Kentucky has joined 12 other states and the District of Columbia in seeking monetary damages from TikTok for harm it has allegedly caused to youngsters. (Getty Images)

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman is suing TikTok, accusing the social media platform of exploiting minors and being “designed to addict and otherwise harm” them.

In filing the lawsuit Tuesday in Scott County, Coleman joins a dozen states and Washington D.C. in seeking payouts for what they describe as a pattern of knowingly hurting youth.

The other states that have sued are California, New York, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia.

The Kentucky lawsuit says TikTok is “designed” to be “an addiction machine” that targets children.

Michael Hughes, a spokesperson for TikTok, said in a statement, “We strongly disagree with these claims, many of which we believe to be inaccurate and misleading.”

“We’re proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we’ve done to protect teens and we will continue to update and improve our product,” said Hughes.

What’s in the lawsuit?

Coleman’s lawsuit accuses the company of unfair and deceptive acts that violate Kentucky’s Consumer Protection Act, failing to warn consumers of the potential dangers in consuming the platform’s media and more.

“Unlike other consumer products that have appealed to children for generations — like candy or soda—with social media platforms there is no natural break point where the consumer has finished the unit of consumption,” the lawsuit states. “Instead, social media platforms are a bottomless pit where users can spend an infinite amount of their time.”

TikTok’s Michael Hughes said the company does take steps to protect users.

“We provide robust safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched safety features such as default screentime limits, family pairing and privacy by default for minors under 16,” Hughes said. “We’ve endeavored to work with the Attorneys General for over two years, and it is incredibly disappointing they have taken this step rather than work with us on constructive solutions to industry wide challenges.”

Speaking in Northern Kentucky Wednesday, Coleman promised to “force (TikTok) to answer for creating and pushing an app designed specifically to addict and harm Kentucky’s children.”

“TikTok is more than trendy dances or funny videos. It’s a specially crafted tool to suck in minors, leading to depression, anxiety, altered development, and more,” Coleman said.

“TikTok intentionally manipulates the release of dopamine in young users’ developing brains and causes them to use TikTok in an excessive, compulsive, and addictive manner that harms them both mentally and physically,” the Kentucky lawsuit says.

Forbes reported in 2022 that watching TikTok videos is like taking drugs, calling it a “pleasurable dopamine state” that is “almost hypnotic.”

Filed in Scott Circuit Court, the 125-page lawsuit contains frequent blocks of redacted material. Those include information from internal TikTok documents, that “for the time being remain subject to certain confidentiality agreements,” said Kevin Grout, a spokesman for Coleman’s office.

Coleman is seeking an injunction to halt TikTok’s “ongoing violations,” actual and punitive damages and penalties of up to $2,000 for each violation of the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act.

TikTok also is fighting a federal law enacted by Congress earlier this year that would ban the app in the U.S. unless its owner, ByteDance, sells it to a non-Chinese company by Jan. 19.

What does research show?

In a 2023 report, the U.S. Surgeon General said social media use among youth can have both positive and negative effects. For example, youth may be able to find community and connection through social media that they otherwise lacked. But their mental health can decline with that use, and they can have increased anxiety and depression.

“Because adolescence is a vulnerable period of brain development, social media exposure during this period warrants additional scrutiny,” the surgeon general report said.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation, which advocates for children’s wellbeing, says tech companies need to:

• Ade-quate-ly and inde-pen-dent-ly assess- the impact of social media on chil-dren and adolescents.
• Pri-or-i-tiz-e user health and safe-ty when design-ing and devel-op-ing social media prod-ucts and services.
• For-mal-iz-e a strat-e-gy for inves-ti-gat-ing the requests and com-plaints of young peo-ple, fam-i-lies, edu-ca-tors and others.

Terry Brooks, the executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, praised Coleman “for standing up against the social media giant – and standing up for Kentucky’s young people.”

“There is nothing more paramount than upholding our kids’ mental health and safety, especially as kids increasingly find themselves in digital spaces,” Brooks said. “The addictive nature of the social media platform TikTok can harm kids’ developing brain, expose them to unrealistic standards and unsafe situations, and put them at risk of sexually explicit content and exploitation.”

Read the complaint

Rep. Kim Banta says constituents tell her their kids are afraid to go to school because of the fear of gun violence. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)

This story mentions suicide. If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, call or text the suicide prevention lifeline at 988.?

A Northern Kentucky Republican will file a bill in the 2025 legislative session to hold parents and guardians civilly accountable for gun violence or misuse carried out by minor children in their care.?

Rep. Kim Banta of Fort Mitchell, which is across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, thinks of the legislation as a “wake up call,” she told the Kentucky Lantern.??

“I have constituents that … tell me their kids are literally afraid to go to school,” she said. “We just need to start kind of zeroing in on: if you’re under 18, your parents are responsible for your behavior.”??

Under her bill, people who are hurt or threatened by a minor using a gun could sue the minor’s parents or guardians and be awarded monetary damages.?

Banta? believes such legislation could incentivize parents and guardians to properly store and secure weapons (or separate them from ammunition), which could in turn lower suicide rates among youth and curb school shootings — and the threat of them.?

In 2023, nearly 4% of Kentucky high school students reported they carried a weapon like a gun or knife on school property at least one day within the month before they were surveyed, according to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Kentucky Department of Education. That number rose to around 6% for the year before they were surveyed, and excluded weapons carried for hunting or target sport purposes.?

That survey also found 11% of high school students had at least one day within the month before they were surveyed when they were absent from school because they felt unsafe at school.?

Finally, 8% of students in 2023 reported they were threatened or injured with a weapon on school property at least once during the year before the survey.?

The Kentucky Department of Education also reports 15% of high school students and 17% of middle school students in the state considered suicide “seriously” in the last year. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 988.?

In its annual report, Kentucky’s Child Fatality and Near Fatality External Review Panel found children were increasingly injuring and killing themselves with guns they had wrongful access to.?

Among those, the Lantern reported in February, was a 4-year-old who played with a loaded gun he found in a glove compartment of a car and fatally shot himself. Another instance involved a 14-year-old boy whose friend fatally shot him with a loaded gun found in a parents’ bedroom.?

The panel said at the time that the legislature should research national models and develop legislation to promote safe storage of firearms.

What’s in Banta’s bill??

Banta’s bill, which is being drafted during the interim, would combine the state statutes that hold parents accountable for vandalism their children commit and when parents sign their child’s driver’s license.?

“The proposal is that a parent is responsible, civilly, for any gun violence that their child under 18 years old would perpetrate,” said Banta.?

That includes threatening someone with a gun, shooting a neighbor’s dog or injuring or killing a person. People who were wronged would then have a legal opening to sue the parents or guardians of those minor children.?

Rep. Tina Bojanowski, D-Louisville, will be the primary co-sponsor.?

A draft of the two-page bill, provided to the Lantern, says guardians are civilly responsible for “any negligence or willful misconduct of a minor.”?

The bill draft says parents and other guardians would be considered responsible and subject to paying civil damages under any of these circumstances:?

• They permitted the minor to have the firearm.
• They know that the minor has previously been adjudicated delinquent of an offense that would be a felony if the minor had been an adult.
• They know that the minor has a propensity to commit violent acts.?
• They know or have reason to know that the minor intends to use the firearm for unlawful purposes.?

The bill excludes emancipated minors or government or private agencies or foster parents who, through court order, are assigned responsibility for a minor.?

“My key motivator is just trying to get people to recognize that even though we live in a society where it is perfectly legal to own and use guns, I just think we need to back up for a minute,” Banta said. “We need to say, ‘Okay, I’m a gun owner, but that is going to extend to me being responsible for my children’s use of the guns.’”?

She hopes to get the bill before the House Judiciary Committee as early as possible during the session. She’s confident it passes constitutional and Second Amendment muster, she said.?

“I’m not restricting guns. I’m not telling you you cannot buy your child a gun. But what I’m telling you is: just be aware that you are as responsible for that child with that gun as you are with a car,” Banta said. “So if they do some damage, or they … threaten people… you’re going to be responsible civilly for it.”?

Banta already — favorably — discussed her bill with Speaker of the House David Osborne, R-Prospect, she said, and believes there is appetite to pass such legislation.?

That’s because, she said, “parental responsibility” is “everything that the (National Rifle Association), everything that gun ownership preaches” just “reinforced” with statute.?

“It’s just a matter of being very, very responsible with your gun ownership,” Banta said.? “Rather than a Sandy Hook or a Georgia incident, I’m hoping that parents will say, ‘yeah, no, you’re 16. You’re not old enough to be … on your own with a gun, or where I don’t know where you are with a gun.’”?

“I’m not telling a parent you can’t let your child go hunting by themselves anymore, and he’s 15 or 16,” she added. “I’m just telling you that if he goes and he shoots at the neighbor and kills their cow, you’re responsible. You’re gonna pay for that cow. You are responsible.”?

Banta doesn’t anticipate any funding needs for the bill, calling it an “ink and paper” policy.

“I just want people to feel safer,” Banta said. “And I want to pass something that just … makes sense.”?

Cover art from "Kinship Across Kentucky: Recommendations from Caregiver Voices in 2024." Around 55,000 Kentucky children are being raised by a relative or fictive kin, according to the report. (Kentucky Youth Advocates)

Kentuckians who are raising a minor relative need better access to mental health care, housing and other basic support services, according to a new report released Tuesday.

The report, from Kentucky Youth Advocates and the Kinship Families Coalition of Kentucky, is based on two online surveys and nine in-person listening sessions aimed at learning more about the challenges facing kinship caregivers.?

Most of the caregivers surveyed were white women. They reported needing assistance with food, clothing and school supplies. Participants also said they needed help with finances, housing, information technology, peer support, respite care, mental health care and legal assistance, according to the report. They also reported child care as one of the most difficult supports to access.?

Norma Hatfield, president of the Kinship Families Coalition of Kentucky, said during a Wednesday forum discussing the report that sometimes kinship caregivers like herself focus on caring for the youth in their charge and “don’t always take care of themselves.”?

“It’s pretty darn stressful,” she said. “You may need somebody, from a therapeutic perspective, to have some of those conversations, especially if the abuse is really bad and there’s a criminal case going on.”

Kinship caregivers may be caring for a grandchild, for example, who’d been abused by the grandparent’s child.?

“I look at it as: to kind of help me deal with my emotion, process that, and then step back and (see) how can I best help the child at the same time? And that’s hard. That’s why it’s challenging and confusing, because you also have yourself and how you feel, and you also have the child and the system.”?

Sometimes that mental health support may include medication or more intensive services, Hatfield said, but most of the time talk therapy addresses the need.?

Lesa Dennis, the commissioner for the Department of Community Based Services, spoke alongside Hatfield during the KYA forum and said kinship care in Kentucky is a “priority” for her department.?

“We still have a lot of work to do in this space, and we’re very committed to it,” Dennis said.?

During the 2024 legislative session, the General Assembly passed a law that allows relatives who take temporary custody of a child, when abuse or neglect is suspected, to later become eligible for foster care payments. However, a funding dispute that arose after the fact has left that help hanging, more than two months after the law went into effect.?

Policy recommendations?

The report makes numerous recommendations, including:

• Expand community-based mentorship opportunities for youth in kinship care and their caregivers.?
• Provide or facilitate comprehensive reunification services for kinship families to create opportunities for children to return safely to their birth families, when appropriate.?
• Provide judges a bench card related to kinship care utilization and needed supports
• Increase the frequency and accessibility of trainings on the unique experiences and needs of kinship families to DCBS staff, private foster care agency staff and community mental health providers.
• Provide comprehensive informational packets and educational materials for new kinship caregivers.?
• Utilize best practices to actively seek the most appropriate placement for the child when identifying kinship and fictive kin caregivers, including addressing disproportionality in the placement of children of color into foster care instead of kinship care.

• 

It’s not clear yet which of these policies, if any, would require legislation during the next session.?

“I think a lot of those things can be accomplished through working together with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and the Department for community based services,” said Shannon Moody, chief policy and strategy officer for the nonpartisan KYA. “We would definitely want to have some additional conversations to figure out what would need or require statutory change, but I don’t know if we anticipate any of those recommendations being moved forward for pursuit in the 2025 legislative session.”?

Around 55,000 Kentucky children are being raised by a relative or fictive kin, according to the Tuesday report. That includes both formal (the state is involved) and informal (the state is not involved) situations. In 2023, about 1,500 Kentucky children were placed in a relative or fictive kin home by the state.?

Kentucky’s known prevalence of kinship care is 6%, according to the report, making it twice as high as the national average.

Ben Lovely, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics, looks through a zebrafish tank. Lovely is working with zebrafish to study fetal alcohol syndrome. (Photo provided)

LOUISVILLE — Over the next five years, University of Louisville researchers plan to expose about 1.5 million fish eggs to alcohol in hopes of better understanding fetal alcohol syndrome in humans.

Using a $2.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, researchers will specifically study zebrafish as a model for better understanding human facial defects associated with prenatal exposure to alcohol. They started their work in May and will finish in 2029.?

Ben Lovely, the study’s lead researcher and an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the university, said zebrafish are “a really strong model for humans” because they share more than 80% of the same genes.?

“If you have a gene that’s associated with cancer in humans, you’re probably going to find it in fish, and it can lead to cancer in a fish,” Lovely explained.?

Because of this, he told the Lantern, he can study the effects of alcohol on humans via the fish, learning more than he would be able to in a human study. Fish are well equipped for such a study, he said — he can study developing embryos outside the mother.?

“Part of the issue with looking at placental mammals like humans, like mice, is maternal effects and embryonic effects,” he said. “So you have two different things going on here.”?

With his zebrafish, which are raised in a facility on-site and “get fed and mate” for a living, he can take eggs that adult fish laid and? study them in petri dishes — about 100 at a time to ensure they don’t die from over-density. Zebrafish are a freshwater member of the minnow family.?

During their time in the dish, researchers control how much alcohol is added to the solution in each dish, which also has water and nutrients.?

“The alcohol goes right into the fish, gets right across the eggshell and into the fish itself,” he explained. The alcohol dose isn’t enough to kill the fish, he said.?

These fish are also perfect for monitoring early development.?

“They develop pigments once they reach adult stages, but as embryos, they’re transparent,” Lovely said. “You can see right through them. So we can actually watch the cells live in a developing fish over time. You can’t really do that in a placental mammal, because you’d have to remove the embryo to get that to happen.”?

Decreasing stigma?

Babies who were exposed to alcohol while in utero — especially in the early weeks when a person may not know they are pregnant — can be born with? fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs), which includes the incurable fetal alcohol syndrome.?

People born with this may have “abnormal facial features” like a smooth ridge between the nose and upper lip, a thin upper lip and small eyes, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Other symptoms can include learning problems, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression and more.?

Both the alcohol consumption and the facial features he is specifically studying can lead to stigma, Lovely said.?

“The first thing we see as humans is the face. So facial birth defects are hugely stigmatizing,” he said. “To understand their origins, their prognosis, everything about them is going to be key in really helping identify these issues early, if we can, especially prenatally, that would be more ideal.”?

Alcohol, too, “has its own stigma,” he said.?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2019 that about 42% of pregnancies in the United States are unintended. The early weeks and months of pregnancy are a key time for the developments of FASD, according to the Mayo Clinic.

“So you combine those two: there are a lot of individuals who are drinking and do not know they’re pregnant,” Lovely said. “They don’t want to be accused of harming their child because they didn’t know, right? That’s the stigma. So it’s very difficult for him to do human studies. It’s very difficult to find patients — very few mothers want to admit to this.”?

But through his zebrafish study, he said, he hopes to move in the direction of genotyping a person to see their sensitivity to alcohol and look at the issue more from a gene perspective and less from a social perspective.?

“A lot of researchers now … say ‘prenatal exposure,’ we don’t say ‘the mother drank,’” he said. “We don’t say anything about the mother, to avoid stigmatizing the mother. So we try to couch it from ‘this has happened to the developing embryo,’ not ‘this was done to the developing embryo.’”?

The CDC said this year that about 1 in 20 school-aged children in the country could have FASDs.? Not every fetus that’s exposed to alcohol will develop FASD issues.?

Because of this, the University of Louisville says that “understanding what genes might increase that risk could lead to better therapeutics and help mothers make safer, more informed choices.”?

A 9 mm “ghost gun” pistol build kit with a commercial slide and barrel with a polymer frame is displayed in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C. More than a dozen states, including some battleground states, debated and enacted a variety of firearms regulations addressing storage requirements, gun-free zones, bans on firearm purchase tracking and permitless carry. (Carolyn Kaster/The Associated Press)

The deadliest school shooting in Georgia history occurred earlier this month when a 14-year-old gunman, armed with a military-style rifle, killed two students and two teachers and injured nine others at Apalachee High School in Winder, a city about an hour northeast of Atlanta.

And on Sunday, former President Donald Trump was the target of what the FBI described as an apparent assassination attempt at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida — just nine weeks after surviving another attempt on his life.

Gun policy has been a topic of debate in America for decades, and its prominence has increased as gun-related deaths and mass shootings have risen nearly every year since 2014, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks gun violence in the United States.

Many Americans despair of ever taming the epidemic, but a new report says certain laws can make a difference.

The report, published in July by Rand, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, found that minimum age requirements for purchasing firearms appear to reduce suicides among young people. Additionally, it indicated that laws aimed at reducing children’s access to stored guns may also lower rates of firearm suicides, unintentional shootings and firearm homicides among youth.

This is the fourth time that Rand has released the report, “The Science of Gun Policy,” since 2018. Earlier editions examined the effectiveness of other gun regulations, such as background checks and concealed carry laws, and their impact on outcomes such as crime and suicide.

The “Science of Gun Policy” report examines laws individually. But a separate Rand study published in July, this one in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Network Open, explores the combined effects of multiple state-level gun laws, including background checks, minimum age requirements, waiting periods, child access restrictions, concealed carry and stand your ground laws.

“We should try to be looking at policies jointly, because individually, each one may have a small effect, but if you start layering these restrictions on each other, they may start to really make a difference,” Terry Schell, the study’s lead author and a senior behavioral scientist at Rand, told Stateline. “That is worth thinking about.”

The study found that states with the most restrictive gun policies had a 20% lower firearm mortality rate compared with states with the most permissive laws, suggesting that comprehensive policy approaches may be more effective than individual policies in curbing gun violence.

“There should be some hope that there is a policy combination that could drive the firearm death rate down,” Schell said.

A deadly year so far

The Georgia school shooting marked the 30th mass killing in the United States this year, defined as an attack in which four or more people, excluding the perpetrator, are killed, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. At least 131 people have died in these killings so far.

Mass shootings that occur close to election seasons often have a significant impact on the public’s perception of guns, according to gun policy experts. But much of the discussion and debate surrounding firearms has been clouded by partisan rhetoric and money, said Warren Eller, an associate professor of public management at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“[Gun policy is] going to play a larger role, at least in the dialogue around it –– whether or not it’s meaningful dialogue, I think, is something very different,” Eller said in a phone interview with Stateline.

This year, more than a dozen states enacted a variety of new gun laws, including measures related to storage requirements, gun-free zones, bans on firearm purchase tracking and permitless carry.

Following the deadly shooting at Apalachee High School, both Republican and Democratic Georgia state lawmakers have proposed various measures to curb gun violence.

Georgia’s House speaker, Republican Rep. Jon Burns, wrote in a letter to the House Republican Caucus that lawmakers will consider new policies during the 2025 legislative session to promote student mental health, evaluate technologies to detect guns and encourage safe gun storage.

“While House Republicans have already made significant investments to strengthen security in our schools, increase access to mental healthcare, and keep our students safe, I am committed to not only continuing this work but pursuing additional policies to help ensure a tragedy like this never happens in our state again,” Burns wrote in the letter.

Burns’ proposals, however, fall short of Democratic demands for measures such as universal background checks and a red flag law, which would allow police or loved ones to petition a court to prevent an at-risk individual from purchasing or possessing a firearm.

In February, the Georgia House approved a bill to create a state income tax credit of up to $300 for purchasing gun safes, trigger locks, other security devices or instructional courses on safe firearm handling. This bill did not advance past the Senate, but a similar Senate bill that exempts gun safes and other safety devices from state sales tax went into effect in July.

Two other gun-related bills also took effect in July. The first law bans firearm purchase tracking, while the second law established a tax holiday for guns and related items.

A special panel of Georgia state senators also convened several times this year to explore potential laws aimed at safely locking up firearms and keeping them out of the hands of children.

Pushback against gun measures

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents much of the national firearm industry, argues that universal background checks are ineffective and that they don’t keep firearms from reaching criminals. The foundation also contends that universal background checks would require a national registry of gun owners, which they fear could lead to confiscation.

Many of the existing red flag laws, the group argues, lack sufficient due process protections. The group encourages safe firearm storage but opposes laws mandating specific storage requirements, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the justices ruled that trigger locks, which render firearms nonfunctional, violate the Second Amendment.

Above all, the group advocates for stricter enforcement of existing laws and emphasizes that mental health should be a primary focus in addressing gun violence.

“We can’t have no-bail policies. We can’t have ‘defund the police.’ … We need to hold people accountable for their criminal actions,” Lawrence Keane, the organization’s senior vice president and general counsel, said in an interview with Stateline. “We believe that a lot of these high-profile, tragic incidents are at bottom about mental health.”

Mental health is often cited as a major factor contributing to gun violence. Although it may play a significant role, aligning specific mental health diagnoses with policy solutions is difficult, according to Eller, of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Much of the gun violence in the United States stems from economic crime, Eller said in the interview, but many policy discussions focus narrowly on school shootings and assault weapons. Those issues should be addressed, he said, but they represent a small percentage of gun violence in this country.

Since 1982, there have been at least 24 mass shootings in U.S. schools, defined as incidents in which four or more people are killed, according to a database maintained by Mother Jones, a nonprofit news magazine. These school shootings account for about 16% of the 151 mass shootings that have occurred in the U.S. during this period.

This article?is republished from Stateline, a sister publication to the Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.

From left, Amanda Hall, Jayden Spence and Cortney Downs testified Sept. 19 before an interim legislative committee in Frankfort. (Screenshot)

When Jayden Spence was 5 years old, he watched police take his mother, Amanda Hall, away in handcuffs.?

The experience “terrified” him, he told Kentucky lawmakers. It also left him a lingering “mistrust” of the justice system.?

Spence and Hall lent their stories to the Interim Joint Committee on Judiciary Thursday and asked members to pass legislation in 2025 that would give weight to a person’s role as a caregiver when judges are making decisions about sentencing.

Cortney Downs, chief equity officer for Kentucky Youth Advocates, said there were more than 115,000 youths in the state from 2021-2022 who reported having a parent incarcerated at some point in their lives.?

Parental incarceration is considered an adverse childhood experience (ACE) that can have far-reaching negative effects on a person’s development and life. It can also lead to foster care, housing disruption and financial hardships, among other things, Downs said.?

“We often hear that parental incarceration (can) be described as a shared sentence, mainly because of the pretty substantial effect that it has on kids and then also the … family members … who step in to also care for those kids,” she told lawmakers.?

Having a parent behind bars can also “weaken the bond” between parent and child, Downs said. In some cases, it can “derail” that relationship entirely.?

“Ultimately, we do understand that we need to hold people accountable for their actions,” Downs said. “But there’s an equally important need for us to find a balance between applying consequences that really do match the actions, and then also considering the impact that it has on their kids.”??

Hall and Spence?

When Spence watched his mother being arrested, it continued a cycle that went back to Hall’s own childhood trauma.?

Hall was in second grade when her mother, whom she said was a survivor of domestic violence, was arrested.

“I vividly remember going to school the next day … and seeing the newspaper on my teacher’s desk and that had a description of my mom’s arrest,” said Hall, who lives in Louisa. “I got an overwhelming sense of shame, and that feeling stayed with me for years, along with a lot of anger.”?

Her mental health deteriorated after that, she said, as well as her trust in authority.?

“I started experimenting with drugs, and after being prescribed opioids, I became fully addicted,” Hall said. “Then my arrest followed, and things kept spiraling downward.”?

While incarcerated, she said, she missed her daughter’s first steps and first words and her son’s kindergarten graduation.?

“It was devastating,” she said. “I hated myself for what I had done to them, and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t change.”?

She got treatment upon her release and was reunited with her children, though “that incarceration haunts me.”?

Spence, a sophomore at Morehead State University, said Hall’s incarceration when he was a child “completely disrupted” his routine and left him with “anger,” “sadness” and a “deep sense of longing.”?

“I loved my mom, and I just wanted her to come home so we could be together,” he said. He also missed the chance to live with his little brother and be a big brother to him.?

“This experience has left a lasting impact on me. It shaped how I view the justice system. I have a deep mistrust of it, and a mistrust that only grew stronger after I saw how hard it was to rebuild her life, to be judged for her past,” he said. “Every time she was told ‘no’ because of her convictions, every negative comment said about her, I felt that too.”??

Hall lives in fear, she said, of the future.?

“I want that cycle to end with me,” Hall said. “And so far, I think it will. But that fear remains.”?

What could a Kentucky law on this look like??

Joey Comley, the Kentucky and Tennessee state director for Right On Crime, said other states — Missouri, Illinois, Massachusetts, California, Oregon, Washington and Tennessee — have passed “caregiver mitigation and diversion programs.”?

