expansion of those programs.  Foster kids got mental and behavioral health treatment just 70% of the time in 2022, a lawsuit settlement found. That’s well below the 85% court-mandated requirement.…

The pandemic put Missouri mothers at greater violence risk, even homicide — especially if they were Black 

Social isolation during the pandemic put Missouri’s Black moms in greater danger that their partner would kill them.  A report from the state’s maternal mortality review board found that from 2018 to 2020, homicide was the third-leading cause of death for Missouri moms. Black women made up 75% of those deaths. Among those homicides, guns…

Missouri groups look for the strongest abortion rights that voters would back

Update (Nov. 22, 2023): After two losses in lower state courts, the Missouri Supreme Court on Nov. 20 denied hearing Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s appeal, effectively ending the court battles over language for a set of initiative petitions aimed at restoring access to abortion in Missouri.  The fight over the Missouri abortion ban begins…

“We’ve got hell coming”: Missourians in state prisons fear consequences of summertime heat

As heat waves sweep across the Midwest, incarcerated people in Missouri are increasingly afraid of the rising temperatures inside prisons.  They live in concrete buildings that retain heat. People share close quarters, making cooling all the more difficult. As Earth’s temperatures reach their hottest recorded numbers this summer, people incarcerated in Missouri’s prisons describe conditions…

‘They don’t know why they were shot.’ New MU research shows most injured kids were hit by bullets not intended for them

With gun injuries now the leading cause of death among children and teenagers in the United States, parents and communities are seeking new strategies to keep children safe. That’s especially the case in places like Kansas City, where children too often become innocent victims of a larger gun violence epidemic. Young people are now more…

What rules and regulations about gender-affirming care could mean for the future of medical care in Missouri

Editor’s note (May 16, 2023): This story has been updated to reflect that Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey rescinded his order regarding gender-affirming care for adults and minors in Missouri. Editor’s note (May 10, 2023): This story has been updated to reflect the Missouri General Assembly’s passage of a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors…

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