Under these programs, judges consider at sentencing if a person is a primary caregiver and waive incarceration in favor of community supervision and potentially treatment if it is needed, such as substance abuse treatment, physical or sexual abuse counseling, vocational or educational services, anger management, parenting classes and family counseling.?

Exceptions to the waiver could include people who committed violent offenses, sex offenses, serious offenses and offenses involving the use of a firearm, he said.?

Kentucky could also save a lot of money with such legislation, Comley said.?

“If Kentucky were to implement some form of caregiver consideration legislation, it stands to save this Commonwealth almost $64,000 per eligible parent who is essentially subject to community enforcement as opposed to incarceration,” he said. That figure includes foster care and incarceration expenses.?

There is, Comely said, “ample opportunity for legislation in a space to save money, to preserve the family unit and to do what is best for these parents, these children and the community.”?

Kentucky Auditor Allison Ball, center, spoke to lawmakers on July 30 about access to computerized records of child and elder abuse cases. Ombudsman Jonathan Grate is at left and Alexander Magera, general counsel in the auditor's office, is at right. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)

Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services must give the office of the ombudsman read-only access to a computer system, iTWIST, that stores information about abuse and neglect cases, according to an agreement approved by Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd.

The access must be granted by the end of day Thursday, Sept. 19, Shepherd said in a Wednesday ruling.?

He also requires a report on the status of that access within five business days.?

This comes after months of back and forth between Kentucky Auditor Allison Ball’s office, which now houses the ombudsman, and the Beshear administration.?

On Sept. 4, Shepherd ordered the dispute into mediation and told the parties to agree on a mediator or he would assign one. They agreed on retired United States Magistrate Judge James D. Moyer.?

The memorandum of understanding that Shepherd approved was signed by Jonathan Grate, the new ombudsman, and Eric Friedlander, secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS).

Ball’s office assumed oversight of the ombudsman from CHFS on July 1, thanks to a law enacted last? year by the legislature, Senate Bill 48.?

Ball filed a lawsuit for the access in late August that named Gov. Andy Beshear, Friedlander and Ruth Day, the chief information officer of the Commonwealth Office of Technology.??

The ombudsman investigates and resolves complaints about agencies in CHFS, including protective services for children and elderly Kentuckians. Grate, the ombudsman appointed by Ball, can’t do his job without access to iTWIST, (the Workers Information System), Ball previously told lawmakers.

The parties differed in their legal interpretations. The cabinet said access to iTWIST was limited by state law to cabinet social service officials under Kentucky Revised Statute 620.050. The state auditor’s office said the ombudsman is covered under that statute despite moving from the cabinet to auditor’s office.?

In his latest ruling, Shepherd said the parties will work on legislation for the 2025 session to address the issue in statute.?

James Hatchett, a spokesperson for Beshear’s office, said “today’s resolution is similar to many offers made by the cabinet over the last several months to address the situation until the General Assembly can act.”?

“Throughout this process, the governor has agreed the ombudsman should have access to these records, but must do so in a way that complies with applicable state law,” Hatchett said.?

Stephanie French, a cabinet spokesperson, said CHFS is? “happy” with the resolution that allows “the cabinet and ombudsman both to comply with the applicable law” following months of “significant disagreement on how the law applies to the iTWIST system.”?

“We look forward to working with the ombudsman in the upcoming legislative session if necessary,” French said.?

In a statement, Ball said, “While it is unfortunate that it required a lawsuit for the governor and CHFS to agree to restore the necessary iTWIST access to the ombudsman’s office, I am pleased with today’s outcome. The agreed order entered by the court today makes sure that the governor and CHFS can no longer stop the ombudsman from accessing iTWIST. They can no longer try to look over the ombudsman’s shoulder while we fight to help people.”

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, addressing the Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission, proposes putting $3.6 million from settlement funds into youth prevention, Sept. 10, 2024. (Photo courtesy Office of the Attorney General)

Kentucky’s Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission voted in favor of spending $3.6 million over the next two years on a three-part addiction prevention campaign geared toward youth proposed by Attorney General Russell Coleman Tuesday.?

The funds that the commission is in charge of distributing, which come from legal settlements with drug companies, “represent the shared pain of families across this commonwealth,” Coleman said Tuesday.?

He asked the commission for permission to spend a slice of this “blood money” to reach young people across Kentucky between the ages of 13 and 26. No members voted against his request, and no one abstained. The money will be split into $1.8 million each year.

Coleman’s campaign, modeled after a Florida initiative, has three parts. The first is an ad campaign called Better Without It, to be featured on social media, on college campuses and more. Coleman pointed to the well-known “Click it or ticket” campaign as an example that “these types of education campaigns can work.”?

The ads, which will also be pushed by influencers, will be tailored to Kentucky, using photographers and creators who Coleman said can make the material “look and sound and feel and smell like the commonwealth.”?

The second arm of the campaign is to “weave together” Kentucky’s “patchwork” of school-based prevention programs so kids have access to more cohesive resources. Lastly, Coleman said, the campaign will “elevate and draw attention to the ongoing work of this commission.”?

Overdose deaths in Kentucky decreased in 2023 for the second year in a row, according to this year’s Drug Overdose Fatality Report. In 2022, 2,135 Kentuckians died from an overdose, marking the first decline since 2018. Ninety percent of those deaths were from opioids and fentanyl.?

In 2023, the number of fatal overdoses was down to 1,984. Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, accounted for 1,570 of those — about 79% of the 2023 deaths. The 35-44 age group was most at risk, the report shows. Methamphetamine accounted for 55% of 2023’s overdose deaths.?

From 2021 to 2023, around 460 Kentuckians under the age of 34 died from overdoses, according to that report.?

“We know young people are more likely to be influenced by their peers than (by) someone who looks like me,” Coleman said. “Honest and productive conversations about the dangers of substance abuse among students can be a force multiplier.”?

People in their teens and early 20s and those with a family history of addiction are most at risk for opioid use disorder, according to the Mayo Clinic.?

“I’m asking you to zealously collaborate with us so that we can reach young people where they are to prevent them from taking their first — and in this environment, too oftentimes their last — experimentation … with this poison,” Coleman told commission members.?

Coleman said “as little as one fentanyl pill can — and is — killing our neighbors. … We live at a time where there is no margin of error. It simply does not exist. There’s no such thing as safe, no such concept or notion of safe experimentation with narcotics.”

The commission was created by the state legislature in 2021 and has nine voting and two non-voting members.?

Kentucky receives installments toward $900 million in settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors. So far, it has awarded 110 grants worth more than $55 million toward treatment, prevention and recovery efforts.??

The commission next meets on Oct. 8.?

RiverValley Behavioral Health Hospital is a nonprofit psychiatric hospital providing specialized inpatient services for children and adolescents ages 5-17 in Owensboro. (RiverValley Behavioral Health)

Eligible boys in the care of the Kentucky Department for Community Based Services or Juvenile Justice system who need “complex mental and behavioral health care” can now access inpatient treatment in Owensboro, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services announced Tuesday.

Called The BIRCH, the 10-bed inpatient program operates out of RiverValley Behavioral Health’s adolescent psychiatric hospital. The program will admit males between the ages of 12-17 within DCBS or those “dually committed” in the Department for Juvenile Justice (DJJ).

It has already admitted its first patients following a Tuesday ribbon cutting, according to the cabinet.

Wanda Figueroa-Peralta, RiverValley’s president and CEO, said in a statement that the program is a “significant advancement in the care and support of our most vulnerable youth.”

“This program reflects our commitment to providing the highest level of care for those who need it most, ensuring every young person has the opportunity to heal, grow and thrive,” Figueroa-Peralta said.

The program is aimed at “youth with a history of challenging behaviors related to their mental health conditions,” according to the cabinet. Saff expect children to be in the program “longer than typical inpatient acute psychiatric hospitals.”

Admission decisions are made by the Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities (BHDID), Department of Juvenile Justice Mental Health Treatment Director, the Department for Medicaid Services, the Department for Community Based Services and RiverValley Behavioral Health, the cabinet said.

The BIRCH funding comes from a DCBS contract with the Department for Medicaid Services (DMS), according to the cabinet.

This announcement came days after West Kentucky Republican Sen. Danny Carroll criticized his fellow lawmakers for failing to fund a special mental health facility for youth in the juvenile justice system during the 2024 legislative session.

Carroll, R-Benton, filed Senate Bill 242 this year, which would have directed Kentucky to spend $22 million on a special mental health juvenile detention facility and create a process to test and treat minors with serious mental health issues within DJJ. The bill passed the Senate and died in the House.

In a response to The BIRCH opening, Carroll said “any increase in the number of beds to serve troubled youth is a step in the right direction.”

“This progress follows intense and very productive conversations involving all stakeholders during the last session,” Carroll said in a statement sent to the Lantern. “My hope is that the legislature will finalize the mental health proposal for troubled youth proposed in (Senate Bill 242) in the future.”

A cabinet spokesman said youth from anywhere in the state, not just near Owensboro, can access The BIRCH.

“Today we are providing a little hope because now there is help,” Gov. Andy Beshear said in a statement. “This program is helping us meet the needs of those who could not be served in our existing programs. This special space will assist the youth who need and deserve a higher level of care.”

Kentucky Auditor Allison Ball, center, spoke to lawmakers on July 30 about access to computerized records of child and elder abuse cases. Ombudsman Jonathan Grate is at left and Alexander Magera, general counsel in the auditor's office, is at right. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)

Kentucky Auditor Allison Ball has filed a lawsuit against the Beshear administration in Franklin Circuit Court in her ongoing effort to ensure the office of the ombudsman has access to information about abuse and neglect cases.

This move comes after Ball and the administration have gone back and forth on access for the past two months. The lawsuit names Gov. Andy Beshear, Cabinet for Health and Family Services Secretary Eric Friedlander and Ruth Day, the chief information officer of the Commonwealth Office of Technology.??

In the lawsuit, Ball pointed to efforts to resolve the dispute with the cabinet and says “regrettably, the time has now come for the judiciary to step in and end the cabinet’s and the governor’s obstruction.”?

“The governor supports changing the law in the next legislative session to provide access. In the meantime, the administration has tried to work with the auditor’s office to provide them with the maximum access allowed under the current law, but they have refused,” Crystal Staley, a spokeswoman for Beshear, said in a statement. “On numerous occasions the cabinet believed a resolution had nearly been reached, only to find the auditor’s office had changed its position. Today’s action shows the auditor would rather play politics than work with the cabinet on a solution – one that meets the requirements set forth by the General Assembly.”

In response to that Beshear statement, auditor spokesperson Joy Pidgorodetska Markland said Beshear “is the only one making this political.”

“As outlined in our lawsuit today, our office has never changed our position,” Markland said. “The auditor and ombudsman want to help vulnerable Kentuckians across the commonwealth and need iTWIST access in order to do so. This is not political; this is doing the job they were sworn to do. The governor’s administration is obstructing access and has repeatedly changed positions throughout our negotiations. The closest we came to reaching an agreement was while he was auditioning to be Kamala Harris’ running mate.”

Kentucky lawmakers hear about efforts to resolve dispute over access to abuse, neglect records

Ball’s office assumed oversight of the ombudsman on July 1, thanks to a new law enacted last? year by the legislature,? Senate Bill 48.?

The ombudsman investigates and resolves complaints about agencies in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, including protective services for children and elderly Kentuckians. The ombudsman appointed by Ball, Jonathan Grate, can’t do his job without access to iTWIST, (the Workers Information System), Ball previously told lawmakers.?

The Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) believes access to the computer system iTWIST is limited by state law to cabinet social service officials under Kentucky Revised Statute 620.050, with some exceptions for certain parties within the cabinet, law enforcement and prosecutors, outside medical or social service officials and the parent or guardian of the child in question, the Lantern has reported.?

Ball’s office says the ombudsman is covered under that statute despite having moved out of CHFS and into the? auditor’s office.

“There is simply no legitimate reason for the cabinet to refuse to allow the office to have full, direct and real-time access to iTWIST,” the Monday lawsuit says.?

“The Commonwealth Office of the Ombudsman needs access to iTWIST to serve the people of Kentucky, especially its most vulnerable children and adults,” Ball said in a statement. “We have tried everything in our power to reach an agreement with the cabinet to restore iTWIST access. But unfortunately, Governor Beshear and the cabinet are more interested in placing unworkable and unlawful constraints on our access than helping the Commonwealth’s endangered children and adults. I am committed to pursuing every path forward to ensure the well-being of all Kentuckians.”

Vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz celebrates with his daughter Hope, son Gus and wife Gwen at Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Aug. 21, in Chicago. The Walzes clarified this week that they didn’t use IVF but another kind of fertility treatment to grow their family. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The broader scope of fertility treatments entered the spotlight this week after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and his wife Gwen shared that they had children through a less commonly known procedure.

Since Vice President Kamala Harris selected Gov. Walz as her running mate, he has discussed his family’s fertility journey during speeches in Pennsylvania, Nebraska and mostly recently at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

“It took Gwen and I years,” Walz said on Wednesday night. “But we had access to fertility treatments. And when our daughter was born, we named her Hope.”

This week, the Walzes clarified that they conceived via intrauterine insemination, not in vitro fertilization.

IUI involves injecting sperm into the uterus during or just before ovulation to increase the chances of fertilization and pregnancy.

“Our fertility journey was an incredibly personal and difficult experience. Like so many who have experienced these challenges, we kept it largely to ourselves at the time — not even sharing the details with our wonderful and close family,” Gwen Walz said in a statement provided to States Newsroom. “The only person who knew in detail what we were going through was our next door neighbor. She was a nurse and helped me with the shots I needed as part of the IUI process.”

During IVF, eggs and sperm are combined in a lab and an embryo is inserted into the uterus. IVF has been drawn into national reproductive rights debates for much of this year, and Walz has been talking about it on the campaign trail while discussing his family’s fertility journey.

U.S. Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate, accused his opponent of lying about how he and his wife had children. In an Aug. 20 social media post, Vance said, “Today it came out that Tim Walz had lied about having a family via IVF. Who lies about something like that?” He also shared a clip of Walz talking about fertility care and families on Aug. 9.

In a statement, Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said, “Governor Walz talks how normal people talk. He was using commonly understood shorthand for fertility treatments.”

Experts said that patients commonly get IUI and IVF confused or refer to them interchangeably, given that in vitro fertilization is more popular.

“There’s such a huge sort of alphabet soup that comes along with assisted reproduction,” said Kimberly Mutcherson, a professor at Rutgers University-Camden who specializes in reproductive justice, bioethics, and family and health law.

Dr. Kelly Acharya, a fertility physician and assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University, said patients’ partners are more likely to mix up the two treatments or rope related procedures into IVF.

“A lot of times in my line of work, I see people that are referring to other things, like egg freezing, they call that IVF, even though technically it’s not,” she said.

Both Acharya and Mutcherson said the main differences between IUI and IVF are where fertilization occurs, the price and effectiveness.

“Intrauterine insemination or IUI is basically less invasive. It’s typically less expensive, and it is often what is recommended as the first thing that somebody tries,” Acharya said. “When somebody has mild forms of infertility, like if there are mild differences in the semen analysis, or if somebody is young and they’re not quite sure why they’re not getting pregnant, then often a provider will recommend that they do IUI as a first step to help things along.”

IUI is performed during or near ovulation, and it typically takes 10 minutes and is a minor procedure, according to Acharya. The price of IUI varies, depending on insurance coverage, from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars.

Mutcherson noted that some people also confuse IUI with intracervical insemination, or ICI. During this method, the sperm is inserted into the cervix — the passageway to the uterus, according to the Carolina Fertility Institute.

Doctors often recommend ICI or IUI as a precursor to IVF, which Mutcherson said can cost $12,000 to $15,000 per cycle — or more with grading and genetic testing. During IVF, “fertilization happens outside of the body,” Acharya said.

IUI, the treatment the Walz family used to have children, is not under the same scrutiny as IVF, which has faced opposition from anti-abortion hardliners. “It sometimes is listed as being less controversial than IVF, because it’s just helping along the natural process of getting the sperm inside the uterus and then expecting fertilization to happen inside the body,” Acharya said.

But Mutcherson said that could also be attributed to the fact that it’s a less well-known procedure.

“I think the really big issue when it comes to something like artificial insemination is that it allows people to create families that a lot of these folks — unfortunately, in the Republican Party and folks who are evangelicals — don’t approve of: families with two moms, families with two dads, single women who are having children,” she said.

Price is a significant barrier to fertility care. Only 21 states require insurers to cover fertility procedures, Stateline reported. A successful birth via IVF can cost more than $60,000, according to a 2022 study published in Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology.

“It requires a lot more physically, emotionally and economically to be able to do IVF,” Mutcherson, who conceived via IUI, said.

IVF became a national reproductive rights issue in February after the Alabama Supreme Court likened frozen embryos to “unborn children” in a ruling. The plaintiffs were couples who sued for damages under an 1872 wrongful death of children law after their embryos were accidentally destroyed in a clinic four years ago, Alabama Reflector reported. Alabama’s fertility clinics temporarily closed after the ruling until Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed legislation in March shielding providers from criminal and civil liabilities, the Reflector reported.

But there’s still uncertainty over whether embryos and fetuses in the state have legal “personhood” rights. Despite the new law, two fertility clinics in Alabama announced plans to close by the end of the year, though one denied the decision was related to the? ruling.

Since the Alabama ruling, polls have shown most Americans back IVF. A survey conducted by Pew in April found that 70% said IVF is a good thing, while 22% said they’re not sure, and 8% said it’s a bad thing. Awareness is growing, too: 42% of Americans said they or someone they know have had fertility treatments, according to a 2023 Pew poll.

Nationally, Republicans and Democrats condemned the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling and filed bills seeking to protect IVF this spring, though all of them stalled in Congress. The Republican Party’s platform featured support for both IVF and the equal protections clause of the 14th Amendment, which conservative legal scholars argue can be used to solidify “fetal personhood” along with effectively banning abortion. And in June, the Southern Baptist Convention — the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. — voted to condemn IVF, particularly the destruction or donation of embryos that are not implanted in the uterus.

“People who believe that life begins at conception, people who believe that an embryo is no different than a 5-year-old sitting in a kindergarten classroom, those are people who have really deep and abiding principles related to procedures like in vitro fertilization,” Mutcherson said.

The number of babies born in the U.S. using assisted reproductive technology has increased in recent years: 2.5% of newborns were conceived using fertility treatments in 2022, according to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. That’s up from 2.3% in 2021, per federal data.

A young boy places a stone on the grave of his father as friends and family gather to commemorate the first anniversary of his death from heroin overdose. Between 2011 and 2021, more than 321,000 children across the U.S. lost a parent to a drug overdose, according to a recent federal study. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Every day, 8-year-old Emma sits in a small garden outside her grandmother’s home in Salem, Ohio, writing letters to her mom and sometimes singing songs her mother used to sing to her.

Emma’s mom, Danielle Stanley, died of an overdose last year. She was 34, and had struggled with addiction since she was a teenager, said Brenda “Nina” Hamilton, Danielle’s mother and Emma’s grandmother.

“We built a memorial for Emma so that she could visit her mom, and she’ll go out and talk to her, tell her about her day,” Hamilton said.

Lush with hibiscus and sunflowers, lavender and a plum tree, the space is a small oasis where she also can “cry and be angry,” Emma told Stateline.

Hundreds of thousands of other kids are in a similar situation: More than 321,000 children in the U.S. lost a parent to a drug overdose in the decade between 2011 and 2021, according to a study by federal health researchers that was published in JAMA Psychiatry in May.

In recent years, opioid manufacturers, distributors and retailers have paid states billions of dollars to settle lawsuits accusing them of contributing to the overdose epidemic. Some experts and advocates want states to use some of that money to help these children cope with the loss of their parents. Others want more support for caregivers, and special mental health programs to help the kids work through their long-term trauma — and to break a pattern of addiction that often cycles through generations.

The rate of children who lost parents to drug overdoses more than doubled during the decade included in the study, surging from 27 kids per 100,000 in 2011 to 63 per 100,000 in 2021.

Nearly three-quarters of the 649,599 adults between ages 18 and 64 who died during that period were white.

The children of American Indians and Alaska Natives lost a parent at a rate of 187 per 100,000, more than double the rate among the children of non-Hispanic white parents and Black parents (76.5 and 73.2 per 100,000, respectively). Children of young Black parents between ages 18 and 25 saw the greatest loss increase per year, according to the researchers, at a rate of almost 24%. The study did not include overdose victims who were homeless, incarcerated or living in institutions.

The data included deaths from illicit drugs, such as cocaine, heroin or hallucinogens; prescription opioids, including pain relievers; and stimulants, sedatives and tranquilizers. Danielle Stanley, Emma’s mother, had a combination of drugs in her system when she died.

At-risk children

Children need help to get through their immediate grief, but they also need longer-term support, said Chad Shearer, senior vice president for policy at the United Hospital Fund of New York and former deputy director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State Health Reform Assistance Network.

An estimated 2.2 million U.S. children were affected by the opioid epidemic in 2017, according to the hospital fund, meaning they were living with a parent with opioid use disorder, were in foster care because of a parent’s opioid use, or had a parent incarcerated due to opioids.

“This is a uniquely at-risk subpopulation of children, and they need kind of coordinated and ongoing services and support that takes into account: What does the remaining family actually look like, and what are the supports that those kids do or don’t have access to?” Shearer said.

Ron Browder, president of the Ohio Federation for Health Equity and Social Justice, an advocacy group, said “respecting the cultural traditions of families” is essential to supporting them effectively. The state has one of the 10 highest overdose death rates in the nation and the fifth-highest number of deaths, according to 2022 data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For second year in a row, Kentucky overdose deaths decrease?

The goal, Browder said, should be to keep kids in the care of a family member whenever possible.

“We just want to make sure children are not sitting somewhere in a strange room,” said Browder, the former chief for child and adult protection, adoption and kinship at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and executive director of the Children’s Defense Fund of Ohio.

“The child has gone through trauma from losing their parent to the overdose, and now you put them in a stranger’s home, and then you retraumatize them.”

This is a particular concern for Indigenous children, who have suffered disproportionate removal from their families and forced cultural assimilation over generations.

“What hits me and hurts my heart the most is that we have another generation of children that potentially are not going to be connected to their culture,” said Danica Love Brown, a behavioral health specialist and member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Brown is vice president of behavioral health transformation at Kauffman and Associates, a national tribal health consulting firm.

“We do know that culture is healing, and when people are connected to their culture … when they’re connected to their land and their community, they’re connected to their cultural activities, the healthier they are,” she said.

Ana Beltran, an attorney at Generations United, which supports kin caregivers and grandfamilies, said large families still often need money and counseling to take care of orphaned children. (UNICEF defines an orphan as a child who has lost at least one parent.) She noted that multigenerational households are common in Black, Latino and Indigenous families.

“It can look like they have a lot of support because they have these huge networks, and that’s such a powerful component of their culture and such a cultural strength. But on the other hand, service providers shouldn’t just walk away because, ‘Oh, they’re good,’” she said.

Counties with higher overdose death rates were more likely to have children with grandparents as the primary caregiver, according to a 2023 study from East Tennessee State University. This was particularly true for counties across states in the Appalachian region. Tennessee has the third-highest drug overdose death rate in the nation, following the District of Columbia and West Virginia.

‘Get well’

AmandaLynn Reese, chief program officer at Harm Reduction Ohio, a nonprofit that distributes kits of the opioid-overdose antidote naloxone, lost her parents to the drug epidemic and struggled with addiction herself.

Her mother died from an overdose 10 years ago, when Reese was in her mid-20s, and she lost her dad when she was 8. Her mom was a waitress and cleaned houses, and her dad was an autoworker. Both struggled with prescription opioids, specifically painkillers, as well as illicit drugs.

“Maybe we couldn’t save our mama, but, you know, somebody else’s mama is out there,” Reese said. “Children of loss are left out of the conversation. … This is bigger than the way we were seeing it, and it has long-lasting effects.”

In Ohio, Emma’s grandmother started a small shop called Nina’s Closet, where caregivers or those battling addiction can come by and collect clothing donations and naloxone.

Emma, who helps fill donation boxes, tells her grandmother she misses the scent of her mom’s hair. She couldn’t describe it, Hamilton said — just that “it had a special smell.”

And in an interview with Stateline, Emma said she wants kids like her to have hobbies — “something they really, really like to do” — to distract them from the sadness.

She likes to think of her mom as smiling, remembering how fun she was and how she liked to play pranks on Emma’s grandfather.

“This is what I would say to the users: ‘Get treatment, get well,’” Emma said.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: [email protected]. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

Chan Kemper with her daughters, Tavi and Mika. (Photo provided)

This story discusses postpartum depression and suicide. If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.?

Before having children, Chan Kemper pictured how the experience would go.?

“I was determined to have the hippiest, dippiest, crunchy, earth goddess pregnancies and deliveries that I could have,” said Kemper, 43.?

The attorney, who is from the Virgin Islands and now lives in Louisville, researched “the crap out of pregnancy” and her baby, she said. “I didn’t do that much research about after.”??

She had a fairly smooth experience with her first baby, Tavi, whom she had at 37. In fact, she said, it was “so fine” that she and her husband decided to have another baby right away.?

After having her second child, Mika, at 39, “it was just immediately different,” said Kemper, who was then diagnosed with postpartum depression (PPD).?

Her blood pressure spiked and she could not breastfeed. She cried nonstop — to the point of dehydration. Prozac didn’t help what Kemper described as a “profound sense of sadness.” She feared her baby would die, a fear that escalated when Mika had to be hospitalized with a severe urinary tract infection.?

Eventually, “I just thought to myself, ‘I don’t want to be here,’” she recalled. “And I meant like, ‘I don’t want to be here on this Earth.’ And I had never felt like that in my life, ever.”?

Kentucky therapists who treat postpartum and perinatal depression said people who have it can often experience suicidal ideation — which needs to be addressed immediately. People with PPD also often experience headaches, irritability, trouble sleeping, anxiety, depression, low self esteem, visceral feelings of panic, trouble connecting with their baby and more.?

Societal stigma and cultural shame can compound these symptoms, therapists say, making it a debilitating illness.?

The illness can affect anyone, therapists say, but is more likely to affect people of color and those with a history of trauma, anxiety and/or depression.?

What is postpartum depression??

Rebecca Kerr, a Bowling Green therapist who specializes in PPD, said it falls under the umbrella of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) and is “very common.”?

PPD “doesn’t necessarily discriminate,” said Kerr. “Really, anyone could experience postpartum depression, but there are populations that may be more vulnerable. So, if you have a personal history of depression, anxiety, OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), anything like that, you may be more prone to experiencing it.”

Wesley Belknap-Greene, a Richmond therapist, said it’s important to distinguish between PPD and the “baby blues.”?

Baby blues can mimic some of the symptoms of PPD — but they don’t last past two weeks and come on because of hormone shifts following delivery.?

“A lot of people, probably especially around here, who have experienced actual true postpartum depression have systematically, continuously been told ‘oh, it’s just the baby blues,’” said Belknap-Greene. “Whether that’s a thing with rural America, Appalachia, … mental health has not been talked about in this country historically.”?

Baby blues is an “emotional disruption” for sure, she explained. But “perinatal depression, or postpartum depression, is this? debilitating, very difficult, deep, dark depression that makes it difficult for the mother to be able to provide care to herself, let alone her baby.”??

The film industry has added stigma, Belknap-Greene said, by depicting PPD as a condition in which a mother wants to kill her baby. While it can take that form, she said, it’s “very rare.”?

Chan Kemper’s story?

In addition to feeling like she didn’t want to live anymore after giving birth to her second child, Kemper recalls feeling guilty for feeling that way.?

“I had … access … to a lot of things, and I still felt alone,” she said. “As a Black woman, I felt even more like I’m supposed to be strong, and I wasn’t. I wasn’t strong at all.”?

Even her cat, Cosmo, whom she described as “the worst cat ever,” was “distressed by my distress.”

Kemper’s blood pressure spikes turned out to be panic attacks — and she feels her race was a factor in those symptoms being dismissed. She went to the hospital when she “felt like I was having a heart attack” with “insanely high” blood pressure and sat waiting for care.?

“I think there would have been more concern or care if I had not been a Black woman,” said Kemper, who is also Jewish. “I’m … larger, I’m tall, and I feel like it’s like, ‘oh, she’s strong, she’s fine.’ And it’s like, ‘no. I deserve, and I need, help.’”??

But, she said, lack of mental health care for new mothers is an equal opportunity offender “across the board.”?

Kemper got into therapy and on the right dosage of medication, and is doing “so much better” but “I’m still crawling my way out of this.”?

She would like to see classes focused on PPD, just as there are birth classes, as well as more public health education about PPD.?

“There’s so many red flags,” she said. “We don’t talk about it. … I think it’s so important to talk about things that are stigmatized.”??

She predicts fewer new mothers would be surprised by the symptoms if more people — and health organizations — talked about PPD publicly.

“I had no clue that this could ever happen to me,” Kemper said. “I did not in a million years think that there were signs that I should have been looking out for or having my partner look out for.”?

Kemper isn’t alone. Other Kentucky mothers who spoke to the Lantern about their PPD experiences described feelings of loneliness and depression exacerbated by shame and guilt that took them by surprise.?

Proctor and Luntzel?

Vashti Proctor, one of those mothers, found out she was pregnant — unplanned — in March 2021. COVID-19 was everywhere and racial justice protests were ongoing following the police killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville.?

Proctor, who lives in Louisville, said she considered abortion, which was legal at that time in Kentucky.?

“I was literally scared out of my mind to think that I’m gonna enter a Black child, a Black baby, into this world when a Black woman was just shot and killed … in her home,” Proctor said. “That was very, very scary for me.”??

With support from her family, she decided against abortion and gave birth to Aaliyah in December 2021. At her four-week checkup, she got on Zoloft to help with her PPD symptoms.?

The stressors compounded quickly. Proctor, who had to work, couldn’t find child care — much less affordable child care — for the baby. So, she took her to work with her until she found an opening — which remains her second highest bill behind only rent.? She nursed on demand while not being able to sleep at night.?

The first person in her friend group to have a baby, the then-28-year-old had entered a new chapter of life her friends couldn’t relate to. The COVID-19 pandemic also kept her from a social life. Therapy was too expensive. There was a national formula shortage.?

All this made her feel “really heavy” and “very overwhelmed,” she said. Having more accessible child care would have helped her in her transition to motherhood, she said.?

It would also be helpful if there were more medical providers who look like her, she said. A 2020 study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that Black babies were twice as likely to survive when their doctor was also Black.?

Autumn Luntzel of Bowling Green had a slightly different experience. She felt immense guilt when she had her son in late 2019 and the depression, numbness, anxiety and sadness hit her.?

“I’m never going to be a better mom,” she remembers thinking. “My husband’s never going to divorce me so I need to just end it all so (my son) can have a better mom.”?

Reid, her son, was happy and healthy. Her husband was “very hands on.” Her career thrived.?

But Luntzel, the daughter of Bangladesh immigrants, felt tremendous pressure to be perfect, she said.?

“My whole personality is my parents — specifically my dad — sacrificing everything to have the life that I have,” she said.?

So, she thought, “here I am being sad and I shouldn’t be.”?

In February 2021, Luntzel attempted to end her life: “I truly believed that Reid, my son, needed a better mom because I couldn’t be a good mom to him because of the way that I was feeling.”

Her husband found her after that attempt, and helped her get into an intensive six-month therapy program, where she began taking medication. She no longer lives with suicidality and advocates for mental health in her community.?

What policies could help combat PPD in Kentucky??

PPD doesn’t have much space in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses (DSM) — a paragraph compared to pages for other conditions, Belknap-Greene said.? More research and space for the condition is much needed, she added.?

Kentucky also needs a universal, paid parental leave, she said. That would put it in line with 13 states and Washington D.C. that provide paid family and medical leave.??

“If mom and dad — or mom and mom, dad and dad, whatever that nuclear family looks like — if there’s not that opportunity to provide secure attachment, we’re looking at a whole host of other issues for the baby,” said Belknap-Greene.?

Research published in the National Library of Medicine in 2023 backs up the importance of leave, saying that “paid, longer maternity leave is associated with less postpartum depression.”?

During the 2024 legislative session, a bill that would have given teachers 20 days of maternity leave died. Another bill to give state workers with at least a year on the job up to four weeks of paid leave made it through the Senate but failed to advance in the House.?

There is bipartisan appetite in Congress to pass paid parental leave, with bipartisan and bicameral working groups working on solutions. Members’ legislative framework for such solutions includes having public-private partnerships and cross-state program harmony.?????

Meanwhile, Kentucky therapists and mothers who spoke to the Lantern agreed: screening mothers earlier would be a huge step toward combating postpartum depression and anxiety early.?

“We should start screening moms before they deliver,” said Kerr. But certainly, screening them as they are leaving the hospital after delivery would help as well.?

“If it were up to me, that would be a thing that had to be discussed before discharge,” Belknap-Greene said. And: “A follow up appointment for mom needs to be done much sooner than the two-week checkup for the baby.”?

Because she spent so much time internalizing her PPD symptoms, Luntzel said having OB-GYNs better trained to spot those symptoms early would have helped her. She’d also like to see mental health professionals give on-site consultations with new moms at hospitals after delivery.?

Mental health services like therapy should generally be more accessible as well, she said. The Lantern previously reported Kentuckians are more likely to pay out of pocket for mental health services than medical services.?

“Mental health, in general, I think, needs to be discussed more because our brains are so complex, and yet we treat it like it’s just this one being and that’s just not it,” Luntzel said. “I don’t think it’s okay to treat it like that.”?

HRSA Roundtable in Louisville (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)

LOUISVILLE — Maternal health is complicated, and reducing mortality around birth takes a comprehensive approach, advocates from across Kentucky said at a Thursday roundtable moderated by Carole Johnson, the administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration for the Biden administration.

During the roundtable, which took place at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Louisville, Johnson said Kentucky is now eligible for more than $8 million in federal funding through the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting program. Kentucky’s version of this is called HANDS (Health Access Nurturing Development Services), which is a voluntary service that offers parenting guidance to new or expecting parents.?

“We are thrilled to be here,” Johnson said to a room full of parents, medical providers and other maternal health advocates. “We’re thrilled to put these resources on the table but we know that what it takes to actually execute on them is all the work that happens by all of you around this room.”?

She also praised Rep. Kim Moser, R-Taylor Mill, who spearheaded Kentucky’s move to pass a maternal health “Momnibus” bill during the 2024 legislative session and was present Thursday.?

Momnibus, which made pregnancy a qualifying event for insurance coverage in Kentucky, among other things, was? “a big bill. It was a big lift,” said Moser, who chairs the House Health Services Committee. “I’m excited to see how it gets implemented.”?

What is working for maternal health in Kentucky??

Kentucky has dismal maternal mortality rates, which is worse for women of color than white women.?

The 2023 March of Dimes report showed the state once again had high maternal mortality, which was worse for Black Kentuckians. The state has a maternal mortality rate of 38.4 deaths per 100,000 live births, higher than the national rate of 23.5 deaths per 100,000 live births.

A 2023 state report on maternal mortality also showed substance use disorder contributed to nearly 60% of all maternal deaths. Most maternal deaths in Kentucky — 88% — are preventable, that report from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services said.

Advocates around the table Thursday said improving maternal health has to involve a comprehensive approach that looks at physical and mental health as well as social determinants of health, like reliable transportation, safe housing and clean water, among other things. Several shared the work they’re doing to meet those needs.?

Bethany Wilson, who is in long term recovery and now works at the University of Kentucky to treat substance use disorder during and after pregnancy, said shame, lack of transportation and lack of education were all barriers she faced when pregnant.?

“While in addiction, I was, of course, unengaged in the healthcare system altogether, despite having serious medical conditions,” she said. “But when I learned about my pregnancy, so many emotions came — just embarrassment, fear, guilt, sadness.”?

Now she shares her story and information about resources with UK patients to promote harm reduction and health education.?

“Word of mouth is a huge piece,” she said. “The word-of-mouth patients that have engaged in our program will tell other people in their community through them knowing that it’s a safe place to come.”?

Capric Walker, who heads the University of Louisville’s 550 Clinic to provide care for HIV-positive people in seven counties, including Jefferson, said she focuses heavily on educating patients that HIV is “no longer a death sentence.”?

HIV can pass to a fetus during pregnancy and birth, though treatment can lower the chances of that happening, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

“We do a lot of education for them to help them understand what their full options are because mental health and depression and substance use are real concerns for many of them,” Walker said. “Our populations really have high instances of depression because of the history and the stigma around this diagnosis.”?

Her program’s retention among patients after delivery is around 90%, she said.?

Where are the gaps??

Kentucky needs more resources for first-time fathers, said Lance Newman, who works with Black Birth Justice in Louisville to offer just such support in a program he’s still developing.?

“We talk about maternal health, and we don’t really speak about how important the father is,” he said. “Fathers need job placement help, they need that workforce help. They need that substance abuse help. They need a lot of advocacy.”??

The National Institute for Children’s Health Quality backs that up, saying fathers’ positive involvement throughout pregnancy and beyond can have a positive health impact on mother and baby.?

Josh Hawkins, a Louisville father, said he needed mental health and job resources when his daughter was born and believes other fathers need support too.??

“We can … certainly help with maternal and infant mortality rates and alleviate some of that as well,” he said. “We want to be involved, too. We really do.”?

Then-Gov. Matt Bevin, speaking to a National Rifle Association event in Louisville in 2016, was an ardent advocate for adoption and critic of the adoption system. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

As Kentucky governor, Matt Bevin said his overriding goal was to reform what he said was the state’s “broken machine” of an adoption and foster care system.

“This is the driving reason why I made the decision to run, because it needs to be fixed,” Bevin said in a 2017 interview on KET.

In that same interview, Bevin and his wife, Glenna, said their adoption of four children from Ethiopia grew from their faith-driven desire to provide homes for children in need.

“It is our desire to make Kentucky a model for the nation and the world,” said Matt Bevin, a conservative Christian and Republican who served as governor from 2015 through 2019.

But now, one of those adopted children, a 17-year-old boy, is at the center of international attention after he and seven other boys were removed from the Atlantis Leadership Academy in Jamaica in February, where authorities found horrific conditions, according to a lengthy article published July 13 in the Sunday Times of London.

In a case that has attracted the attention of hotel heiress Paris Hilton, an impassioned advocate for youths held in substandard treatment facilities around the world, Bevin’s adopted son is among those who endured unspeakable conditions, according to the Times story.

The Times story said the boys placed there, some from the United States, reported beatings, cruel punishments, lack of food and filthy, unsanitary conditions. They also reported lack of communication with families who had placed them there, going for months with no contact.

Academy rules “forbade telephone contact until a boy had advanced to a level that earned telephone privileges,” the Sunday Times story said.

Matt Bevin did not respond to an email request for comment nor did his lawyer. Glenna Bevin did not immediately respond to a request for comment through her lawyer, Mark Dobbins.

The Bevins, the parents of five biological and four adopted children, are in the midst of a contentious divorce after Glenna Bevin in May 2023 filed a petition to dissolve the marriage of 27 years she said was “irretrievably broken,”

‘The perfect location’

Located on an idyllic beachfront in Jamaica, the academy on its website promises a safe and structured environment for youth with a past history of behavioral or emotional problems.

“The perfect location for healing,” it said.

But the Times story reported a much darker picture of violence, abuse and isolation with one youth proclaiming “I’d rather die than go back.”

The academy did not respond to the Lantern’s request for comment through the website. The toll-free number it lists is out of service.

The Times said Jamaican authorities have not been able to locate the academy’s former director but reports that four staffers have been arrested and charged with child cruelty and assault.

The Times story said a boy it called “Noah,” a pseudonym, is the adoptive son of Matt and Glenna Bevin and he was placed in the school last year. The Times story, which used pseudonyms for other boys, reports that while some parents traveled to Jamaica to collect their children after the authorities intervened and closed it, no one immediately showed up for Noah or two other boys, also adopted.

When the reporter asked Noah why Matt Bevin had adopted him, the teen replied, “public image,” the Times story said.

The Times does not say how it confirmed Noah’s identity or who placed him at the academy.

Matt Bevin frequently mentioned the adoption of the four children from Ethiopia during his 2015 run for governor and after he was elected? as a reason for reforming the state’s adoption system.? An evangelical Christian, he also called on fellow members of Kentucky’s faith community to adopt and appointed a Baptist pastor as his adoption “czar,” reporting directly to him.

Bevin, after a controversial four years as governor, was defeated for a second term in 2019 by Democrat Andy Beshear.

Wards of the state

After a court hearing in Jamaica in April, the three remaining teens, including Noah, were made wards of the Jamaican state, the Times story said. It’s not clear where the Bevins’ son is now.

A staff member of the Paris Hilton foundation, 11:11 Media, which intervened in the Jamaica court proceedings on behalf of the youths and was able to arrange a custody arrangement for one, told the Lantern last week? that Bevin’s son is no longer in Jamaica but didn’t provide further information.

The U.S. Embassy in Jamaica, which initially was involved in the removal of youths from the academy, did not respond to a request for comment.

The Bevins are in the midst of a contentious divorce sought by Glenna Bevin in May 2023.

?In April 2024, Glenna Bevin obtained a court order barring Matt Bevin from her home after she claimed he kept entering her house without permission, refusing to leave. The couple have been separated for about two years, according to the divorce records.

Matt Bevin’s wealth, developed from a career in finance, was estimated in excess of $13 million when he ran for governor in 2015. He and Glenna Bevin live in separate houses in Anchorage, an affluent enclave east of Louisville.

The divorce filing indicates they have nine children, two of them minors. Glenna Bevin is seeking joint custody of the two youngest, with her as “primary residential parent.”

‘Shipped them off’

Hilton traveled to Jamaica in April for a court hearing to show support for the eight boys removed from the academy. She said it is part of her work through her foundation to draw attention to what Hilton said is a growing industry of abusive residential programs for so-called troubled children and teens.

Hilton said she is a survivor of such programs after she was placed in several in the United States starting at age 16 where she was treated violently, sexually abused, forcibly medicated and isolated.

She testified before a Congressional committee in June in support of federal legislation to provide resources meant to keep children out of institutions, citing her trip to Jamaica as an example of what can go wrong when parents send their children to such places with little information and limited or no contact.

Youths at the Jamaica academy were abused,? beaten, “waterboarded” and held in solitary? confinement, Hilton said in her testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee. Some were from adoptive families, she said.

“Their parents had adopted them when they were young, promised them a better life, and then shipped them off to an international facility to be warehoused there until they turned 18,” she said.

Her appearance at the Jamaica court hearing created a sensation when her motorcade pulled up at the courthouse, according to the Sunday Times story. It made the story front-page news in Jamaica.

“Every head turns as a blue-light police motorcade pulls into the car-park,” the story said. “A vision of blonde perfection emerges from a car, wearing the serious expression of a woman who means business. The boys get out of their bus, stunned, and one by one Hilton hugs them. She listens as they tell their stories about what they suffered at (the academy) before they are filed into the courtroom.”

No one showed up on behalf of three of the eight boys including Bevin’s son, the story said.?

Afterwards, the three are sent away with Jamaican child protection officials who try to reassure them.

“The boys stare at their feet, broken and lost,” the Times story said.

The ’broken machine’

In his campaign for governor, Bevin early on attacked the state’s adoption and foster care system, calling the agency within the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services, a “convoluted, backward, broken machine.”

Bevin’s chief complaint, one he cited often during his campaign and after he was elected governor, was that he and his wife were rejected as potential adoptive parents by cabinet social service officials because they already had five biological children at home.

The decision came, he said, after the Bevins sought state approval as adoptive parents in hopes of adopting a young girl in foster care their children had met on a local playground.

After the Bevins went through extensive work including background checks, home inspections and parenting classes at their own expense, they were rejected, Matt Bevin said,

“It was ultimately determined by someone with a clipboard and a notebook that having a sixth child in a family would not afford her with enough attention,” Bevin told a reporter in 2015 while he was running for governor. “I could not believe it.”

So the Bevins decided on an international adoption, the couple told KET host Renee Shaw in the 2017 interview after he was elected governor.

Initially, the Bevins had arranged to adopt a single child from Ethiopia but then changed their plans after learning of three siblings from that country also in need of a home. The adoption of all four children took place in 2012.

“Suddenly we had nine children,” Bevin said.

The four adopted children had no difficulty assimilating into the Bevins’ household—even though they were a different race and spoke a different language, the couple said in the KET interview.

“It really wasn’t a big adjustment,” said Glenna Bevin, who as Kentucky’s first lady took on improving adoption and foster care as her primary cause.

“Kids are amazing,” Matt Bevin said. “It really has been a very, very seamless transition.”

At some point? after Bevin lost his bid for a second term as governor in 2019, his teenage adopted son was sent away to a school in Florida, the Times story said. Last year, it said, the youth was moved to the facility in Jamaica.

Citizen Foster Care Review Boards?are hosting virtual town halls around Kentucky this month. (Getty Images)

The public is invited to virtual town hall meetings this month to discuss how to improve outcomes for Kentucky families and children in the foster care system. The meetings are hosted by Citizen Foster Care Review Boards.

The first regional meeting was Aug. 1. Others will be held Aug, 6, 13 and 16. Registration is required.

Findings from the meetings will be reported to the Kentucky Citizen Foster Care Review Board and will be included in its annual recommendations to the Supreme Court, governor and legislature, according to a news release from the Administrative Office of the Courts, which administers the program.

The Citizen Foster Care Review Boards, created in 1982, also are seeking members. Get more information and apply at bit.ly/CFCRBvolunteer.

Regional meetings are among the reforms called for in House Bill 1, the adoption and foster care legislation enacted in 2018 to improve outcomes for children in out-of-home care.

Here is the meeting schedule:
Aug. 6
11 a.m.-noon CT/noon- 1 p.m. ET
Registration required at https://kcoj.info/Aug6CFCRB.
For residents in these counties: Adair, Bath, Bell, Boyd, Breathitt, Carter, Casey, Clay, Clinton, Cumberland, Elliott, Floyd, Green, Greenup, Harlan, Jackson, Johnson, Knott, Knox, Laurel, Lawrence, Leslie, Letcher, Lewis, Magoffin, Marion, Martin, McCreary, Menifee, Monroe, Montgomery, Morgan, Perry, Pike, Powell, Pulaski, Rockcastle, Rowan, Russell, Taylor, Washington, Wayne, Whitley and Wolfe

Aug. 13
11 a.m.-noon CT/noon – 1 p.m. ET
Registration required at https://kcoj.info/Aug13CFCRB.
For residents in these counties: Bullitt, Fayette and Jefferson

Aug. 16
11 a.m. -noon CT/noon -1 p.m. ET
Registration required at https://kcoj.info/Aug16CFCRB.
For residents in these counties: Anderson, Boone, Bourbon, Boyle, Bracken, Campbell, Carroll, Clark, Estill, Fleming, Franklin, Gallatin, Garrard, Grant, Harrison, Henry, Jessamine, Kenton, Lee, Lincoln, Madison, Mason, Mercer, Nicholas, Oldham, Owen, Owsley, Pendleton, Robertson, Scott, Shelby, Spencer, Trimble and Woodford

Kentucky Auditor Allison Ball, center, spoke to lawmakers on July 30 about access to computerized records of child and elder abuse cases. Ombudsman Jonathan Grate is at left and Alexander Magera, general counsel in the auditor's office, is at right. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)

FRANKFORT — Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services and the state auditor’s office said Tuesday they are open to entering a memorandum of understanding to ensure the office of the ombudsman has the access it needs to a computer system that stores information about abuse and neglect cases.?

The two parties are still hashing out the language of such an agreement, though.?

This comes after some back-and-forth between the cabinet and state Auditor Allison Ball, whose office now oversees the ombudsman. That move happened on July 1 thanks to a new law enacted last? year by the legislature — Senate Bill 48 — that moved the office from the cabinet to the Auditor of Public Accounts.?

Welcome move to boost child protection in Kentucky trips over conflicting views of the law

The ombudsman, whose job it is to investigate and resolve complaints about cabinet agencies including protective services for children and elderly Kentuckians,, can’t do that job without access to iTWIST, (the Workers Information System), Ball testified before the Interim Joint Committee on Families and Children.?

“I don’t think that there’s any issue about, any disagreement about, whether or not … we need the access,” she said. “It’s totally clear, we need the access. But right now, we’re being prevented from the access.”??

The database includes suspected child or elderly abuse and neglect case reports, investigations and findings records and other medically sensitive information.?

The cabinet believes access to the computer system iTWIST is limited by state law to cabinet social service officials under Kentucky Revised Statute 620.050, with some exceptions for certain parties within the cabinet, law enforcement and prosecutors, outside medical or social service officials and the parent or guardian of the child in question, the Lantern has reported.?

The state auditor’s office believes the ombudsman is covered under that statute.?

Eric Friedlander, Cabinet for Health and Family Services secretary, said SB 48, which reorganized several government operations, “was a big bill” and that all of its provisions have been carried with resoling access to the database being the only remaining stumbing block.?

“Everything has been done and completed — we have one issue,” he said. “And this is where we have a disagreement, but we will continue to try to work through it.”??

No need to further victimize children through legislative ineptitude or gubernatorial stubbornness

The auditor wants to make sure no language in a memorandum of understanding limits her access to the court system should she need it, she said.?

“We’re not trying to shut off their avenue to any court,” said Wesley Duke, the cabinet’s general counsel.?

Meanwhile, Ball said confidentiality is important to her and the new ombudsman, Jonathan Grate.?

“Of course, we’re going to comply with the law. Of course, we’re going to keep confidentiality,” Ball said. “Our goal is making sure the public is served, vulnerable communities are served, children are served, the elderly who are in positions of being possibly abused, these people are protected. So that is our goal. I believe them when they say that they want to do that, too.”??

Several lawmakers said they will pass legislation in 2025 to clarify the ombudsman should have access to the iTWIST system.?

Meanwhile, Ball said, complaints from the public continue to pour in.?

“It needs to be resolved very, very quickly,” she said. “We’ve had almost a month providing almost no services to these people who are being impacted by this.”?

Senate Majority Caucus Chair Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville, asks officials from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services about the implementation of Senate Bill 151, a measure on relative and fictive kin caregivers. The discussion was part of Tuesday’s Interim Joint Committee on Families and Children.(LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — Kentucky Republican lawmakers slammed the Beshear administration Tuesday for “picking and choosing” what laws to implement amid funding disputes that threaten 2024 laws to help kinship care families and create a statewide child abuse reporting system.?

Eric Friedlander, the secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, repeatedly told lawmakers during the Interim Joint Committee on Families and Children that the cabinet needs appropriations from the legislature to implement the new laws in question.?

“This is a specific program that has a cost,” he said. “It needs to be funded.”?

When pressed if his team had looked into federal grant money to help with implementation, Friedlander replied: “I think we can ask. And we’ll be happy to ask.”?

‘Flabbergasted:’ Help for kinship care families passed unanimously. $20M price tag could derail it.

Rep. Samara Heavrin, R-Leitchfield, the committee’s co-chair, said she finds it “very concerning” that the cabinet said there was no money when it had yet to inquire about federal funds.?

“I find it even more funny that currently in the administration that you all serve, there’s rumor that the governor will be running for vice president,” Heavrin said. “And what a fantastic opportunity to show his working relationship with the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the federal government, and how well they could work together.” ?Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has received national attention as a potential running mate to Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ presumptive nominee for president.

The Lantern previously reported on the funding dispute, which includes a $20 million price tag on one bill and a $43 million one on another; the legislature didn’t allocate funding for the bills during the 2024 budget session. The Beshear administration says it’s not responsible for finding the money and cannot implement the laws without an allocation.?

The first bill discussed Tuesday, Senate Bill 151, allows relatives who take temporary custody of a child when abuse or neglect is suspected to later become eligible for foster care payments. The Cabinet for Health and Family Services has said it cannot implement the law without $20 million.?

Some new Kentucky laws are in limbo as governor says lawmakers failed to fund them

The second, House Bill 271, mandates creation of a statewide system for reporting child abuse 24/7 that the administration estimates would cost $43 million. Friedlander said this bill would require the cabinet to increase the load social workers carry in a time when the state has a shortage of social workers.

‘Picking and choosing’?

Beshear alerted lawmakers in an April 10 letter to what he called a funding omission — five days after he signed SB 151 into law. He asked them to use the final two days of the 2024 session to appropriate the $20 million.

Beshear cited a Kentucky Supreme Court decision from 2005 during? former Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s administration, saying if the legislature doesn’t provide funding to implement a policy, then it “does not intend for the executive branch to perform those services over the biennium.”

House Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. David Meade, R-Stanford, criticized Beshear and said the case shouldn’t apply to this situation since it arose after the General Assembly failed to pass a budget for the 2004-2006 budget cycle.?

“This is just another example of the executive branch picking and choosing what they want to do,” said Meade. “This is funding that we’re talking about for kinship care, some of our most needy families in this state. These are political games that have been played for the last four years and it infuriates me that he continues to play them right now with these most needy families.”?

During the committee, Louisville Republican Sen. Julie Raque Adams, the Majority Caucus chair and primary sponsor of SB 151, asked Friedlander about any programs in the cabinet that are funded with general cabinet dollars.?

He said there are “many appropriations” within the cabinet budget, “particularly those that are ongoing across the biennium.”?

“I believe that the cabinet funds programs that are not codified in state law,” she said. “I believe that (the department for community based services) funds programs that are not codified in state law. This — 151 — is codified. So the thought is, how can you find things that are not line itemed in the state budget, and then claim you can’t do this because it’s not line itemed in the state budget?”?

“This is a specific program and a specific piece of legislation that has a cost associated with it,” Friedlander replied. “We communicated that on multiple occasions.”?

He also said: “We do not have a policy disagreement. What we have is a funding disagreement.”?

‘Floored’ and ‘disappointed’?

Norma Hatfield, the president of Kinship Families Coalition of Kentucky, told the Lantern after the meeting that she is “floored” and “disappointed” by the delay in a solution for families like herself who are raising relatives.?

“I just can’t believe this is happening,” Hatfield said. “This is wrong.”?

She testified during committee that there are parts of the law that wouldn’t require funding — like asking children being removed from their home which relative they’d like to live with.?

During the next committee meeting, on Aug. 28, the cabinet will return and give an update on inquiries into any available federal funds.?

In the meantime, Raque Adams told the Lantern, she’s worried the cabinet is susceptible to a lawsuit that would only drain funds further.?

“We need to focus on getting money into establishing this program for those vulnerable kids,” she said. “We don’t need to waste more cabinet resources on a lawsuit.”??

Michelle Tynes, of Hickory, in Graves County with her grandson, Ashton. (Photo provided).

Increasingly worried about suspected abuse of her young grandson, Michelle Tynes said she battled for years with Kentucky social service workers to act on what she said was the deplorable situation in the Western Kentucky home where he and four other children lived.

“I made multiple reports,” said Tynes, who eventually won full custody of her grandson in 2019 after a lengthy court battle. “I reported and reported. They would do nothing.”

So Tynes, who lives in Graves County, turned to the ombudsman within the Cabinet for Health and Family Services — an office supposed to investigate and resolve complaints about cabinet agencies including child welfare services.

“I made multiple reports to the ombudsman’s office about them not doing anything,” Tynes said.

The result?

“Nothing. I never did get a call back,” she said. “Nothing.”

Tynes, based on her experience, said she’s glad that the Kentucky General Assembly enacted a law to move the ombudsman’s office from inside the cabinet to the office of the state Auditor of Public Accounts, effective July 1.

The move was meant to provide outside oversight and end “the practice of the cabinet investigating itself,” said Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, the sponsor of the 2023 bill to make the change.

But nearly a month after state Auditor Allison Ball’s office was supposed to launch the new ombudsman’s office, the Republican auditor is at an impasse with the administration of Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, over access to a central computer system known as TWIST the cabinet uses to house confidential records of child abuse and neglect cases.

TWIST (short for The Workers Information System) contains reports of suspected child abuse or neglect, records of investigations and findings, and extensive and often sensitive information about families’ histories, medical records, mental health, substance use and criminal histories. It also contains similar details of cases involving suspected abuse or exploitation of vulnerable or elderly adults.

Access to TWIST is strictly limited by state law to cabinet social service officials? under Kentucky Revised Statute 620.050, with some exceptions for certain parties within the cabinet, law enforcement and prosecutors, outside medical or social service officials and the parent or guardian of the child in question.

The state auditor’s office is not among those parties allowed access to TWIST under current statute, Beshear’s administration said.

“The cabinet supports the auditor’s office desire to have full access to the system, but current statutes passed by the General Assembly prohibit it,” a cabinet spokeswoman told the Lantern in a statement.

Auditor’s ‘demand letter’

On July 9, Ball fired off a “demand letter” to Eric Friedlander, secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, insisting that the law does allow her newly-established ombudsman’s office access to TWIST.

Ball’s letter cites a section of Senate Bill 48, the 2023 law moving the ombudsman to her office that requires that all “staff, personnel, files, equipment, resources, funding and administrative resources” be transferred to the auditor.

Lawmakers who approved the legislation “unequivocally expressed that their intention was to provide the ombudsman with full, direct and real-time access to iTwist,” Ball’s letter said.

But what SB 48 does not do is amend the separate law that governs the confidentiality of TWIST, KRS 620.050.

One example of how that was done was in 2013, when the legislature approved a law to create an independent panel to review all cases of deaths or serious injuries from child abuse and neglect.?

The enabling legislation, House Bill 290, amended the law governing access to the TWIST system specifically to include members of the External Child Fatality and Near Fatality Review Panel.

First Amendment lawyer Michael Abate, who is familiar with the TWIST statute, said that while it allows access to confidential records by some agencies, the language does not appear to include the state auditor.

“It might make sense to allow the auditor to have access to those records if they want to fill the ombudsman’s role,” he said.

But the bill moving the ombudsman to the auditor doesn’t change the language of the statute restricting access to TWIST.

“That seems like a real oversight in drafting the bill,” he said.

In comments to reporters on July 11, Beshear said the law needs to be changed if the auditor wants access to TWIST, suggesting such changes could be made when the General Assembly next meets in January.

“I’m sure the General Assembly intended for the ombudsman to be able to do what they need to do and I support them having the access, but we have a written statute that is on the books that says we can’t provide certain access,” Beshear said.

Ball has not received a reply to the demand letter, a spokeswoman for Ball, Joy Pidgorodetska Markland, said Tuesday. Markland said Ball is scheduled to update lawmakers on the situation July 30 at the interim joint Committee on Families and Children.

TWIST records ‘mind-blowing’

Meanwhile, Tynes, the Graves County grandmother, said she doesn’t see how the new ombudsman’s office can investigate any complaints about child abuse or neglect without access to TWIST.

She was able to obtain the TWIST file for her grandson and other children in the? home as part of her court fight to get custody of her grandson, which she won in 2019.

Tynes said the file was voluminous.

“I have nine years’ worth of TWIST reports,” she said. “I still have it in a storage box and it’s not a little box.”

When she was able to obtain the file, through the legal case she pursued in family court, she was shocked at the multiple reports of child abuse or neglect not only from herself but from school and day care workers, medical providers and others.

“It was mind-blowing,” she said. “It was just astounding, the amount of evidence.”

Tynes said she believes that, had an outside ombudsman been able to get a look at the case, it would have taken far less time than the nine years and prolonged legal battle it took for her to get custody of her grandson and have the other children removed from the home.

“They (the cabinet ombudsman) never did do anything about it,” she said.

Among supporters of moving the ombudsman outside the cabinet was Kentucky Youth Advocates, which said it would “create an independent place for people to contact with concerns and reduce potential conflicts of interest.”

A ‘deep, dark hole’

Norma Hatfield, a longtime advocate for “kinship care” relatives — grandparents or other family members who take in children in cases of abuse or neglect — said she too believes the state needs an outside ombudsman to investigate complaints.

Hatfield said she has worked with multiple relatives, including Tynes, to file complaints with the cabinet’s ombudsman.

Often, she or the families never get a response — let alone results.

“I would send something in and it would be like some deep, dark hole,” she said. “You never even get any confirmation.”

As for access to TWIST, Hatfield said that is vital to any meaningful investigation about complaints of how the cabinet handles abuse or neglect cases of children or vulnerable adults.

“They have to have access to that information,” Hatfield said. “If they can’t get access to the files they need, they’re not going to be able do an investigation.”

Hatfield said she can’t speak to the dispute between the cabinet and the auditor over the law governing access to TWIST but said the parties need to get it resolved.

“It has to change, it really does,” she said. “Hopefully, it’s about doing the right thing regardless of political issues and organizational charts.”

Free vaccines are available in Kentucky at public health departments and private medical offices through the Vaccines for Children program. (Getty Images)

Kentucky’s outbreak of whooping cough comes amid a decline in childhood vaccinations, which a health insurance industry group is looking to combat by funding a messaging campaign to address vaccine hesitancy and increase immunization rates.?

“This outbreak is a stark reminder of what can happen when immunization rates fall,” Tom Stevens, the president of the Kentucky Association of Health Plans (KAHP), told reporters on a call Tuesday. “It’s not just about individual protection. It’s about community immunity.”

In response to the problem, KAHP is giving Kentucky Voices for Health $360,000 over the next three years to spend primarily on public service commercials for television and radio.? The grant money will be split into $120,000 per year.?

Kentucky has more cases of the highly contagious whooping cough than it has since 2019. There are no known deaths as of July 23. Of Kentucky’s 2024 cases, four infants, one school-aged child and three adults have been hospitalized, according to the cabinet.?

Most cases are in children of school-going age, though some cases are in infants — who are most at risk for complications — toddlers and adults, according to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.?

Meanwhile, Kentucky’s low rate of vaccination “puts our children at unnecessary risk and it strains our health care system,” Stevens said.?

“Immunizations are one of the most effective public health interventions we have,” he said. “They protect our children from preventable diseases and help maintain the overall health of our communities.”

The nonprofit will measure its campaign success on a few factors, according to Kelly Taulbee, the director of communications and development for Kentucky Voices for Health. Those include an increase in school-aged children getting vaccinated and a decrease in the number of kids sick and hospitalized.??

The COVID effect?

Taulbee pointed to the “polarization” of the COVID-19 pandemic as setting vaccinations back during a time many children stayed home from in-person schooling and other events.?

After COVID-19 vaccines hit the market in late 2020, myths quickly spread about the shots. In early 2022, Volunteers of America told The Courier Journal that social media -fueled misinformation was a driving force behind lower-than-desirable vaccine rates across Kentucky.?

Misinformation persists in 2024, when Kentucky lawmakers made false claims about vaccines during the legislative session.?

“Kentucky has still not recovered to pre-pandemic levels” of vaccination,” Taulbee said. “That drop in community immunity is fueling the return of these vaccine-preventable illnesses like measles and pertussis.”

And, she said, “families really can no longer afford to treat these diseases and the vaccines that can prevent their spread as an afterthought.”?

In 2022 the World Health Organization blamed the pandemic for the biggest drop in childhood vaccinations in 30 years.?

The National Library of Medicine also published a paper in 2024 that blamed a “resurgence of measles cases” on “decades of false claims of vaccine adverse events that have included a misleading association with autism, vaccine complacency and hesitancy, and reduced childhood vaccination rates during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.”?

How accessible are vaccines in Kentucky??

During the 2024 legislative session, Russell Republican Rep. Danny Bentley got a law passed that makes it easier for children to get routine vaccinations.?

House Bill 274, which allows Kentucky pharmacies to continue administering vaccines to children ages 5-17 with parental or guardian consent, went into effect this month.?

“It’s such a simpler access point that we want families to keep in mind,” Taulbee said. “Everybody’s busy. It is a go-go-go, six-second paced life and so if it’s easy for you to pick up dinner, pop into Walgreens and get your child shots on the way home, it’s a lot easier for some families instead of having to take off work and run around town and get to places before they close at 4, 4:30.”?

People can also call the Kentucky Infectious Disease and Vaccine Call Center at 855-598-2246 for help finding a provider, Taulbee said.?

“And please, never ever look at cost to be an issue,” she added. Most childhood vaccines can be received for free — from Kentucky’s public health departments or private medical providers — through the Vaccines for Children program, which is federally funded and was launched in 1993.?

“We want to make sure,” Taulbee said, “that every Kentucky student has the best possible start to the new school year and is ready for success both inside and outside of the classroom.”?

Rebekah Bruesehoff, a transgender student athlete, speaks at a press conference on LGBTQI+ rights, at the U.S. Capitol on March 8, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Bruesehoff spoke out against a proposed national trans sports ban being considered by Republicans on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

A federal appellate court has upheld blocking central parts of new Title IX rules from the Biden administration and granted an expedited hearing in October.?

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed Wednesday to block the rules from taking effect Aug. 1, shortly before most schools begin their academic year. The rules, created by the U.S. Department of Education, were aimed at protecting students from discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.?

Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote in the majority opinion that all judges on the panel agreed the central parts of the rules should not take effect on Aug. 1.?

“It is hard to see how all of the schools covered by Title IX could comply with this wide swath of new obligations if the Rule’s definition of sex discrimination remains enjoined,” Sutton said. “Harder still, we question how the schools could properly train their teachers on compliance in this unusual setting with so little time before the start of the new school year.”?

Judge Andre Mathis wrote in a dissenting opinion that he would grant a partial stay, as requested by the Department of Education.?

“I am cognizant of Plaintiffs’ argument that the benefits of enacting the Rule’s unchallenged provisions are outweighed by the expense or confusion of phased implementation,” Mathis wrote. “But most of the expense is attributable to provisions that Plaintiffs neither directly challenge nor cite as a source of harm.”?

The lawsuit was filed by Republican attorneys general in six states — Kentucky, Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia.?

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said in a statement that Title IX, which was established more than 50 years ago, “created equal opportunities for women and young girls in the classroom and on the field.” The Sixth Circuit ruling, he added, made it the first appellate court “to stop President Biden’s blatant assault on these fundamental protections.”?

“This ruling is a victory for common sense itself, and it’s a major relief for Kentucky families,” Coleman said. “As Attorney General and as a Dad, we’ll keep up the fight for my girls and for women across Kentucky so they can continue to fulfill their potential for the next 50 years and beyond.”

Madelyn Spalding, who works with the Kentucky LGBTQ+ youth-focused Louisville Youth Group and is a facilitator with the Kentuckiana Transgender Support Group, said it was “clear that the attorney general doesn’t care about these kids” who are part of the LGBTQ+ community in K-12 schools. She also added that as a transgender adult, she’s worried Coleman will use the arguments against the Title IX rules “as a roadmap to go after transgender adults.”

Spalding said blocking the Title IX rules would “create conditions that ostracize, exclude, erase, silence these youth with no repercussions.” Spalding added that adults who could speak up for students in these situations might lose school administrations’ support.

Spalding called it “disingenuous and harmful” to suggest that transgender kids are taking opportunities away from cisgender women or girls.

“I worry for the opportunities that are being taken away from women who are trans or cis(gender) being able to equally compete in ways that don’t boil down to essentially just their sex,” Spalding said. “It’s going to limit opportunities across the board and create social hierarchies, and what they’re doing is ingraining those — they’re enshrining those right now in the schools to keep down a certain type of student and show them there’s no place for them at the school.”

In June, Chief Judge Danny Reeves of the U.S. District Court in Eastern Kentucky sided with Coleman and the other five GOP attorneys general. The judge said the Department of Education “seeks to derail deeply rooted law” with its proposed Title IX rules.?

“At bottom, the Department would turn Title IX on its head by redefining ‘sex’ to include ‘gender identity.’ But ‘sex’ and ‘gender identity’ do not mean the same thing,” Reeves wrote. “The Department’s interpretation conflicts with the plain language of Title IX and therefore exceeds its authority to promulgate regulations under that statute.”?

Established in 1972, Title IX was created to prevent “discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance,” according to the Department of Education.

Coleman’s office said in a press release that K-12 schools that failed to comply with the new Title IX rules would have risked losing federal funding. Kentucky’s public and private schools received a total of $1.1 billion in federal funding last year.

The Biden administration introduced the rules to “build on the legacy of Title IX by clarifying that all our nation’s students can access schools that are safe, welcoming, and respect their rights,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona previously said in a statement. The rules also would have rolled back Trump administration changes that narrowly defined sexual harassment and directed schools to conduct live hearings, allowing those who were accused of sexual harassment or assault to cross-examine their accusers.

The Lantern has sought comment from the U.S. Department of Education on the latest ruling.

This story was updated with additional comments.?

Kentucky had many fewer maternity care providers than the national average in 2022 — 69 per 100,000 women ages 15–44 compared with an average of 79 nationally.?(Getty Images)

As the worst of COVID-19 subsided in 2022 and a trigger law banning most abortions went into effect upon the fall of Roe v. Wade, Kentucky was already among the worst-performing states for women’s health.?

This insight comes from The Commonwealth Fund’s 2024 State Scorecard on Women’s Health and Reproductive Care, a first-of-its kind ranking that examined health outcomes, insurance coverage, abortion restrictions and other measures in all states and Washington D.C.?

Data is mostly from 2021 and 2022 and was collected primarily from public sources like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.?

Released Thursday, the report shows Kentucky had many fewer maternity care providers than the national average in 2022 — 69 per 100,000 women ages 15–44 compared with an average of 79 nationally.?

Kentucky women between the ages of 18 and 44 are also less likely than the national average to report seeing a medical provider for a routine checkup, the report shows.?

“Based on the evidence and data, one thing is absolutely clear: women’s health in the U.S. is in a very fragile state,”? Dr. Joseph Betancourt, the Commonwealth Fund president, said during a Wednesday press call.?

“There are stark disparities in women’s access to quality health care among states, across racial, ethnic and socio economic lines,” Betancourt said. “These inequities are long standing no doubt, but recent policy choices and judicial decisions for restricting access to reproductive care have and may continue to exacerbate them.”??

The report’s goal, Betancourt said, is to offer states and the nation a “vital baseline for tracking the ripple effects” of the United States Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion as well as “impacts of new policy restrictions on reproductive care.”?

Researchers said Wednesday on a national press call that where a woman lives can indicate a lot about her ability to access and afford all kinds of health care.?

“We are seeing a deep and likely growing geographic divide in U.S. women’s ability to access vital health services and maintain their health, particularly among women of reproductive age,” said Sara Collins, one of the research authors.?

In Kentucky, a“trigger law” went into effect upon the high court’s Roe reversal. Now, abortions in the state are banned in most cases.?

Also in 2022, Kentucky voters rejected an anti-abortion amendment that would have stated definitely that? there is no right to an abortion in Kentucky’s Constitution.

Kentucky does not have exceptions for rape or incest, though both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have filed unsuccessful bills to change that in recent years. There is an exception in cases where the life of the pregnant person is at risk.

The scorecard report is “generally reflecting what was happening in 2022,” explained David Radley, one of the research authors. “So, after the main impacts of COVID, but largely before or concurrent … with the implementation of state abortion bans immediately following the Dobbs decision.”?

“We expect to update this report over time to track how state policy actions — specifically how new restrictions on access to abortion services — impact women’s health and the care they receive,” Radley said during a Wednesday press call.?

Maternal, infant death rates higher in Kentucky than nation

Some key takeaways from the report include:

• From 2020-2022, Kentucky had a rate of 31.4 maternal deaths while pregnant or within 42 days of termination per 100,000 live births. That’s higher than the national average of 26.3.?
• In 2021, Kentucky’s infant mortality rate was higher than the national average — 6.2 per 1,000 live births compared with 5.4 nationally.?
• All-cause mortality among women ages 15-44 in 2022 was 176.3 per 100,000, far higher than the national average of 110.3. Kentucky is one of the worst in the nation on this point. “Suicide, cancer and complications from pregnancy are among the leading causes of death for women in this age range,” Radley said. If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, call or text the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.?

Some data was not available for Kentucky, including the percentage of women who were asked about depression in their postpartum care or the percentage of women who got a flu shot within a 1-year time span before or after delivery.?

The report also does not show the percentage of women who self-reported having postpartum depression symptoms or the percentage of women who experienced intimate partner violence around delivery.?

Other takeaways from the report include:?

• 73% of Kentucky women between the ages of 50-74 reported getting a mammogram in the last two years compared with 77% nationally.?
• 80% of Kentucky women ages 21-65 reported getting a pap smear in the past three years, compared with 82% nationally.?
• 69% of Kentucky women 65 and older received a pneumonia vaccine, compared with 73% nationally.?
• 33% of Kentucky women between the ages of 18-64 have received an HIV or AIDS test, compared with 44% nationally.?
• 65% of Kentucky women between 45-74 reported getting a sigmoidoscopy or a colonoscopy in the past decade or a fecal occult blood test in the past two years, compared with 60% nationally.

Bright spots

While Kentucky performed poorly overall, data shows a few points where the state did better than the national average.

In 2022, for example, 6% of women in Kentucky between 19-64 reported not having health insurance. That’s lower than the 10% national average.?

Additionally, 12% of Kentucky women between 18-44 said in 2022 they’d needed to see a doctor in the past year but couldn’t afford to. That’s lower than the national average of 17%. Kentucky also has a higher rate of women in this age group who have someone they think of as their health care provider.?

Dr. Laurie C. Zephyrin, one of the study authors and the senior vice president for advancing health equity at The Commonwealth Fund, said in a statement that “it is disheartening to see the rising disparities in women’s health across the nation.”?

“Our country’s fractured landscape of reproductive health access will make it even more difficult to close these widening gaps, especially for women with low incomes and women of color in states with restricted access to reproductive care,” said Zephyrin. “Instead of limiting care, federal and state policymakers should work to ensure that women have access to the full continuum of care throughout their lives.”

The Commonwealth Fund, founded in 1918, is a charitable foundation focused on promoting “a high-performing, equitable health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society’s most vulnerable, including people of color, people with low income, and those who are uninsured.”

A Valentine meet and greet benefit with Ethan in 2022 sold out. (Kentucky Humane Society)

Legislators and advocates who pushed for years to make dog and cat torture a felony on first offense gathered in the Capitol Rotunda Tuesday to celebrate a new Kentucky law that does just that.?

House Bill 258, also called Ethan’s Law, allows a person to be charged with a Class D felony the first and every time they torture a dog or cat. It was previously a Class A misdemeanor on first offense and Class D felony after that.?

The law’s namesake, Ethan, won hearts over as he recovered from severe neglect in 2021. During the session, Ethan, primarily a brindle Presa Canario, came several times to Frankfort to testify in favor of it.?

It passed the legislature this year with bipartisan support and Gov Andy Beshear signed it into law in April. It went into effect Monday.?

The new law defines torture as the “intentional infliction of or subjection to extreme physical pain or serious injury or death to a dog or cat, motivated by intent or wanton disregard that causes, increases, or prolongs the pain or suffering of the dog or cat, including serious physical injury or infirmity.”?

Ethan’s owner, Jeff Callaway, has said that after being sold as a puppy, Ethan was traded for drugs and endured a “hellish” chapter of his life that ultimately led to him being abandoned in the Kentucky Humane Society parking lot. Veterinarians nursed him back to health, which included helping him gain around 50 pounds and learn to walk again.

Louisville Republican Susan Witten, who sponsored Ethan’s Law, said Tuesday that it “makes Kentucky a better place to live — not just for dogs and cats that we love but for every community, for every person in our community.”?

That’s because, she and others pointed out, research suggests people who harm animals are more likely to hurt people.?

“It’s unimaginable the pain our furry friends can go through when they’re left helpless (in) restraints,” Secretary of State Michael Adams said. “These animals suffer broken bones, starvation, even impalement.”?

He praised the legislative move to “keep our best friends safe, and punish those who hurt them.”?

The review panel’s next review of child deaths in Kentucky comes out in February 2025. The 2024 report showed children 4 years old and younger were the most at risk for overdose. The panel also found “a significant increase” in firearm injuries in children, the Lantern previously reported. (Getty Images)

If you suspect child abuse or neglect, call the Cabinet for Health and Family Services Child Abuse Reporting Hotline at 1-800-752-6200.?

Kentucky’s Child Fatality and Near Fatality External Review Panel has a full complement of members for the first time in several years, analysts told members of the Legislative Oversight & Investigations Committee Thursday.

For about four years the panel slot reserved for a practicing social worker was vacant, with the exception of a six-day stint in January 2023, committee analyst Jacob Blevins told lawmakers.?

Youngest Kentuckians increasingly fall victim to accidental overdoses

That position was filled June 6.?

After the former social work clinician retired in 2020, there was a period of about two years during which the Kentucky Board of Social Work did not forward recommendations for new members to the attorney general, Blevins said.?

In recent years state government has suffered from a shortage of social workers, a trend that started to reverse in 2023. Marc Kelly, the executive director of the Kentucky Board of Social Work, said this was “an issue with appointing people” to the panel.?

“Finding Licensed Clinical Social Workers for the panel has been challenging,” Kelly said. “However applications for Licensed Clinical Social Workers have recently increased so we are hopeful that this will not be a problem going forward.”

In January 2023, “An appointee was selected by the attorney general,” Blevins said, “but immediately resigned due to professional obligations.”?

The panel, established in 2012 to review child deaths and near-deaths from abuse or neglect, has five ex officio non voting members and 17 voting members.?

The social work clinician, Allison Motley-Crouch of Salt Lick, is a voting member. Motley-Crouch will serve a two-year term ending June 30, 2026.?

The panel’s next report comes out in February 2025. The 2024 report showed an increase in children dying from drug overdoses, especially children 4 years old and younger. The panel also found “a significant increase” in firearm injuries in children, the Lantern previously reported.?

The Kentucky Capitol in Frankfort on Feb. 27, 2024. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Arden Barnes)

Gov. Andy Beshear said he hopes his administration and state Auditor Allison Ball’s office “can work through” access issues around a database in a Thursday press conference.?

Earlier this week, Ball, a Republican, sent a “demand letter” to Beshear, a Democrat, and Cabinet for Health and Family Services Secretary Eric Friedlander over access to the database, iTWIST, which includes abuse and neglect reports and cabinet case files. She said the cabinet refused to allow the Commonwealth Office of the Ombudsman access to records in the database.?

When asked about the letter Thursday, Beshear said the issue “isn’t some dramatic disagreement that has any type of political tones at all” and arose after changes to the ombudsman’s office. In 2023, the legislature created the Commonwealth Office of the Ombudsman, an independent office attached to the auditor’s office, effective July 1. It replaced the Office of the Ombudsman and Administrative Review, previously part of the cabinet.?

Beshear said statutes about what access the previous office had access to were not updated to reflect the new office, limiting access to what can be shared with someone outside of the cabinet.?

“I’m sure the General Assembly intended for the ombudsman to be able to do what they need to do, and I support them having the access, but we have a written statute that is on the books that says we can’t provide certain access,” Beshear said. “And I don’t think the General Assembly is going to tell me that if you think that you know what we wanted you to do, then you can ignore the other statutes that we passed on the books.”?

The governor said the ombudsman’s office wants full access to the database, but the cabinet feels “like they’d be violating the law.”?

“This is something that I hope we can work through in a way that works until January, and then ultimately, we can get a statutory — either revocation for the limitations or a change that helps us to get this done,” Beshear said. “But it would be an interesting precedent if different chairmen or chairwomen of the General Assembly told me I can ignore certain statutes on the books because of what they were trying to do.”?

Joy Pidgorodetska Markland, communications director in the auditor’s office, wrote in an email to the Kentucky Lantern Thursday that Beshear’s administration had “never raised this specific statutory concern despite going through two legislative sessions and numerous meetings with our office and sponsoring legislators” in the past two years. Markland added that the auditor’s office has not received a response from Beshear or the cabinet to the letter sent this week and it “is disingenuous to say that he is working with us.”?

“The statute that governs this transition clearly states that all files and records must be made available to us,” Markland said. “The Cabinet is misconstruing a law in the juvenile code that actually permits our access to the database. Moreover, the juvenile code would have no bearing on adult records that are contained in the database, and therefore, all of those should be made available to us immediately. The Governor wants to say this is a dispute about the law, but it is actually about his decision to obstruct us from protecting children and other vulnerable Kentuckians. On this point, our office continues to receive complaints about the Cabinet everyday.”

Auditor of Public Accounts Allison Ball sent a "demand letter" to the Beshear administration Tuesday. In this photo, she congratulates her campaign team after speaking at an election night celebration, Nov 7, 2023, in Louisville. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Matthew Mueller)

FRANKFORT — The legislature last year moved responsibility for a watchdog office and child support enforcement from the Beshear administration to Republican officeholders.?

Barely out of the gate, one of the transitions is stumbling over a disagreement about access to a child abuse database.?

Republican Auditor of Public Accounts Allison Ball on Tuesday sent what she labeled a “demand letter” to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Cabinet for Health and Family Services Secretary Eric Friedlander. In it she says the cabinet’s refusal to allow access to some electronic records is endangering vulnerable children and federal funding. She demands access to the iTWIST database “as clearly mandated by state and federal law.”

The letter also is signed by Jonathan Grate, the new ombudsman.

In 2023, the legislature created the Commonwealth Office of the Ombudsman, an independent office attached to the auditor’s office, effective July 1 of this year. It replaced the Office of the Ombudsman and Administrative Review, previously part of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS).

The ombudsman is responsible for investigating complaints about the cabinet and evaluating its performance and compliance with federal and state laws. The cabinet oversees a wide range of health, welfare and child protection programs.

A spokesperson for the cabinet told the Lantern that an older state law precludes the new ombudsman from receiving access to the records in dispute. That law specifies exceptions to confidentiality requirements for reports of child abuse and neglect; the new ombudsman is not one of the exceptions listed in the law.

“The cabinet supports the auditor’s office desire to have full access to the system, but the current statutes passed by the General Assembly prohibit it. The cabinet supports changing the applicable laws in the next session to provide full access.?

“In the meantime, we have been working with the auditor’s office to provide them with the maximum access allowed under the current law, but they have refused,” said Stephanie French, a CHFS spokesperson.?

Joy Pidgorodetska Markland, communications director in the auditor’s office, responded that the cabinet’s proposal is unacceptable because it would allow the cabinet to dictate what the ombudsman is “allowed and not allowed to see” and reveal identities of internal whistleblowers.

“In no world is the subject of an investigation allowed to dictate what the investigator can and cannot see,” Markland said in an email. “What is the Cabinet hiding?

In her letter, Ball says the cabinet did not raise objections to the new ombudsman’s access to the records until after the 2024 legislative session ended.?

The shifts in responsibilities from CHFS to the auditor and attorney general were enacted in 2023 in Senate Bill 48 which became law with bipartisan support in the Republican-controlled legislature but without Beshear’s signature.

The transfer of child support enforcement and services to the attorney general’s office does not take effect until this time next year but the AG this month assumed responsibility for administrative hearings previously conducted by CHFS.

In a July 1 release, Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman says: “With over $1 billion in arrears, spearheading the Commonwealth’s child support services is a daunting task. Even though the transition is one year away, we are working with our partners around the clock to make sure we get this right. It’s a no-fail mission where vulnerable children and families are counting on us.”

The sponsor of the bill that made the changes, Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, issued a statement of support for Ball on Tuesday. He said SB 48 grew out of a 2022 task force that examined ways to improve CHFS operations, including by creating an independent ombudsman.

In his statement Meredith said, “This common-sense reform ends the practice of the cabinet investigating itself. The language of this bill is clear and undeniable. It’s worth noting that CHFS did not testify in opposition to the bill. The Governor chose not to veto the legislation. Additionally, CHFS did not contact me to discuss any concerns about transferring this database to this new office during the 2024 Legislative Session.”

What is known about intimate partner violence in Kentucky isn’t the whole picture; research suggests only around 54% of of domestic violence incidents like rape or assault are reported to police.?(Getty Images)

If you or someone you know has experienced domestic violence, call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.?

You can also contact any of Kentucky’s 15 domestic violence programs.?

Over a seven-month period last year, there were nearly 27,000 alleged cases of child abuse with a domestic violence component in Kentucky, the 2023 Domestic Violence Data Report shows.?

From April 22 to Dec. 31, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and help hotlines received 26,582 “unique reports” of child abuse “in which there were also allegations of domestic violence,” according to the statewide report, released Monday.??

Cortney Downs, chief equity officer for Kentucky Youth Advocates, said this number is “pretty alarming.”

“Those are real people, and … this is a significant part of their life, day in and day out,” Downs told the Lantern. “Parents, the non-offending caregivers, are having to think every day about how to keep their kids safe in a very different way than a lot of other parents. You have older siblings who are having to think about how to keep their younger siblings safe in a very different way than a lot of other people.”???

The report also shows the number of adult Kentuckians who experienced intimate partner violence decreased slightly in 2023 from 2022.?

In 2022, the first of its kind report showed about half of Kentucky women — 45.3% — and around 35.5% of men experienced intimate partner violence — or threat of it — in their lifetimes.

The 2023 report shows that from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, that number decreased to 44.5% of women and 32.9% of men.?

This includes, according to the report, “being fearful or concerned for safety, any post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, injury, need for medical care, housing services, victim advocate services, and/or legal services, missing at least one day of work or school, and/or contacting a crisis hotline.”?

The state began gathering this data in compliance with a 2022 Republican bill that directed agencies to annually gather and publish data on domestic and dating violence and abuse.?

Data in it comes from the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet’s Criminal Justice Statistical Analysis Center, Kentucky State Police, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and the Administrative Office of the Courts.

By the numbers?

The report shows that in Kentucky last year:?

• 41,887 electronic JC-3 forms (documenting alleged violence) were filed. This is up from 2022, when there were 38,708 electronic JC-3 forms filed across Kentucky.?
• 7,744 arrests were made for incidents involving domestic or dating violence and abuse. This is down from 2022, when there were 8,867 arrests. The decrease is because the report excluded human trafficking this year, according to the Justice & Public Safety Cabinet, “to help provide the state a better snapshot for progress to be made.”?
• 17,036 emergency protective orders were served by the Kentucky State Police.? This is an increase from 2022, when police served 16,402 emergency protective orders (EPOs), which are short-term restrictions on? the accused’s movements until the issue can go before a judge, which the court system aims to do within two weeks.?
• 15,104 individuals received services from ZeroV’s 15 regional domestic violence programs.
• 23,381 crisis/hotline calls were received through ZeroV’s 15 regional domestic violence programs. This is an increase from the 21,241 crisis calls in 2022.

‘Scary’ to report

What is known about intimate partner violence in Kentucky isn’t the whole picture; research suggests only around 54% of domestic violence incidents like rape or assault are reported to police.?

“The true prevalence and impact of domestic violence goes far beyond the scope of the data captured within this report,” the report says.?

The data that is known “is almost like the tip of the iceberg,” said Downs. “There are probably a lot more people — hundreds, thousands, potentially, of other people — across the state who are experiencing this currently, have experienced intimate partner violence at some point in their lives, and just didn’t say anything.”?

And any amount of interpersonal violence is too much, advocates say.?

Angela Yannelli, the CEO of ZeroV (formerly known as the Kentucky Coalition Against Domestic Violence), said “any level of violence greater than zero is a concern that deserves the attention of our commonwealth.”?

Ending such violence needs a comprehensive approach, she said.?

“We need a strong support system that makes sure everyone can access food, healthcare and housing, which would make it easier for survivors to get away from abusive relationships,” Yannelli said in a statement. “And finally, we need to abolish the cultural norms that allow for and perpetuate (intimate partner violence) to prevent it from happening in the first place.”

Community members — and lawmakers — need to band together to end cycles of violence and the stigma around reporting it, Downs with KYA said.?

“In general, I think it is very hard, it’s very scary, it’s very dangerous to even report at all, to tell anyone about what’s going on,” she said.?

Solutions to ending violence will be different in different areas of the state, Downs said. ?“It’s 2024. This isn’t a new or emerging issue, and so reading this report, to me, felt like an urgent call for action.”?

Lawmakers should work to find solutions to ending violence, she said, and listen to input from the experts in different regions.

“We all know somebody or multiple people who have gone through it. Non-offending parents and their children really cannot afford to have those in positions of power spending another year being just horrified or shocked by the data and then not following through with action.”?

Child care worker Marci Then helps her daughter, Mila, 4, put away toys to get ready for circle time at the Little Learners Academy in Smithfield, Rhode Island. A state program for child care workers subsidizes Mila’s tuition. A handful of other states, including Kentucky, have similar programs, which advocates say has beneficial ripple effects through the state economy. (Photo by Elaine S. Povich/Stateline)

SMITHFIELD, R.I. — Child care worker Marci Then, 32, looked over at two 4-year-olds in her care who were tussling over a toy plate in a model kitchen set. “Are we sharing?” she gently asked them. They both let go.

Then works at Little Learners Academy child care center near Providence, Rhode Island. Her daughter, Mila, 4, is enrolled there, so Then is able to keep a watchful eye on her in addition to about a dozen other 4-year-olds. Mila calls her mother “Miss Marci” at school, but “Mom” at home.

Most of the time, Mila is in another room with a different worker at the center, adhering to rules that don’t allow parent caregivers to watch their own children in a licensed setting. But for today, Mila is around her mom for a bit to show a reporter around.

Mila proudly chirps her age, then helps put toys away so the kids can quietly gather for circle time.

Then said that without help she would not have been able to afford the $315 a week for Mila to come to Little Learners. But she is taking advantage of a one-year state pilot program that authorizes the use of federal funds to pay for care for the children of early education workers.

“It’s been life-changing for me,” said Then, a single mom who is also responsible for a disabled young adult whom she adopted. Without it, “I’d have to rearrange my life.”

In 2022, Kentucky lawmakers changed the employer child care assistance program to specifically include child care workers at all income levels who work at least 20 hours a week. Other states, including Rhode Island, have since launched programs modeled after the one in Kentucky. The Kentucky program was to end Sept. 30, but Stephanie French, spokesperson for the state’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services, wrote in an email that the state will be using a combination of federal and state funding to continue the program.

At least half a dozen states now have similar programs or are considering legislation to start them, according to EdSurge, a news site that covers education issues.

Supporters, including Republicans and Democrats, see retaining child care employees as a benefit not only to the workers and the centers facing worker shortages, but also to the states’ economies. For many people, the lack of affordable child care is a barrier to joining the workforce.

Charlene Barbieri, founder and owner of four Little Learners Academy locations in Rhode Island, said in an interview that it is difficult to hire and keep qualified employees. The child care subsidy program helps, she said.

“Early learning here is very expensive as we know, right?” Barbieri said. “So any supplemental programs, monetary or otherwise, are exceptionally beneficial.

“We have had many teachers come to us to say that if this program wasn’t here, we could not afford to send our children to child care and still help our families by bringing in additional income,” she said.

Rhode Island lawmakers added the child care subsidy to its fiscal 2025 budget this spring, moving the program out of the “pilot” category. Democratic Gov. Dan McKee is expected to sign the budget this week.

“It’s a good program, and we’ve seen great results with it,” Rhode Island House Speaker Joseph Shekarchi, a Democrat, said in an interview. “We have a labor shortage across the whole spectrum of our labor market. So, by giving [caregivers] free child care, they’re able to get back in and take care of other kids, which allows more people to enter the workforce.”

Other states that have launched programs or are considering them include Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa and Nebraska, according to EdSurge.

The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, a research center at the University of California, Berkeley, estimated that if every state followed Kentucky’s lead, some 234,000 workers with children under age 6 could benefit.

“We see it as a no-brainer,” said Anna Powell, senior research and policy associate at the center, who co-authored a report on the program. “The educators are parents — why shouldn’t they be at the front of the queue? Every time an educator stays in the field, it benefits many parents.”

Budget challenges

In some states, though, budget woes are challenging lawmakers who want to make their pilot program a permanent one.

Arizona had a one-year Education Workforce Scholarship program that assisted child care workers and public school teachers with paying for their own kids’ child care, but that program was funded with federal pandemic dollars and ends June 30. It’s unlikely to be renewed because of state budget shortfalls.

Child care workers who now get that assistance would instead need to apply for aid through the state’s broad child care assistance program. That program, administered by the Arizona Department of Economic Security, is based on income levels, Tasya Peterson, a department spokesperson, wrote in an email to Stateline.

Barbie Prinster, executive director of the Arizona Early Childhood Education Association, a nonprofit that represents child care centers, said 3,541 children were approved for care subsidies under the early educator program this year, about three-quarters of them from families with a child care worker. The rest are from teachers’ families.

She predicted that hundreds of workers may have to quit if the subsidy isn’t renewed.

“I think providers are employing more moms that have young children because of this subsidy,” she said.

In Nebraska, state Sen. John Fredrickson, a Democrat and the dad of a 5-year-old son, introduced a bill this session that would have granted no-cost child care to employees of state-licensed child care programs, whether in-home care or at centers, who work at least 20 hours a week.

He estimated the potential subsidy, which he modeled on Kentucky’s idea, could have brought in 2,175 parent-providers. If each worker cared for eight children, there would be 16,000 children receiving care, and at least that many parents working, he estimated.

Fredrickson said the initial fiscal estimate for the bill was about $20 million, which proved to be a heavy lift, so he halved it to $10 million. But even that proved to be too much, he said, and the effort failed. He plans to reintroduce his bill next year.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, approved a bill May 1 extending a child care subsidy pilot program for early childhood caretakers and educators, regardless of income, for two years at a cost of $10.2 million using the state’s Childcare Development Fund.

Colorado agreed to continue a program for child care providers with children ages 6 weeks to 13 years old, giving them full child care benefits, regardless of the employee’s income.

And Indiana agreed to study the issue of child caregiver and early educator compensation.

‘Good for Rhode Island’

Sitting together in a hearing room just off the Rhode Island House chamber earlier this month, Democratic state Reps. Mary Ann Shallcross Smith and Grace Diaz said they understand the issue of caring for children firsthand. Both are mothers, though their children are grown now, and both are experienced child care center owners.

Shallcross Smith remembers putting up flyers in the local drug store, advertising her in-home care. She now owns 15 centers. When the issue of paying child care workers for their own kids’ tuition came up this year, she was all for it, and went to House Speaker Shekarchi with her arguments.

“No. 1, it’s good for Rhode Island,” she said, adding that it’s also good for business.

Diaz, a mother of five, said she, too, talked to the speaker. But perhaps the biggest driver in getting the program into the state budget, she recalled, was the day that they brought a bunch of little kids from various child care settings to the Capitol to be a living example of the need.

“When they saw the little kids at the State House, they all wanted a picture,” Diaz said.

Back on the Little Learners playground, care worker Kayla Champagne, 39, of Lincoln, Rhode Island, smiled up at her 3-year-old son, Jaxson, who peeked over the top of a climbing structure. Champagne, who has three other children ages 18, 14 and 8, is relieved that she can take advantage of a program that helps her pay for Jaxson’s care.

She used to work at another day care place but could only afford to send Jaxson there a few days a week, she said. At Little Learners, staff helped her apply for the state subsidy.

“That’s one of the reasons I left my other child care to come here,” she said. “Now I can work full time while having four kids.”

Rhode Island Current reporter Nancy Lavin contributed to this report.

This story is republished from Stateline, a sister publication to the Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.

Senate Republican Caucus Chair Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville, confers with Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, about the implementation of Senate Bill 151 during the Interim Joint Committee on Families and Children meeting, June 19, 2024. (Photo by LRC Public Information)

A funding dispute between Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican lawmakers threatens to delay long-awaited financial relief for grandparents and other kinship caregivers who are raising children in Kentucky.?

Beshear signed and says he supports a new law that allows relatives who take temporary custody of a child, when abuse or neglect is suspected, to later become eligible for foster care payments.

The sticking point is $20 million the Beshear administration says is needed to implement the change.?

Beshear alerted lawmakers to what he called a funding omission in a letter in April — five days after he signed Senate Bill 151 into law. He asked them to use the final two days of the 2024 session to appropriate the $20 million.

The bill sponsor, Sen. Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville, said changes were made in the bill to satisfy fiscal concerns raised in February by Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) Secretary Eric Friedlander and that she thought the issues were resolved.

“We did a committee sub over in the House with the cabinet’s proposed language, and again, everybody was on board, and it passed out overwhelmingly, with bipartisan support,” Raque Adams told the Lantern.

It’s unclear what will happen when the new law takes effect July 15.

The cabinet is “supportive of the bill, but there is a cost that must be addressed before implementation can occur,” said CHFS spokesman Brice Mitchell.

But Raque Adams, chair of the Senate Republican caucus, said implementing the law is nonnegotiable.

Beshear in his letter to lawmakers cites the state Constitution and two court cases, including a 2005 state Supreme Court decision, that he says preclude the executive branch from spending money the legislature has not appropriated.

“The omission of an appropriation is the same as its elimination,” Beshear wrote.?

Constitutional law expert Sheryl Snyder, a Louisville attorney, reviewed letters sent by the Beshear administration to lawmakers and told the Lantern the cabinet is correct in that it cannot implement a bill that doesn’t have an appropriation attached.?

There may be some wiggle room, however, for general budget dollars to be spent if they aren’t earmarked for another purpose, he said.?

‘In shock’

When the bipartisan bill passed the legislature unanimously, Norma Hatfield, who is raising two grandchildren, thought help was finally on the way for Kentuckians like her.?

Hatfield, president of the Kinship Families Coalition of Kentucky, said the funding dispute has left her “flabbergasted” and “in shock.”

“It’s not a good faith effort when you don’t try to do the best you can do with what you have in serving the children and families in Kentucky,” she said. “And in this particular case, we’re talking about the most traumatized.”?

An estimated 59,000 Kentucky children are in what’s commonly called kinship care. Research shows that staying with family has better outcomes for children. But government financial support for kinship care has been lacking in part because caregivers make an important decision hastily, under stress and without all the information they need.

When the state removes a child from a home, grandparents and other family members often choose to take temporary custody rather than have the child go into state custody. State custody is the first step toward foster care. That first decision is permanent under current law which has excluded kinship caregivers who take temporary custody from ever receiving the $750 a month that foster parents receive for each child.

The new law would give kinship caregivers 120 days to apply to become foster parents for their minor relatives. It also allows children who are being removed from homes to request their preferred familial caregivers, if they are able.?

Until 2013, the state offered a monthly payment of $300 per child to kinship care providers who took in children. But the state closed the kinship program to new applicants 10 years ago, citing budget pressures. Since then, Kentucky has restored some assistance, prodded in part by a class-action lawsuit that successfully argued kinship caregivers were providing essentially the same services for free that foster parents are paid for.

‘Difficulty moving forward’?

During a June 19 meeting of the Interim Joint Committee on Families and Children, Raque Adams asked Lesa Dennis, the commissioner of the Department for Community Based Services (DCBS), about her plans to implement the new law.?

“At this time, we are still hopeful in the near future that there will be an additional pathway for funding of Senate Bill 151,” replied Dennis, who has been in her role for about a year. “But without that support, the cabinet will have difficulty moving forward with implementation.”?

The next day, Raque Adams put out a public statement criticizing the administration. “Kentucky’s vulnerable children and cherished relative and fictive kin caregivers deserve better than this administration’s selective enforcement of duly passed laws that are non-negotiable,” she said at that time.?

The Republican Party of Kentucky fired off several posts on X (formerly Twitter) criticizing Beshear, including one that asked why Beshear and Kentucky Democrats “always fail the most vulnerable Ky children.”

A look back at the timeline

On Feb. 5, Raque Adams received a fiscal note from the Legislative Research Commission stating that SB 151 “should have no additional fiscal impact to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.” That note also said “there is no anticipated fiscal impact to the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet or the Administration Office of the Courts,” according to a copy provided to the Lantern. ?(No fiscal note is included with SB 151 on the legislature’s website.)

But three days later, on Feb. 8, CHFS Secretary Friedlander sent a letter to Raque Adams saying the bill would cause “significant fiscal impact to the cabinet, and would need to be financed using only General Fund dollars.”

Following the Feb. 8 letter, Raque Adams said she had a phone call with Friedlander on Feb. 12. The changes the cabinet wanted were incorporated into a House committee substitute, she said. It passed out of the House committee in late February.

At that time, Raque Adams said, she believed all issues with the bill were resolved.?

Beshear signed SB 151 on April 5.?

Five days later, his office sent a letter to the legislature listing numerous bills, including SB 151, for which the legislature had made no appropriation.?

Also on April 10, Friedlander wrote again to the General Assembly to say the bill would cost $20 million. That figure was based, he wrote, on $15.3 million going to 50% of eligible fictive kin caregivers. That also includes the cost of “additional staff to process” the 1,000 extra applications, an estimated $4.4 million each year for a total of $19.7 million.?

“These costs are unlikely to be federally reimbursable because the child would remain in the relative’s/fictive kin’s care,” he wrote. That would leave the cabinet to foot the bill, he said.?

Morgan P’Pool, communications manager for Senate Republican leaders, said the administration raised no concerns with lawmakers about the bill’s costs from Feb. 23 until April 10.

By then, the state budget had been passed and the session was almost over. The legislature adjourned sine die on April 15.

The two-year state budget approved this year gave DCBS around $1.8 billion annually, while the state has a record financial surplus.?

Whether the cabinet can dip into its general budget dollars to pay for SB 151 depends, said Snyder, “on how the language of the budget pigeonholes the funds.”?

Still crusading for ‘kinship care’ families

“If the funds are earmarked for certain activities, then they can’t change that by spending it on something else,” he said. “If, however, they’ve got a general appropriation for cabinet activities, then they could use some of that money for that purpose.”??

Raque Adams questioned how the cabinet came up with the $20 million estimate.

“If you read the bill, we give the cabinet full administrative regulatory authority,” Raque Adams said. “So they, through regs, can design what the implementation looks like for 151. I’m not telling them what it looks like. They get to design it. So the fact that they haven’t designed what the implementation of 151 looks like, but they have a price tag associated with it, is a real disconnect for me. How can you have a price tag on implementation of a program that you haven’t designed yet?”?

What’s next?

Raque Adams insists the administration is obliged to implement the new law.

“It was a law that was passed, and it’s incumbent upon the administration to implement that state law,” she said. “You don’t get to pick and choose which laws you like and which ones you don’t like. You have to implement. You have to implement what we pass.”?

She added: “It’s like saying ‘I don’t have any money to pay my taxes.’ Well, you still have to pay your taxes.”???

Crystal Staley, a spokeswoman for Beshear’s office, said: “Lawmakers had the opportunity to deliver the funding during the session but chose not to. It is simple: The state cannot implement programs and policies if we don’t have the funding needed to do so – and the Kentucky Supreme Court agrees.”

Indeed, Snyder, a past president of the Kentucky Bar Association, said “the appropriation clause of the Constitution provides that the legislature has the power of the purse. So unless they have appropriated funds, the executive branch has no right to spend the money that’s not been appropriated.”?

“So if the situation is a statute has been passed that would require the cabinet to undertake certain action that’s not been funded then the cabinet is correct that they can’t perform the action that’s not been funded,” Snyder added.?

Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, called on Beshear to “step up.”

“The resounding support of SB 151’s passage in both Chambers of the General Assembly and signed by the Governor left kinship caregivers and kid advocates across the Commonwealth feeling hopeful about removing barriers to critical supports,” Brooks said. “And yet, our kids being raised by grandparents, other family members, or close family friends are now being put at risk because of political power struggles. We ask that the Governor and his Cabinet step up the same way our kinship caregivers step up for kids everyday.”

The interim Families and Children Committee will take up this issue again during its July 30 meeting.

“The reality is that kinship caregivers thought they were getting some help and assistance, and they’re not — again,” Hatfield said.?

Meanwhile, Raque Adams is “optimistic” the cabinet will implement the bill.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she said, “and we need to make the kids of Kentucky a priority.”?

Protesters rallied in the Kentucky Capitol against anti-trans legislation, March 2023. (Kentucky Lantern photo by McKenna Horsley)

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to review a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth could have implications for a similar law in Kentucky.?

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Lambda Legal asked the court to review the Tennessee law after a ruling by the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. That same appellate court overturned a district judge’s decisions and also allowed Kentucky’s law to take effect last year.?

Like Kentucky’s law, the Tennessee law prohibits doctors from providing gender-affirming medical care to minors that includes puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries. The Supreme Court will consider if Tennessee’s law violates the Equal Protection clause in the 14th Amendment.?

Kentucky’s Republican-controlled General Assembly easily passed its law in the 2023 legislative session, overturning a veto from Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear. In addition to the ban on gender-affirming care for minors, the law included directing local school districts to make policies keeping people from using bathrooms, locker rooms or showers that “are reserved for students of a different biological sex” and placing restrictions on sex education in public schools.?

The Biden administration also requested the Supreme Court review the Tennessee case.?

In a statement, the ACLU of Kentucky said that while the court’s review does not formally include the Kentucky law, the outcome could impact Kentucky. ACLU-KY and the National Center for Lesbian Rights represent parents who are challenging Kentucky’s law.?

“Our legal team is pleased that the Supreme Court has agreed to consider reversing the Sixth Circuit’s decision upholding these cruel and unconstitutional laws,” said ACLU-KY Legal Director Corey Shapiro. “Our clients and their doctors simply want to provide the best medical care that is necessary for these amazing youth. We remain optimistic that the Supreme Court will agree and ultimately strike down these bans.”

According to SCOTUSblog, a decision could come from the Supreme Court in the summer of 2025 after arguments are heard in the fall.?

Chronic absenteeism has risen among students in Kentucky's public schools. (Getty Images)

The number of Kentucky youth who are chronically absent from school skyrocketed during the 2022-2023 school year.?

The reasons for chronic absenteeism are interconnected and complicated — and the negative fallout potential is widespread, from mental health to the economy.?

Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) staff and child welfare advocates point to the COVID-19 pandemic, and its ongoing fallout, as a key culprit in this crisis.?

Building a habit of absenteeism in school carries over into work, said Florence Chang, a KDE program consultant.?

“Chronically absent students, high school students, … are likely to be significantly higher in absences from work,” she said. “There’s some habits there built up that the same people who miss school are the same people that may call in and miss work.”?

Absenteeism can also hurt a child’s ability to get a high school diploma or higher education.?

“Even if a student were to drop out at 18 and pursue a GED, their earning power with the GED is not the same as it is with a high school diploma,” said Christina Weeter, KDE division director.?

Child welfare advocates are keen to turn the trend around. They say doing so starts with parental communication and investments in comprehensive community services that serve kids outside the classroom.?

By the numbers?

In the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years, about 17% of Kentucky children were chronically absent, according to Chang.?

During the 2022-2023 school year, that number increased to 30%. (Data for the 2023-2024 school year is not yet available). This is even more critical for Eastern Kentucky, where 20% of students were chronically absent before COVID-19 and back-to-back deadly floods.?

Now, half or more of the kids in Eastern Kentucky are chronically absent from school, Chang said.??

“Even before the pandemic, that has been an issue in Eastern Kentucky,” she said. “And after the pandemic, and after the disaster hit that region … we can see that they have skyrocketed in absenteeism.”?

In West and Western Kentucky, too, where deadly tornadoes hit in 2021, absenteeism rose.?

“My suspicion is: it has to do with economically disadvantaged, poor counties maybe having less access … to resources, both learning resources and community resources,” said Chang.?

A student is chronically absent if they miss more than 10% of their enrolled time at school, according to KDE. Absenteeism is different from truancy, which has legal implications, explained Weeter. A student can be absent for any reason.?

The increase “is not specific to Kentucky,” Chang said. Chronic absenteeism is usually linked to barriers a student faces, like lack of transportation, a health condition or a work responsibility; aversion to school because of anxiety or lack of connection; disengagement from school following a time during the pandemic when children studied from home; and the idea that school is unsafe or one must stay home for every cough and sneeze.?

“It’s likely it is complicated and a combination of the four reasons — not just one,” Chang said.?

The 2024 Kentucky KIDS COUNT Data Book, released by Kentucky Youth Advocates (KYA) Monday, links these chronic absences to widespread trauma and poverty. Kids Count is part of a national initiative from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

What does the KIDS COUNT report show??

The new Kids Count report shows there are more Kentucky children not proficient in reading and math. It also shows more high school students are not graduating on time and more 3- and 4- year-olds aren’t in school.?

According to the report, which tracks child welfare year to year:?

• 69% of 4th graders scored below proficient in reading in 2022
• 79% of 8th graders scored below proficient in math in 2022
• 10% of high school students did not graduate on time in 2020-21
• 25% of children were chronically absent in 2021-22
• In 2022, 85% of Black students and 78% of Latino students were not at 4th grade reading proficiency
• 1% of English-language learners were at or above 8th grade math proficiency in 2022.?

Terry Brooks, the executive director of KYA, said kids need enough food, good sleep, a reliable and safe way to get to school, and other supports like mental health services and tutoring to meet educational goals.?

“To be clear, kids are more than their test scores,” Brooks said. “But these scores give us the tools to understand the realities of our classrooms and a roadmap around imaginative reforms and targeted interventions. Innovation in classroom rhythms, school culture and community collaboratives are key to ensuring children meet their milestones, as is recruiting and retaining a strong K-12 and early childhood education workforce.”

Chang with KDE said that the ongoing educator shortage can lead students to feel disconnected from school. If they cannot rely on having a consistent teacher, she said, they may feel less obliged to show up.?

Brooks also called on legislators to “reclaim that legacy” of putting public education first in Frankfort and find common ground on education policy.?

“We need to move from where we are – when seemingly public education is the most politicized and divisive policy issue in Frankfort – and? reclaim the ethos of Kentuckians joining together when it comes to K-12 classrooms,” he said. “That kind of common ground agenda is essential for our children and just as critical in building a strong workforce and economy for the future. That means resources for sure, but it also means engagement by us all and a fundamental restructuring of how we do ‘school’ in Kentucky.”?

What are child welfare advocates seeing throughout the state??

Olivia Raley, a social worker embedded with the Bardstown Police Department, says COVID-19 “set a lot of families and kiddos back” in their social skills and interpersonal relationships.?

“That isolation period of a year or two was very detrimental to kids’ prefrontal cortex … not developing on track, as it should,” Raley said.?

She and her 80-pound sidekick, a certified therapy Siberian Husky named Maverick, help kids who need to report assault feel more comfortable. Maverick, 4, also escorts children in the courtroom when they need extra emotional support. She said having Maverick helps break through defenses easier.?

“I’m a woman, I have a dog,” she said. “We don’t have that initial barrier sometimes where some kiddos are afraid of law enforcement or they’ve been involved in the system so many times.”?

In her work, she’s seeing more and more children disconnected from school and community. During the worst of the pandemic, all these children had to do was sit and look at a screen. Now, she said, they’re reluctant to leave their homes.?

“If kiddos come from a complex trauma-associated family, that’s all they have,” she said. “And they don’t have the school ally, they don’t have gym, they don’t have all these extra curricular activities (where) they could blossom.”

The pandemic further isolated students who lacked internet access, which Raley said became part of their “hierarchy of needs.” If children didn’t have the ability to participate in remote learning, they fell behind.? This makes it more difficult to catch up in person — both educationally and socially.??

This period of time also allowed abused kids to “slip through the cracks,” Raley said.?

Separated by a screen or less, school staff couldn’t see if a child had a bruise or other indicators of mistreatment.?

Additionally, if a child learns, during their formative years, that the outside world is a dangerous place, they may not want to report abuse happening in the home or even go to class surrounded by their peers, Raley said.?

“Because of COVID, a lot of kids were missed,” Raley said. “They’ve been taught that the outside world is scary. Now they have this. And so there are a lot of kiddos that are suffering, emotionally, physically, because of COVID.”?

Where are the parents in this?

Parents play a part in making sure kids are in school, Chang with KDE said. Parental and familial apathy is emerging as a concern, she said.?

During the early years of the pandemic, “parents got an inside view into the instruction and seeing so many of the assignments that could get completed through Google Classroom or … their Chromebook devices,” Chang said. “So they can see ‘oh, well they can just complete this at home,’ thinking … it’s not a big deal if you miss.”?

At other times, a parent keeps a child out of school out of concern for their health, Weeter said.?

“Even before the pandemic, there was a lot of conversation about how some students … wouldn’t show up at school because … it was a bad air quality day,” she said. “And if they didn’t have a school nurse that could give them an inhaler … their parent might keep them home … for health reasons.”?

Not every school district has a nurse, state data obtained by the Lantern shows.?

Additionally, parents’ mental health issues and substance use “can be, absolutely, contributing to absenteeism,” Chang said.?

That’s because if parents are dealing with addictions or other distractions, they’re not monitoring their children, social workers explained. This means no one is making sure those kids get to school.?

Substance use making for ‘very scary time for kids’?

Access to deadly drugs, too, make it “a very, very scary time for kids,” Raley said. The 27-year-old already knows several people from her high school graduating class who died after overdosing.?

In her social work, too, she sees a lot of substance use among youth.?

“Substance use disorder can kill you and kids see that. A lot of kids have lost so many relatives, so many friends, to substance use disorder. And they don’t have a way to tell anybody or to reach out or because they are in this isolated mode right now because of COVID,” she said.?

And yet kids who experiment with substances are exposed to dangerous combinations, she said. The 2023 Drug Overdose Fatality Report shows that in 2023, 92 Kentuckians between the ages of 15 and 24 died from an overdose.

Nine children — between the ages of 0 and 4 — died from overdoses. Between 0 and 5 children between the ages of 5 and 14 met the same fate.??

“Party drugs aren’t a thing anymore — it’s moved on to heroin, fentanyl. High schoolers right now are at a very high risk for overdoses because of how many drugs are cut with fentanyl nowadays,” Raley said. “Narcan is a huge push right now – to make sure it’s in schools, it’s in homes right now.”?

Exposure to substance use disorders is an adverse childhood experience (ACE), which? are traumas minors live through that have far-reaching impacts on adulthood. Survivors are more likely to have chronic health conditions including cancer, diabetes and heart disease. They’re also at higher risk of experience poverty, having pregnancy problems and suffering from stress. Some even go on to perpetuate ACEs, feeding a reciprocating spiral of illness and violence.?

What do kids need right now??

The new KIDS COUNT report recommends these action steps for Kentucky to “get kids back on track:”?

• Make sure children arrive in the classroom ready to learn by ensuring? access to low- or no-cost meals, a reliable internet connection, a place to study, and time with? friends, teachers, and counselors.
• Deepen investments in school wrap-around services to support student success and family connection. Family Resource and Youth Service Centers, tutoring programs, mental health services, nutrition? programming, after school care, and other services support young learners and encourage parent engagement, which leads to better outcomes for kids.?
• Address chronic absence, so more students return to learn. Lawmakers should embrace positive approaches rather than criminalizing students or parents due to attendance challenges, because they may not understand the consequences of even a few days missed.?
• Expand access to intensive tutoring for students who are behind in their classes and missing academic? milestones.?

KDE is pushing the message to school districts and parents that “being in school is important,” Chang said, to counter absenteeism. Getting more kids in school desks starts with communication, she said, and making sure parents understand attendance policies.?

Staff are also “changing the lens of how we look at absenteeism from … a punitive approach … to a family engagement approach,” she said. “So, making sure that we can talk to families about supports and understanding the reasons. Because: every chronic absenteeism student has a story to tell.”??

Jaquan Porter, 25, says that at a time when he "worried about surviving more than being a kid" Kentucky's juvenile justice system brought structure to his life. He also says the system failed him on multiple levels and that he was later diagnosed with anxiety and other mental health conditions. Porter says having a mentor when he was a teenager would have helped him. (Photo provided)

A state law taking effect next month will require more kids charged with violent offenses to be held in Kentucky’s troubled juvenile jails — at a time when all eight of the youth detention centers are under federal investigation for possible abuses.

That worries Devine Carama, who directs the One Lexington program to tackle gun violence in Fayette County.??

“In no other system would you allow that,” said Carama. “If there’s an investigation that’s this deep and wide, and it’s coming from a federal perspective, I don’t think the time is (right) to implement policy that puts more young people into the system.”

Cortney Downs, chief equity officer for Kentucky Youth Advocates, agrees that it doesn’t make sense to place more children in a system that’s troubled enough for the federal government to be investigating it.?

The U.S. Department of Justice announced last month that it is investigating Kentucky’s Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) for possible excessive use of force, prolonged and punitive isolation, inadequate protection from violence and sexual abuse, as well as whether mental health and educational services are available to juveniles in eight detention centers and one youth development center.

The federal investigation follows reports in recent years of understaffing and? violence, including a riot in the Adair Youth Detention Center during which a girl in state custody was allegedly sexually assaulted and a report that employees were attacked at a youth detention center in Warren County. State Auditor Allison Ball in January issued a report that raised multiple concerns including the use of isolation, tasers and chemical agents against juveniles.

Black youth are overrepresented in Kentucky’s juvenile justice system, the Lantern has reported. ?

Downs also worries about another new state law that will allow more minors to be tried as adults and that could increase the number of juveniles in detention.?

“These facilities are still understaffed,” she said. “And so if you’re bringing in more kids, but you don’t have more staff to supervise these kids, manage these kids, we could potentially just continue seeing more of the same issues that we have been seeing.”?

The mandatory 48-hour hold for some accused juveniles was approved by the legislature and signed by Gov. Andy Beshear in 2023 as part of broader juvenile justice legislation. Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, tried to delay its implementation this year in a bill that did not pass. ?

As a result, the state must soon detain juveniles who, under the previous law, could have been deemed eligible for release to their families while awaiting a detention hearing.

Morgan Hall, a spokesperson for the Justice & Public Safety Cabinet, said the federal investigation “does not alter current state law.”?

The system has increased employees from 315 to 458 in the last year in preparation for the juvenile population bump, though Hall said “it is difficult to anticipate the potential impact in population numbers” right now.?

The department is also “actively recruiting” licensed clinical social workers to provide required mental health assessments for those coming into the system charged with violent crimes, Hall said.?

“The Beshear administration remains focused on creating safe and secure facilities while making the investments needed to support our at-risk youth in mental health treatment, alternatives to detention, second chance opportunities, education, and employee training,” Hall said.??

‘Apples and oranges’?

Through One Lexington, Carama works with youth who are considered high risk for entering a cycle of violence. Risk factors, identified by school officials, include poverty, food insecurity or having come from a background of violence or a fatherless home. Those children are then partnered with a peer mentor who can give them a sense of community and fill gaps in their lives.

Homicides and nonfatal shootings dropped significantly in Lexington in 2023, the Herald-Leader reported. The decline in violent crime was widespread across the country; still, Lexington officials attribute at least part of the drop in shootings to One Lexington’s work.?

Having a mentor like One Lexington offers would have helped Louisville’s Jaquan Porter who was 14, he says, when he was arrested and incarcerated for robbery. He feels his childhood lacked guidance.?

Porter stayed in the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) system until he was 17. In his alternative program, staff dropped him off at school in a van and picked him up at the end of the day. Now 25, he just got his driver’s license and high school diploma, and plans to start college this fall.?

He’s well on his way to building the life he wants, but he feels like formative teenage years were robbed from him by a system he says failed him on multiple levels.?

Porter isn’t proud of his actions as a young teenager, but, at the time, he said, he didn’t see a way around it.?

The Louisville boy needed food and clothes. So, he stole.?

“I had to worry about survival,” he said. “When I was 14, I was worried about surviving more than being a kid.”?

“I was teaching myself while learning,” he said. While DJJ provided his life with some structure, he said, he left feeling alone again and not equipped to handle the real world.?

Carama says Kentucky should develop juvenile justice policy from a trauma-informed perspective.

“When I go to Frankfort, I hear a lot of lawmakers talk about their upbringing,” he said. “I hear a lot of people reference gun culture in rural areas and use that to compare some of these kids who are growing up in urban areas and I think those are two mistakes. Because, one, it’s apples and oranges.”?

Gun culture in the country and city are “totally different,” Carama said.?

In rural areas, “they’re passing down pistols as family heirlooms. There is wildlife in their immediate surroundings to where hunting is a sport, a family tradition,” Carama said. “They’re not passing down pistols as family heirlooms (in the) East End in Lexington. It’s trauma that’s being passed down. There is no hunting that’s happening in the west end of Louisville.”?

The rate of firearm deaths among Kentucky youth and adolescents was already higher than the national rate when it increased 42% during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data compiled by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.

Before the pandemic, 2017-2019, there were 3.3 firearm deaths per 100,000 Kentucky kids. From 2020-2022, that increased to 4.7.?

Nationally, the rate increased from 2.4 per 100,000 kids in 2019 to 3.5 in 2022.?

Stigma feeds the cycle?

One Lexington is starting to see more second-generation youth who get involved in gun violence, Carama said. Sometimes that looks like a 5-year-old whose parent was shot growing into a teenager who turns to crime.?

“I think it’s the way trauma works,” Carama said. Some people who experience a trauma try to avoid a similar fate at all costs. Others lean into what they know, he said. “A lot of times, you become the very thing that has destroyed you and your family.”?

One way to break the cycle, Carama said, is to destigmatize mental health issues.?

“There is a physical and mental health lack of access” in some communities, he said. And: “There’s a stigma in brown and Black communities when it comes to mental health.”?

Prevention and early intervention are critical, Downs with KYA said. “The research has consistently said that the younger a child is when they get locked up or get involved with the justice system, the more likely they are to recidivate later in life,” Downs explained.?

Negative impacts of incarceration include missing out on educational or career opportunities, she said.?

Making sure people don’t view mental health with a stigmatized lens and making sure they have resources to work on their minds are key to breaking cycles of violence, Carama said.?

Porter says he was diagnosed with several mental health issues, including anxiety, after his incarceration.?

While in the system, “I didn’t have (anyone) to call on,” he said. “It built up so much trauma to my life.”?

Even now, it’s difficult for him to look at the justice system positively, he said. “How can I depend on someone when they already let me down?”?

‘Significant negative impacts’?

It’s “going to take a while” to finish the Justice Department investigation and develop and implement an improvement plan, Downs said. Meanwhile, more juveniles will be entering a system that’s failing them with “significant negative impacts on kids, on their mental health.”

“I’m glad that . . . something is potentially going to be done and that there’s going to be some oversight,” Downs said. “But it’s also just disappointing that things have been able to deteriorate as much as they have to the point where this is even needed.”

Porter now works with REFORM Louisville, a group within KYA that works to improve options for young people and advocate for good juvenile policy. He works with several community organizations to offer youth mentorship he lacked.

“Anything’s possible,” he said. “I went from having literally nothing to having a whole lot.? I pushed myself. I self-motivated…I never stopped, I never gave up.”??

Citizen Foster Care Review Boards?are hosting virtual town halls around Kentucky this month. (Getty Images)

Kentuckians with ideas to improve outcomes for children placed in foster care because of substance use complications will get the chance to share them during a series of town halls this June, the Administrative Office of the Courts announced Wednesday.?

Registration is required for the four virtual town halls, which Citizen Foster Care Review Boards are hosting on June 3, 5, 11 and 14.?

“Community input is vital to identifying needs in each area of the state,” AOC said. “Due to confidentiality, specific cases will not be discussed.”?

The town halls will seek to answer the following questions, and findings will be reported back to the Citizen Foster Care Review Board.??

• Do families and children in your community have equitable and timely access to substance use disorder assessment and treatment services??
• What are the barriers to accessing treatment for substance use disorder??
• What solutions could be identified to remedy barriers to access and treatment and lead to resilience and recovery??

The four town halls are:?

June 3, 11 a.m.-noon Central/12-1 p.m. Eastern. Register for this town hall at kcoj.info/June32024 if you live in Allen, Ballard, Barren, Breckinridge, Butler, Caldwell, Calloway, Carlisle, Christian, Crittenden, Daviess, Edmonson, Fulton, Graves, Grayson, Hancock, Hardin, Hart, Henderson, Hickman, Hopkins, LaRue, Livingston, Logan, Lyon, Marshall, McCracken, McLean, Meade, Metcalfe, Muhlenberg, Nelson, Ohio, Simpson, Todd, Trigg, Union, Warren or Webster Counties.?

June 5, 11 a.m. – noon Central/12-1 p.m. Eastern. Register for this town hall at? kcoj.info/June52024 if you live in Adair, Bath, Bell, Boyd, Breathitt, Carter, Casey, Clay, Clinton, Cumberland, Elliott, Floyd, Green, Greenup, Harlan, Jackson, Johnson, Knott, Knox, Laurel, Lawrence, Leslie, Letcher, Lewis, Magoffin, Marion, Martin, McCreary, Menifee, Monroe, Montgomery, Morgan, Perry, Pike, Powell, Pulaski, Rockcastle, Rowan, Russell, Taylor, Washington, Wayne, Whitley or Wolfe Counties.?

June 11, 11 a.m.-noon Central/noon-1 p.m. Eastern. Register for this town hall at kcoj.info/June112024 if you live in Bullitt, Fayette or Jefferson counties.

June 14,11 a.m.-noon Central/noon-1 p.m. Eastern. Register for this town hall at kcoj.info/June142024 if you live in Anderson, Boone, Bourbon, Boyle, Bracken, Campbell, Carroll, Clark, Estill, Fleming, Franklin, Gallatin, Garrard, Grant, Harrison, Henry, Jessamine, Kenton, Lee, Lincoln, Madison, Mason, Mercer, Nicholas, Oldham, Owen, Owsley, Pendleton, Robertson, Scott, Shelby, Spencer, Trimble or Woodford counties.?

The Adair Youth Detention Center, site of a riot in late 2022, is one of the Kentucky facilities under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. (Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet)

The mood was celebratory as Kentucky and federal officials crowded into the Capitol Rotunda on a cold January day in 2001 to announce the end of five years of federal oversight of the state’s problem-ridden juvenile justice system.

“We’re never going to slide back to where we were in 1995,” said then-Juvenile Justice Commissioner Ralph Kelly. “We know we’re on the road to victory.”

But slide back Kentucky has — despite sweeping reforms enacted under a 1995 federal consent decree that advocates say, by the early 2000s, made it a national model for rehabilitating young offenders.

Now, Kentucky faces the threat of renewed federal oversight after the U.S. Justice Department announced May 15 it is opening an investigation into whether conditions at eight juvenile detention centers and one residential center for offenders violate civil rights of youths.

In a letter to Gov. Andy Beshear, the department said it is investigating possible excessive use of chemical force (pepper spray) and physical force by staff, failure to protect youths from violence and sexual abuse, overuse of isolation and lack of mental health and educational services

And longtime observers of the system who have watched the downward slide — including Earl Dunlap, a juvenile justice expert appointed by the federal authorities? to monitor Kentucky’s compliance with the 1995 consent decree — say it didn’t have to happen.

“Disgusting and sad,” is how Dunlap described it. “You had people in leadership in Kentucky who should not have allowed this to happen. You went from nothing to something and then right back to nothing.”

Dunlap, who is semi-retired and lives in Illinois, said he became so concerned about reports of problems in juvenile justice that in March 2023, he wrote to Beshear warning him of the risk of failing to fully address problems.

While congratulating Beshear on efforts to reform juvenile justice, Dunlap added in his letter he feared such efforts might fall short of federal standards and result in future litigation.

Dunlap said he offered to provide the administration with assistance for reform efforts but did not get a reply.

Beasher’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Dunlap’s letter.

But Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, said his organization has found the Beshear administration uninterested in outside input when it comes to juvenile justice, calling it a “closed shop.”

“Not only has there not been any outreach, there has not been a response to folks trying to reach out,” he said.

Problems build for years

Brooks said while problems have been building over the years in juvenile justice, Beshear, now in his second term, and lawmakers ultimately bear responsibility.

“This is clearly on the Beshear administration and the General Assembly,” he said. “Clearly the governor and the General Assembly abrogated their responsibility.”

Beshear defended his administration’s efforts to upgrade juvenile justice in a statement released Tuesday by Morgan Hall, spokeswoman for the Cabinet for Justice and Public Safety.

“In response to violent outbreaks and to enhance security for staff and youth, the Beshear-Coleman administration developed an aggressive plan starting in December 2022 to implement sweeping improvements to Kentucky’s juvenile justice system, for the first time since its creation nearly 25 years ago,” it said.

In December, Beshear announced the state would open a detention center for females only in Campbell County following the sexual assault of a female detainee in Adair County.

Beshear also has sought to address acute staffing shortages by increasing starting pay for youth workers to $39,127 a year and the General Assembly approved about $138 million a year each year in additional juvenile justice funds for fiscal years 2023 and 2024.

It also has worked to upgrade medical and mental health services, the statement said.

Efforts also are underway to reopen the Jefferson County Youth Detention Center, which Louisville Metro Council decided to stop funding in 2019 after operating it for nearly 40 years. That forced the state to take on housing juvenile detainees, some in distant counties at understaffed facilities, far away from families and requiring long drives back and forth for court appearances.

Dunlap calls that a huge blunder.

“The ramifications were that the largest volume of kids in the state had to be transported elsewhere,” he said. “It was just plain ridiculous.”

‘Take the initiative’

The legislature, under pressure from the 1995 consent decree, in 1996 created the Department of Juvenile Justice to oversee youths charged with and convicted of offenses, which previously had fallen under the Cabinet of Health and Family Services.

While the previous federal investigation focused on residential centers, where youths found guilty of offenses were sent for treatment, the state also elected to create a system of new regional detention centers to hold children with pending charges. Previously, in many counties, children were held in adult jails, generally in separate units.

Masten Childers II, health cabinet secretary for former Gov. Brereton Jones, said the state went beyond requirements of the consent decree.

Childers, who? oversaw negotiation of the 1995 consent decree with federal authorities, said he was “surprised and disappointed” to learn Kentucky once again is subject to a civil rights investigation of its juvenile facilities.

“If our consent decree had been followed, we would not be talking about this,” he said.

Still, he thinks the Beshear administration can use the investigation to improve the system should it result in federal enforcement.

“Kentucky needs to take the initiative,” he said. “This is not the time to be defensive.”

‘No win here’

Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill and longtime proponent of juvenile justice reform, said he’s concerned that the state’s system is becoming more like an adult prison model instead of one focused on rehabilitation and treatment of youths, many of whom have experienced significant trauma and have mental health issues.

The current Juvenile Justice Commissioner, Randy White, appointed by Beshear in March, is a 27-year veteran of the state adult prison system.

“The extent to which we make our system for kids more like a corrections facility and less a place for opportunities for kids, the more harm we’re going to do in the long run,” Westerfield said. “The more we approach it as a baby prison, the more damage we’re going to do.”?

Westerfield said he’s saddened that problems with Kentucky’s juvenile justice system have attracted attention of federal authorities but hopes it results in improvements.

“If this is what it takes, then that’s a good thing,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said, he’s concerned that the juvenile justice system is struggling even as Kentucky lawmakers enact tougher laws on juvenile offenders, citing misleading claims that today’s youths are more violent or that juvenile crime is increasing.

“Juvenile crime is not worse. It’s dropping,” he said. “Adult crime is dropping.”

Juvenile crime has been falling steadily and in 2020, was at its lowest level since 2005, according to a U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention report last year.

Still his fellow lawmakers rely on anecdotal events or a headline-grabbing crime as a reason to enact tougher laws, including one that takes effect July 1 to require mandatory, 48-hour detention for youths charged with serious crimes, Westerfield said. That has the potential to send an additional 400 youths a year into state juvenile detention facilities even as those facilities come under investigation by federal authorities.

“There’s no win here except the political victory for the sponsors and for the people who voted for it,” Westerfield said. “They’s going to get to say they’re tough on crime.”

‘Damn pepper spray’

The current federal investigation focuses on the eight detention centers and one residential center, the Adair Youth Development Center, the site of a November 2022 riot, resulting in a serious injury to staff and sexual assault of a female youth. In addition to those facilities the state operates five other youth development centers, eight group homes for juveniles and six nonresidential day-treatment programs.

In recent years, allegations of abuse, solitary confinement, overuse of force and overuse of adult corrections-type measures such as pepper spray have dominated headlines — initially in reporting by John Cheves of the Lexington Herald Leader — and more recently, outlined at legislative hearings including allegations of? sexual misconduct and disproportionate treatment of Black and multiracial youth.?

In January, state Auditor Allison Ball released a report requested by lawmakers detailing a series of serious problems with the system’s detention centers including overuse of force, significant understaffing, lack of clear policies of managing youth behavior and misuse of isolation.

The report, by the consulting firm CGL Management Group, also expressed concern about the Beshear administration’s introduction of pepper spray and tasers into juvenile centers, saying they are largely unnecessary.

“Current nationally recognized best practices do not support the widespread deployment of chemical agents or the use of electroshock devices (such as Tasers) within juvenile detention and instead recommend strategies to reduce or eliminate these uses of force,” it said.

The Justice Cabinet, in a statement, defended the use of pepper spray, also known as oleoresin capsicum, or OC spray.

“Pepper spray is a non-lethal, effective tool for both staff and juveniles, and is issued by adult and juvenile facilities across the country,” it said.

Further, it said, the legislature has mandated that pepper spray and tasers be issued to staff at juvenile justice facilities.

The outside audit warned use of pepper spray is especially risky for children with asthma or other health conditions or those on certain medications.

“As staffing levels improve, further consideration should be given to entirely removing pepper spray,” it said.

Dunlap, the former federal monitor, said he was shocked when Beshear authorized the use of pepper spray in juvenile detention centers last year, calling its use “old school.”

“The first thing I would do is get rid of that damn pepper spray,” he said. “They’re gonna kill someone with it.”

Pertussis or whopping cough is most dangerous to babies. However, the distinctive cough is not always present, says the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Getty Images)

The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department is reporting an outbreak of pertussis, which is commonly called whooping cough and is a highly contagious respiratory illness.?

The department said it’s confirmed nine cases since late April, including a case at Lafayette High School, one at St. Peter and Paul Catholic School and a community member in their 80s.?

“All central Kentucky caregivers should be on the lookout for signs and symptoms of pertussis, or whooping cough, while ensuring their kids are up to date on their vaccines or fully vaccinated with the booster,” the health department said.?

It is also recommending that high-risk students, such as those with chronic illnesses, who were exposed to pertussis receive antibiotics as a preventative measure.?

Whooping cough can be a life threatening illness and is most dangerous for babies, according to the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can, however, affect people of any age.?

Vaccines are available to children as young as 2 months old and can help prevent it, the CDC says. The recommended vaccines are DTaP for children and Tdap for preteens. Concerned parents can call their primary care providers to ask about vaccines, or call the Lexington health department at 859-288-2483 Monday-Thursday for vaccine information.?

Symptoms of whooping cough include, according to the Kentucky Department of Public Health:?

• Runny or stuffy nose
• Uncontrollable coughing
• Vomiting from coughing?
• Fever below 100.4 Fahrenheit?
• Apnea (life-threatening pauses in breathing) and cyanosis (turning blue or purple) in infants and young children

“Any school-age children with symptoms of pertussis should stay home from school and visit their health care provider for evaluation, even if they have previously been vaccinated,” the health department said in a Monday statement.?

Children watch as rescue personnel carry a manatee to the water during a mass release of rehabilitated manatees at Blue Spring State Park in Orange City, Fla., in February 2023. The fast-growing state of Florida saw a relatively small birth rate decline of 1% from 2022 to 2023, according to a Stateline analysis. (Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press)

Births continued a historic slide in all but two states last year, making it clear that a brief post-pandemic uptick in the nation’s birth numbers was all about planned pregnancies that had been delayed temporarily by COVID-19.

Only Tennessee and North Dakota had small increases in births from 2022 to 2023, according to a Stateline analysis of provisional federal data on births.

Kentucky’s 51,830 births in 2023 represented a decline of 0.9% from the year before.

In California, births dropped by 5%, or nearly 20,000, for the year. And as is the case in most other states, there will be repercussions now and later for schools and the workforce, said Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California who follows birth trends.

“These effects are already being felt in a lot of school districts in California. Which schools are going to close? That’s a contentious issue,” Johnson said.

In the short term, having fewer births means lower state costs for services such as subsidized day care and public schools at a time when aging baby boomers are straining resources. But eventually, the lack of people could affect workforces needed both to pay taxes and to fuel economic growth.

Nationally, births fell by 2% for the year, similar to drops before the pandemic, after rising slightly the previous two years and plummeting 4% in 2020.

“Mostly what these numbers show is [that] the long-term decline in births, aside from the COVID-19 downward spike and rebound, is continuing,” said Phillip Levine, a Wellesley College economics professor.

To keep population the same over the long term, the average woman needs to have 2.1 children over her lifetime — a metric that is considered the “replacement” rate for a population. Even in 2022 every state fell below that rate, according to final data for 2022 released in April. The rate ranged from a high of 2.0 in South Dakota to less than 1.4 in Oregon and Vermont.

Trends for Latina women

The declines in births weren’t as steep in some heavily Hispanic states where abortion was restricted in 2022, including Texas and the election battleground state of Arizona. Births were down only 1% in Arizona and Texas. When health clinics closed, many women might have been unable to get reliable birth control or, if they became pregnant, to get an abortion.

Hispanic births rose in states where abortion is most restricted, even as non-Hispanic births fell in the same states, according to the Stateline analysis. It’s hard, however, to tell how much of a role abortion access played compared with immigration and people moving to growing states such as Texas and Florida.

In states where abortion access is most protected, births fell for both Hispanic and non-Hispanic women.

“The big takeaway to me is the likely increase in poverty for all family members, including children, in families affected by lack of access [to abortion and birth control],” said Elizabeth Gregory, director of the Institute for Research on Women, Gender & Sexuality at the University of Houston.

Many of the nation’s most Hispanic states where abortion and birth control are more freely available saw the biggest decreases in births: about 5% in California, Maryland, Nevada and New Mexico.

“Hispanic women as a group are facing more challenges in accessing reproductive care, including both contraception and abortion,” Gregory said in a university report earlier this year. “Unplanned births often directly impact women’s workforce participation and negatively affect the income levels of their families.”

Hispanic women on average have more children than Black or white women. Their fertility rates rose throughout much of the 1980s and 1990s, then fell in the late 2000s to near the same level as other groups. That’s because both abortion and more reliable birth control became more widely available, Gregory said.

The fact that some of the steepest drops were in heavily Hispanic states outside of Arizona and Texas suggests that Latina women are continuing a path toward smaller and delayed families typical of other groups.

Kentucky’s population shifted older in a decade. Here’s how and why it matters.

Most of the decline in California has been associated with fewer babies born to Hispanic women, especially immigrants, said Johnson, of the Public Policy Institute of California.

“California has a high share of Latinos compared to other states, and so fertility declines in that group have a huge effect on the overall decline in California,” he said. California was above replacement fertility as recently as 2008, he added, and would still be there if Hispanic fertility had not dropped. California is about 40% Hispanic, about the same as Texas and second only to New Mexico at 50%.

Birth rates also declined steeply in heavily Hispanic Nevada and New Mexico, with each dropping about 4% from 2022 to 2023. But Arizona, Florida and Texas, also in the top 10 states for Hispanic population share but faster-growing, saw relatively small drops of about 1%.

Texas banned almost all abortions after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The state also requires parental consent for birth control, a rule that’s included federally funded family planning centers since a lower court ruling that same year.

Arizona also saw the number of abortions drop in 2022. After the high court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision, an Arizona judge revived enforcement of a near-total ban on the procedure that was enacted in the Civil War era. Many clinics closed and never reopened.

Abortions in the state plummeted from more than 1,000 a month early in 2022 to 220 in July 2022, and never fully recovered, according to state records. The rate of abortions dropped 19% for the year. Births that year increased slightly, by 500, over 2021.

In Texas, Gregory’s research at the University of Houston research saw an effect on Hispanic births when an abortion ban took effect in 2021. Fertility rates rose 8% that year for Hispanic women 25 and older, according to the report.

Both Texas and Arizona also are growing quickly, making the smaller decreases in births harder to interpret, Arizona State Demographer Jim Chang noted. Chang declined comment on the effect of abortion accessibility on state birth rates.

Budget effects

Overall, the continuing fall in birth numbers could have significant effects on state budgets in the future. The slide augurs more enrollment declines for state-funded public schools already facing more dropouts since the pandemic.

Births decline in most states, continuing a long-term trend

“The decline we see in enrollment since COVID-19 is a bigger problem than just the decline in birth rates,” said Sofoklis Goulas, an economic studies fellow at the Brookings Institution. Rural schools and urban high schools have been particularly hard hit, according to a Brookings report Goulas authored this year.

“We don’t have a clear answer. We suspect a lot of people are doing home education or going to charter schools and private schools but we’re not sure,” Goulas told Stateline.

Still, states need to recognize declining births as an emerging factor in state budgets to avoid future budget shortfalls, said Jeff Chapman, a research director who monitors the trend at The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Nationally, births did increase slightly for women older than 40, indicating a continuing trend toward delayed parenthood, said William Frey, a demographer at Brookings.

“The last two post-pandemic years do not necessarily indicate longer-term trends,” Frey said. “Young adults are still getting used to a recovering economy, including childbearing.

This story is republished from Stateline, a sister publication of Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.

K9 Officer Charity (Screenshot from Attorney General Russell Coleman's Office).

Kentucky’s Attorney General’s office is getting a pawfect new officer who will work in the Department of Criminal Investigations sniffing out technology in child exploitation cases.?

Charity, a yellow lab K9 officer, is trained to detect cell phones, flash drives, micro-SD cards and other technology that the AG’s office said “could contain child sex abuse material.”

According to the American Kennel Club, technology like cell phones and hard drives do have a chemical odor that trained dogs can smell. Because of that, some dogs can help sniff out hidden devices in child pornography cases. Charity can detect this odor, triphenylphosphine oxide (or TPPO).?

This news comes as Kentucky just criminalized the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to create deep-fake child porn. The state also just made it a Class D felony to knowingly own or sell a child sex doll — defined as a doll, mannequin or robot that is intended for sexual stimulation or gratification and that has the features of, or has features that resemble those of, a minor.

“Law enforcement needs to stay on the cutting edge of keeping kids safe from exploitation,” Jeremy Murrell, Deputy Commissioner for Counter Exploitation in DCI, said in a statement. “Highly trained K9s like Charity are invaluable in an investigation and will help get predators off our streets and behind bars.”

AG Russell Coleman called Charity “elite” and a “force multiplier.”?

Detective Shelby Guffey, Charity’s handler, said in a statement that “She’s so talented and hardworking. She’s going to make a big difference in our Commonwealth.”

Feelings of hopelessness and sadness have risen among teens since the pandemic. (Vector illustration)

This story mentions suicide. ?If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please call or text the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

LOUISVILLE — Anthem Medicaid announced Wednesday it has launched a free digital mental wellness course, which is available to 1,512 students in 17 Kentucky schools.?

The announcement comes during Mental Health Awareness month and as more adolescents, especially girls, report depressive symptoms.

Called “Understanding Mental Wellness,” the interactive program is for students in grades eight to 10. According to EVERFI from Blackbaud, which designed the course, it contains six lessons, each 15 minutes long.?

These are the schools that received the course:

• Clay County Middle School
• Daviess County High School
• Estill County High School
• Grant County Middle School
• Graves County High School
• Grayson County Middle School
• Hazard Middle School
• Henderson County High School
• James E. Bazzell Middle School
• Jenkins Independent School
• Lewis County Central Elementary School
• Marion County High School
• Murray Middle School
• Ohio County Middle School
• Owensboro Middle School
• Russell High School
• Webster County High School

The course, Anthem says, exposes students “to the experiences of others in order to develop awareness and empathy, reduce stigma, and provide facts on the prevalence and symptoms of mental health conditions.”??

Students then “explore their own mental health, identify challenges they may face, and develop concrete strategies for managing those challenges while increasing their awareness of resources and empowering them with the knowledge, skills, and language necessary to identify and support a peer in need or at risk.”?

Online previews of the course show a tour of mental health through the program, starting with a lesson on what mental health is and ending with the chance to create a personal wellness plan.?

Since the onset of COVID-19, mental health has worsened. In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that sadness and hopelessness had increased from pre-pandemic levels, especially for teen girls. In 2017, 41% of female high school students and 21% of male high school students felt sad or hopeless. By 2021, those statistics were at 57% and 29%, respectively.?

“Young people need resources and education from trusted sources to protect their mental health,” Leon Lamoreaux, market president for Anthem Medicaid, said in a statement.?

The Understanding Mental Wellness program “will help us reach students from all over the Commonwealth and equip them with tools and strategies that will make a positive difference in their lives for years to come,” Lamoreaux said.?

Tom Davidson, the CEO of EVERFI, said the goal in creating this program was to “(benefit) those who are impacted by mental health challenges, those who want to build and maintain positive mental health and those who have the opportunity to positively impact the mental health of a friend or peer.”

“Being uninsured is bad for a child’s health and exposes the family to large medical bills they can’t afford,” said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. Two-month-old Karina receives drops of children’s Tylenol after getting a vaccination at a low-cost clinic in Aurora, Colorado. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Kentucky is among a handful of states that lost only a small percentage of children from its Medicaid program in 2023 even as the number of kids cut from coverage soared elsewhere under annual renewal requirements that had been suspended during COVID-19.

Overall, 4.16 million children were dropped from the government health plan that covers more than half of all U.S. children, according to a new report on the process dubbed the “Medicaid unwinding.”

About 10% of 43 million children nationwide lost coverage, according to the report by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, with some states reporting enrollment declines of 25% or more.

Authors of the report said it’s likely many of those children remain eligible for Medicaid but lost coverage for “procedural reasons,” such as incomplete paperwork or failure to receive a renewal notice.

“There are reasons to worry that a high number of children are going uninsured,” Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown center, said on a press call Thursday. “Being uninsured is bad for a child’s health and exposes the family to large medical bills they can’t afford.”

Kentucky lost 10,477 children, a reduction of about 2%, from its Medicaid program that covers nearly 640,000 kids, the report said. It was among a half-dozen states with children’s enrollment declines of 2% or less.

“This is a good news story,” said Emily Beauregard, executive director of the advocacy group Kentucky Voices for Health.

Kentucky, she said, took deliberate steps to avoid cutting off children for procedural reasons as it began renewing Medicaid for adults.

“I think we’re one of the few states in the nation that hasn’t seen this decline in enrollment,” Beauregard said.

Kentucky Medicaid officials early on announced they would seek to protect children’s health coverage.?

They delayed, with federal permission, requiring children to renew coverage under the process the state began in May 2023. As a result, children won’t be required to begin renewing coverage until September.

And Kentucky was the first state to adopt an option offered by the federal government to provide 12 months of “continuous coverage” for children and teens, guaranteeing enrollees under 19 would retain coverage for at least a year — rather than being required to renew on the anniversary of their enrollment.

“The state sought this flexibility to ensure our children kept access to the coverage they need and deserve,” Brice Mitchell, a spokesman for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, said in an email.

Medicaid officials also launched an information blitz, with letters, calls, text messages and other means to contact enrollees to try to make sure they understood the need to renew coverage and respond to requests for information from the state.

Kentucky currently has about 638,400 children enrolled in Medicaid or its companion Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), out of a total enrollment of about 1.5 million. CHIP covers children whose families may earn too much for adults to qualify for Medicaid but are still considered low-income.

The greatest declines in children’s coverage came in Texas, Florida, Georgia and California, according to the Georgetown report. Those states alone account for a loss of about 2.1 million kids — around half of the children’s enrollment decline nationwide.

Some families may have moved to employer-based health insurance or purchased individual plans but the numbers of children dropped from Medicaid overall are too high to account for those getting private coverage, Alker said.

“We don’t know how many of these children are uninsured or had a gap in coverage,” she said.

Dr. Kimberly Avila Edwards, a Texas pediatrician who spoke on the call, said the impact of her state’s cut of 1 million children from Medicaid is “painfully obvious” among her patients — some whose parents discover their children have lost Medicaid only when they show up for an appointment.

“Medicaid is not a luxury,” she said. “It’s a vital program for tens of thousands of children, their families and their communities.”

During the three years of the pandemic, states got extra money for Medicaid costs but had to agree not to cut people off the health plan. Beginning in April 2023, the federal government — which provides the majority of funds for Medicaid — required states to resume asking people to provide proof of eligibility.

Under that requirement, families each year must provide income and other documentation to show they are eligible for the health plan for low-income children and adults.

Some states moved more aggressively than others to drop children from the federal-state health plan — in some cases, cutting children who likely remain eligible, the Georgetown report found.

“Stark differences have emerged in how states have responded to this enormous administrative challenge,” Alker said.?

Overall, Kentucky’s Medicaid enrollment peaked in May 2023 at 1.75 million but has declined to about 1.5 million individuals currently.

Kentucky Rep. Lindsey Burke, D-Lexington, whose son was born through IVF, says she doesn’t believe the procedure is protected under current law.? “As long as fetal personhood is enshrined in Kentucky law, IVF is at risk,” she says. (Photo by LRC Public Information)

None of the bills to explicitly protect in vitro fertilization in Kentucky got a hearing this legislative session, making them effectively dead on arrival.?

With roughly eight months until the next session, some lawmakers and attorneys disagree on what protections exist for IVF under current Kentucky law.?

Republican Sen. Whitney Westerfield — who has children thanks to IVF — believes there is an appetite in the General Assembly to pass specific IVF protections.

The failure to do so this year, he said, was probably “a function of time.”?

Westerfield, of Fruit Hill, filed a bill to protect the process on the filing deadline for Senate bills. His House and Senate colleagues who filed similar bills also did so right before or on the filing deadlines.?

The issue, he pointed out, wasn’t on “anybody’s radar” until an Alabama Supreme Court decision — which came down right before the deadline to file Kentucky bills — seemingly complicated the treatment.?

‘They should always be preserved’?

Westerfield and his wife, Amanda, are expecting triplets this summer. The three, as well as their 6-year-old son, were adopted as embryos — the result of someone going through IVF and donating eggs. The Westerfields also have a daughter who joined their family as a “traditional domestic adoption.” They have another embryo they are paying around $500 annually to preserve.??

“I think they should always be preserved,” Westerfield said. “But I also understand not everybody holds that view. My son is one of those that was preserved, thankfully. These boys that are on the way were preserved.”??

The Westerfields chose to have children this way because, had they gone through IVF themselves, “we were worried that we might have more than we could try to transfer on our own,” Westerfield said.

“We didn’t want to have so many left over that we couldn’t … bring to full term birth ourselves and give a home to. And then you worry about making sure they end up in a home somewhere because we don’t want them destroyed. Not everybody wants to adopt an embryo and be pregnant. Some people do, thankfully.”??

Even though the legislature didn’t pass the IVF-specific bills this year, it did pass House Bill 159, which Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear then signed into law. The new law gives Kentucky health care providers criminal immunity for medical mistakes.?

On the day HB 159 passed the Senate, Westerfield said he believed it would protect IVF by default because it broadly protects “providers.”?

It states: “A health care provider providing health services shall be immune from criminal liability for any harm or damages alleged to arise from an act or omission relating to the provision of health services.”?

Westerfield, who is also a lawyer, said this is “more comprehensive” than what he proposed to specifically protect IVF.?

“It covered everything mine covered and then some,” Westerfield told the Lantern. He is not seeking reelection.?

Ben Potash, a lawyer representing three Jewish women who are suing over Kentucky’s abortion law, believes HB 159 does not protect IVF since discarding extra eggs in the IVF process is a willful act.?

HB 159 says “Nothing … limits any liability for gross negligence or wanton, willful, malicious, or intentional misconduct.”?

‘No one really knows what the law is’?

Potash believes the two topics — abortion and IVF — are too closely related to be separated. Going through IVF in Kentucky right now is “precarious,” he said. “No one really knows what the law is.”?

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman has called IVF “an incredible blessing for so many seeking to become parents,” as the Lantern previously reported.?

The AG also said “the plain language of Kentucky’s laws makes it clear that neither IVF nor the disposal of embryos created through IVF and not yet implanted are prohibited.”?

In Potash’s view, “making it civil, secular law that life begins at conception introduces all kinds of complications to IVF, to motherhood in general, to parenthood in general.”?

Kentucky’s “Human Life Protection Act” — the trigger law that went into effect once the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade in 2022 — states that an embryo is an “unborn human being” from egg fertilization to birth.?

The 1973 Roe V. Wade decision established abortion as a constitutional right. Once that federal protection was gone, Kentucky’s law updated to all but ban abortion entirely, except in rare and life-threatening situations.?

Judith Daar, the dean of Northern Kentucky University’s Chase College of Law, where she is also a professor, said that while “many states have language in their statutes regarding abortion that declare life begins at conception or fertilization,” those laws also link abortion to pregnancy, which “is defined as an attachment of the embryo inside the mom.”?

That is the case in Kentucky. The law states that “‘pregnant’ means the human female reproductive condition of having a living unborn human being within her body throughout the entire embryonic and fetal stages.”?

“To the extent that all the abortion laws tether and condition the conduct on the existence of a pregnancy, then IVF really does escape application of the abortion laws, at least in the preimplantation stage when the embryos are still in the laboratory,” explained Daar, a legal expert on reproductive assistance. “That is not, per se, a pregnancy because it doesn’t meet the definition of the attachment of the embryo into the uterus.”?

Because of this, Daar said, Kentucky doesn’t necessarily need to pass an explicit bill on IVF at this time.?

“There’s nothing that I’m aware of … in the commonwealth,” she said,? “that suggests that any aspect of IVF practice is illegal under Kentucky law.”?

The IVF process

Dr. Sigal Klipstein, chair of the Ethics Committee for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said people need IVF for many reasons. Some seek it because of infertility — a man has little to no sperm or a woman does not ovulate, for example. Same sex couples may undergo IVF as a way to have biological children, she said, or uncoupled people may seek that service for themselves.?

“In a typical IVF cycle, a woman might take about 10 days of injections,” Klipstein explained. These are “little, under the skin injections, kind of like insulin needles.”??

“They sort of bypass the system,” she said. “So instead of having enough hormone to release one egg, you might release five or 10 or 20 eggs.”?

A final shot at the end of those 10 days triggers ovulation, Klipstein said. The patient then undergoes anesthesia and eggs are removed with a needle that enters through the vagina under ultrasound guidance.??

Eggs are then mixed with sperm in a lab and grown for five to six days. The best one is then implanted into the uterus.?

Usually, there are extra eggs leftover, Klipstein said. They can be donated, stored, discarded, or be placed in the uterus during a time that won’t result in pregnancy. This is called “compassionate transfer,” Klipstein explained. In this process, “you’re sort of more physiologically, more naturally, allowing the embryos to reabsorb into the body.”??

Potash said the “routine” extra eggs make the process complicated if they are considered human beings by law. The Alabama Supreme Court set the precedent for that complication when it ruled in mid February that frozen embryos are children, as the Alabama Reflector reported.?

“It’s unrealistic and cost prohibitive, as well as I think a little cruel,” Potash said, “to make those mothers keep those fertilized ova on ice, essentially, forever.”?

Klipstein agrees. What happens if someone stops paying or a storage facility closes, she asked. “Do you require them to have more babies than they want? I mean, I don’t think you can compel someone to get pregnant against their will to prevent them from discarding those embryos.”? ?

“It would be nice if we had one embryo for one baby, and we could do it as a one to one ratio,” she added. “But, you know, medicine doesn’t work that way. And IVF doesn’t work that way.”??

Westerfield has a different perspective. “It’s hard for me to imagine someone going into that process without an awareness of the cost,” he said.?

IVF can cost between $15,000 and $30,000 per cycle, according to a 2023 article in Forbes. Storage can cost from $350 to $600 per year as well, the magazine reported.?

“I don’t think anybody goes into that without knowing whether or not they either can afford it, or have insurance to cover it, or what have you,” Westerfield said.?

He and his wife wouldn’t have adopted as many embryos as they did, he said, “if we thought we couldn’t afford to keep this one on ice, frozen.”?

“We wouldn’t have done more than what we could transfer at a time,” he said. “We wouldn’t have adopted three; we would have adopted one or maybe two.”?

Providers, parents in ‘limbo’

Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, filed one of several unsuccessful bills to protect IVF this session. She told the Lantern she is “disappointed” no specific protections passed.?

It might be plausible, she said, that HB 159 “does provide protection to IVF.” But, she said: “I don’t think that it’s decisive.”?

The new law deals with criminal and not civil prosecution. That makes it unlikely to be applied to IVF, NKU’s Daar said.?

“Instances of physicians acting in a criminal manner in the IVF setting is virtually non-existent,” Daar said. “I’m not saying it never happens, but it’s very, very rare.? So a bill that generalizes criminal immunity … would not have a tremendous impact, if any impact, on IVF because that conduct just doesn’t occur.”?

For now, Chambers Armstrong is particularly worried about how providers view the law. She wants to spend the interim talking to those people ahead of the next session.?

“If IVF providers feel as though they have protection and this bill gives that to them, they will continue to offer services,” she said. “If they are concerned that they’re going to be subject to criminal liability for just doing their jobs, I’m worried that we’re going to see a chilling of making those services available.”??

Meanwhile, she does think the state should “repeal … language that people believe could give embryos rights,” she said. But: “I don’t believe this General Assembly is going to do that anytime soon. I hope that people are correct when they say that we can provide some level of protection to IVF with those statutes on the books.”??

Rep. Daniel Grossberg, D-Louisville, said the legislature has left “women and medical professionals” in “limbo”. He filed one of the unsuccessful bills to protect the process, and the only one in the House.?

“The message that (this) sends,” he said, “is that women in Kentucky don’t have control over their reproductive choices.”??

‘Let’s be proactive’?

Rep. Lindsey Burke, D-Lexington, has openly discussed her journey with assault, infertility, IVF, miscarriage and abortion.?

She told the Lantern she doesn’t believe IVF is truly protected under current law.?

“As long as fetal personhood is enshrined in Kentucky law, IVF is at risk,” said Burke, who is an attorney and mother of a son whom she had after undergoing IVF.?

She is also paying $100 per month to store an embryo, as she hopes for another child someday.?

Burke would like to file legislation to get “better insurance coverage for reproductive care” next year. She went into debt around $60,000 to have her son, she said. And: “I don’t think that anybody should have to do that.”?

“I’m not sure that we’re going to get an answer as to whether this bill provides the type of protection for IVF that we’re hoping (for) unless and until it is challenged in court and we get a decision from the court,” said Chambers Armstrong, who is also a lawyer.?

But she doesn’t want to wait on litigation, she said.?

“Let’s be proactive. Let’s go ahead and pass a law that is very clear that it’s protecting IVF services and make sure that folks know that they can continue to receive the care that they have been seeking,” Chambers Armstrong said.??

That must wait until at least 2025.?

A father and child at the iKids Childhood Enrichment Center, a child care center, in Benton, Nov. 28, 2023. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Abbey Cutrer)

More than 250 Kentucky child care providers responsible for 150,000 children across the state sent lawmakers a letter Tuesday pleading for more support, saying what’s been proposed in the state budget “is not enough” as their industry is “at risk of collapse.”?

The letter asks lawmakers to pass a supplemental lifeline funding bill in the final days of the 2024 legislative session Friday and Monday.

Such support, the providers said, should “at a minimum:”?

• Provide routine, direct sustainability payments to child care providers to help keep doors open, stem tuition hikes and prevent wage cuts.
• ?Maintain Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) eligibility at 85% of state median income to prevent thousands of parents from losing access to this aid, which could result in many dropping out of the workforce and withdrawing kids from child care. The current version of the budget hold eligibility at?80%.?
• Provide enrollment-based CCAP reimbursements to providers.?

“Without these crucial supports, there is no chance of survival for many of our child care centers and home-based care providers,” the letter states. “Families will be left with even fewer options that are more expensive, quality will suffer, and many will decide it is better to leave the workforce.”?

Kentucky’s child care industry — which some would like to rebrand under an “early childhood education” umbrella — is about to lose the federal COVID-19 dollars that helped stabilize the industry during the last few years. This leaves many centers to cut pay for their workers, raise tuition for parents, cut services and even close, the Lantern has reported.?

The budget that the legislature passed ?includes $42 million in new spending on child care in 2025 and $50 million in 2026. That includes $1.3 million a year to cover the cost of background checks for potential employees and ?$1.5 million a year to add a six-month adjustment period for families who are no longer eligible for CCAP.

The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy previously estimated that $300 million is needed to replace the federal aid that’s ending. The state Department for Community Based Services says the need is closer to $100 million.

In its analysis of the legislature’s budget, the center says: “While all of the policies the budget funds are necessary to support?child care providers?and the?parents they serve,?more is needed?in light of the coming fiscal cliff, particularly with the loss of quarterly stipends to child care providers previously funded with federal dollars.”

The largest legislative proposal for child care this year, the Horizons Act, died. Its sponsor cited its $300 million price tag as the main reason behind the demise.?

Lawmakers return to Frankfort on Friday and Monday for the last two days of the 2024 session, during which they could pass additional legislation. But they must send Gov. Andy Beshear veto-proof bills at that point, since they will no longer have the ability to override him.?

“An investment in child care is an investment in the commonwealth’s present and future,” the child care letter states. “The Kentucky General Assembly should step up and make that investment now, before you gavel out on April 15. We cannot hold on until the next budget.”?

Letter to lawmakers from child care providers

Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, is surrounded by media on Feb. 22 as he fields questions on Senate Bill 2, legislation creating the position of school "guardian." LRC Public Information)

Kentucky school districts will have the option of employing armed “guardians” to fill vacant law enforcement positions on campuses under a bill that became law Tuesday without Gov. Andy Beshear’s signature.?

Senate Bill 2 is a Republican-backed measure that built upon a bipartisan school safety law that was passed in 2019 after a shooting at Marshall County High School. Sponsored by Sen. Max Wise, of Campbellsville, this year’s legislation establishes the school “guardians” program while strengthening support for mental health resources.?

Beshear, a Democrat who recently won reelection in Kentucky, signed the 2019 law. He also signed a 2022 law requiring a school resource officer (SRO), a type of sworn law enforcement officer, on each campus in Kentucky.?

However, school districts have struggled to meet that requirement. Wise said while introducing his legislation this session that about 600 school campuses do not have SROs. School districts may begin using “guardians” during the 2025-26 school year. School districts may also choose to have “guardians” in schools as unpaid volunteers instead of employees.?

“When you let a bill lapse into law, it’s because you believe that there are certain good pieces on it, but you also have certain concerns,” Beshear told reporters Thursday in his weekly press conference.

The governor said he expected the Republican-controlled General Assembly to override a veto to SB 2 if he issued one, but he also wanted “to be in a position to make any program as safe as it can be knowing that it’s going to go into to law.”

Beshear added that he did have “worries about who might be in our schools” under the program and that the bill had “some real significant limitations” on trainings and tests for “guardians” to be certified. The program is voluntary for schools though, he continued.

“It’s like most of the world — this isn’t just a black or white issue,” Beshear said. “It’s a much tougher one.”

SB 2 had no additional funding tied to it when it was filed, but the legislature appropriated money for SROs in its budget bill — ?$16.5 million in the first fiscal year and then $18 million the following year. House Bill 6, ?the executive branch budget bill, says the Kentucky Department of Education would reimburse school districts up to $20,000 for each school that employs a full-time, on-site SRO.?

“We’ve learned so much about the power of additional adults with very specific training who can help keep our schools safe,” Wise said in a statement after the bill passed out of the Senate. “SB 2 complements our SROs with another set of eyes on campus or may help provide additional coverage on a school with multiple campuses.”??

Wise thanked the Kentucky Center for School Safety in a statement Wednesday afternoon for partnering on the bill.

“SB 2 bolsters the care we give to our young children and enhances the visibility of our schools through a comprehensive and connected mapping data system,” Wise said. “This provides a framework for interoperable communication inside and outside the school campus.”

The law says that certified guardians can be honorably discharged military veterans and retired or former law enforcement officers. The Kentucky Center for School Safety would certify such persons. They may carry a firearm on school property if the school district chooses.?

Florida has a school “guardian” program. Similar legislation passed in Utah this year.?

Additionally, the law directs trauma-informed teams in schools to assist school employees who work with students who have experienced trauma and record an annual report about its activities throughout the school year.?

The House Education Committee had approved an amendment backed by Rep. Josh Calloway, R-Irvington, to the bill that would have allowed pastoral counselors to serve on trauma-informed teams in schools but it is not in the final law. The amendment was not called for a floor vote in the House.?

Throughout the session, members of the Kentucky chapter of Moms Demand Action spoke against the bill. Volunteer Cathy Hobart told the House Education Committee that “armed guards in our schools will give many people the illusion of safety, but there is no evidence that they actually provide any safety.”?

According to a report from The Trace, there are “only a handful of documented cases in which an armed security guard or stationed police officer has stopped a school shooting.”?

In response to the bill becoming law, Kirby Van Lierop, a volunteer with the Kentucky chapter of Moms Demand Action, said in a statement to the Kentucky Lantern it was “yet another example of how the gun lobby’s ‘guns everywhere’ agenda has taken over the meaning of public safety in our state,” and called allowing more guns in school a “dangerous and misguided idea.”?

“We’re disappointed that our lawmakers spent this legislative session working overtime to pass this bill rather than actually passing preventative gun safety measures that would keep our children safe in school,” Van Lierop said. “But we won’t be deterred — we’ll continue to fight for common sense policies that will keep guns out of our schools and out of the hands of those who could be a danger to themselves and others. That’s what will really help keep our children safe.”?

Beshear also allowed another gun-related measure to become law without his signature. Senate Bill 20 requires that juveniles, 15 or older, accused of having a gun during the commission of an alleged felony be automatically transferred to circuit court for trial as an adult. The bill allows the commonwealth’s attorney to return the case to district court after determining that it would be in the best interest of “the public and the child to do so.”

This story was updated Thursday afternoon with additional comments.

Many families that receive government assistance for child care still pay a lot out-of-pocket. A new Biden administration rule will lower those costs and improve payments to day care providers.(Getty Images)

Originally published by The 19th.

For more than a decade, Erin Farias has watched the low-income families who send children to the day cares she runs navigate America’s broken child care system. Many of those parents had government assistance for school tuition, but half the time, Farias couldn’t count on them to make their co-payments. They were still too high.

Subsidies are supposed to make care more accessible for those with the most need, but families in many states still struggle to pay child care bills. To be considered affordable by the Department of Health and Human Services, they must cost no more than 7 percent of a family’s income. But in more than half of states — including Michigan, where Farias runs two day care centers — families on assistance are required to pay much more than that.

Farias said many times, she’d just eat the cost of the co-payments, or let families rack up a large balance until, eventually, she’d have to ask them to find alternate care. “I was generous because I’m passionate about people who are at a disadvantage. I want to help those kids break through barriers and become something different. I don’t want to give up on them,” Farias said. “But I was barely making a profit, and my employees were making so little.”

Several times, those challenges led her to question whether to take on more low-income children, she said. About 40 percent of kids at Little Smiles Daycare, which Farias opened in 2013 and where she is the director, are on subsidies. Some 25 percent of kids in her second center, Little Smiles Christian Learning Center, are also low-income.

But the landscape of child care assistance is about to change — and costs are finally coming down.

At the end of February, President Joe Biden’s administration announced it was going to require every state to cap its co-payments so that families that receive subsidies pay no more than 7 percent of their income towards child care.

That’ll make a big difference in places like New Hampshire, West Virginia and Ohio, where those costs are eating up 18 to 27 percent of families’ budgets. Though the new rule doesn’t apply to the thousands of other families whose incomes are too high for a subsidy but are also paying exorbitant costs, it does address the acute need among the lowest-income families, most of whom are families of color. More than 100,000 families are expected to benefit.

With the change, families are expected to save about $200 a month on average, according to the White House. The new rule is effective April 30. Some states will be able to make the changes quickly; others will need approval from their legislatures. All will need to be in compliance by 2026.

“The affordability is key — that one is always the hardest thing that families are experiencing,”? said Nina Perez, the early childhood national campaign director at MomsRising, a national network pushing for child care and other family policies. “It won’t be the same in all states, but how amazing that in some of the states where folks are struggling the most, this will make an impact.”

The Biden administration announced last summer that it was looking at ways to cut child care costs by making updates to the Child Care and Development Block Grant, the federal day care funding system. The block grant sends federal dollars to states to help cover the cost of care for those in need — about 800,000 families. The administration proposed changing some parameters of the grant, specifically improving savings for families and boosting payments for providers to stabilize an ailing child care system.

Child care has been in crisis for years, but COVID-19 took the industry to the brink of collapse. Day cares shuttered, and it took the child care workforce nearly four years to recover to pre-pandemic levels. Congress passed additional child care assistance during the pandemic that temporarily helped keep centers open, but those funds ended in September.

During the pandemic, states used the additional funding to test out new ways to improve their child care systems, or to cap or entirely eliminate families’ co-payments and improve provider pay structures. Both were popular changes that will now be made permanent for all low-income families and the day cares that serve them.

Only about 14 percent of families eligible for the child care subsidies are actually enrolled in the program, according to a report from the First Five Years Fund, a child care and early learning advocacy group. Co-payments are part of the reason why: Between 2005 and 2021, the cost of co-pays rose at a faster rate than inflation, increasing about 18 percent, the Administration for Children and Families found.

Because of those high co-pays, low-income families that qualify for the program haven’t used it, said Anne Hedgepeth, the chief of policy and advocacy at Child Care Aware, a national advocacy group. Instead, those families may be putting their children in more informal care, or losing the opportunity to work because they don’t have child care at all.

“The sheer existence of a co-pay is, for some families, a barrier,” Hedgepeth said. “Even if it’s only 100,000 families who will see a decrease, that’s still 100,000 families for whom scraping together that co-pay may have been challenging.”

Improving stability for providers is the other part of the equation. The new rule would iron out a disparity between how families that use the subsidy — and higher-income ones that don’t — pay for care. That change could ensure that day cares receive funding sooner and more regularly, making it easier for them to budget and hire staff.

Families outside the subsidy system pre-pay when they enroll in child care, and their tuition doesn’t change if a kid misses a day because they got sick, for example. But that’s not how it works for students on subsidies in half of U.S. states. For those kids, states pay the child care providers based not on enrollment but on the children’s daily attendance — and that comes after the care is rendered. That means providers might base their budget on expectations for consistent attendance, but receive less money than expected if attendance drops.

And kids miss child care often, especially due to sickness. But day cares have fixed costs they need to cover, including payroll and rent. It’s hard to manage those when state payments fluctuate and can result in a shortfall.

The rule change will require states to use the same payment structure for both higher-income families and those on subsidies. About 140,000 child care centers and in-home day care providers are expected to benefit, according to the White House.

“I don’t think we can [overstate] the importance of the changes around payment practices for providers,” Hedgepeth said. The change could encourage more providers to participate in the subsidy program because they know they’ll be paid consistently for serving low-income students in the same way they are for other children.

About 73 percent of child care directors and administrators said they’d be more likely to accept families using subsidies if they were paid based on enrollment, according to an August survey by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, a child care advocacy group.

Farias said changing billing practices during the pandemic was transformational for the health of her business. At that time, Michigan used the temporary child care funding to switch to an enrollment-based billing model, a change the state made permanent earlier this month.

Pandemic-era funding is the reason both of her centers are still open, especially the shift to enrollment-based billing, Farias said. “It was almost traumatizing imagining going back.”

For her business, the new rule “is going to change everything,” she said. She’ll be able to better serve more low-income families, and the more consistent funding could also help her improve pay for her staff.

The new rule also makes recommendations about other changes states can choose to adopt to bolster their child care sector. Among the key recommendations is a better digital application process — 17 states still use paper forms — and more prominently informing parents about what exactly their co-payments would be.

States are encouraged to further lower co-payments or waive them entirely for certain families, such as those that are very low-income, experiencing homelessness or who have children in foster care or with disabilities.

“We hear a lot from families of children with disabilities who have just not been able to find care. Or the child care that you can find is so high-cost because the providers have to account for the cost of higher need,” Perez said. “Those are some of the hardest hit on child care, and I think that is a piece here that is really significant.”

Brittany Gregory, a mom in North Carolina whose 3-year-old receives child care assistance, said she thought she understood the subsidy system thanks to her work at a children’s non-profit. But when she had to apply for a subsidy herself, she realized for the first time “how convoluted” the system was. Few centers accepted children on subsidies and the co-payments were higher than she expected. Changes that would make it easier for parents to go through the process are sorely needed, she said.

Gregory has a small co-pay — about 1 percent of her family income — but she said she’s heartened to see change coming for families.

“It’s really encouraging to see something is being done, instead of nothing,” Gregory said.

How much states will do based on the new rule will come down to funding, however. The rule doesn’t come with any additional funds, which means existing money will have to be shuffled from other parts of the child care system.

State legislatures can choose to add funding beyond what the federal government has allocated, as states like New Mexico have done. But making the case that child care is a priority among other competing needs has been an ongoing challenge.

For years, states have struggled to come into compliance with the requirements of the Child Care and Development Block Grant, with some still years past the deadline for compliance on safety issues. Funding is at the heart of that — and this — story.

In Ohio, the state with the highest co-payments, at 27 percent of family income, advocates worry whether the state will be able to comply. Ohio was already ordered by the federal government to improve its payment rates for providers in order to increase child care options for low-income families who receive assistance. Now, it will also have to cover most child care costs for those families.

“Who is actually going to take on the burden of this change? And right now in Ohio, at least, it’s very consistently been child care providers, because our state legislature has not consistently invested the funding in order to help us expand our child care program in a healthy way,” said Kathyrn Poe, the budget researcher with Policy Matters Ohio, a non-profit policy research institute.

A spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Children and Youth, which manages the child care program, wrote in a statement that Ohio is “currently comprehensively evaluating the new federal requirements against current rules and processes to assess potential impact and required changes.” The department anticipates applying for the two-year waiver allowed as part of the rule to get more time to make the changes, which means they likely won’t be in place until 2026.

Ultimately, what’s happening in Ohio’s child care system is a lot of stakeholders “squabbling over the same crumbs,” said Ali Smith, the operations specialist and worker center network liaison at Policy Matters Ohio.

How well the state is able to allocate funds to actually comply with the new regulation will determine how widespread its impact is.

“When the federal government actually does something like this, we need them to ask states and really monitor how those funds are being spent,” Poe said. “Because in a state like Ohio, we’re already seeing that risk is there for them not to be completely implemented the way that I think the federal government is actually thinking of.”

Rep. James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, has twice sponsored a bill to help schools avoid hiring teachers who have a record of misconduct toward minors. (LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — A House bill aimed at helping Kentucky schools avoid hiring sexual abusers gained passage in the Senate Wednesday.?

Sponsored by House Education Committee Chairman Rep. James Tipton, House Bill 275 would require those seeking employment in schools to disclose if they were the subject of an allegation, investigation or disciplinary action within the past year involving abusive misconduct while working in a school.

Similar legislation was passed by the House during the last legislative session, but died in the Senate.?

The Senate approved the bill 35-0.?

Tipton, a Taylorsville Republican, filed his bill last year following an investigative series by the Lexington Herald-Leader that found sexual misconduct was the most common reason Kentucky teachers had their licenses revoked or suspended between 2016 to 2021. In that time, teachers in 118 of 194 cases lost their license because of sexual misconduct.?

Earlier this session, Tipton said his bill would give “school districts the tools to ensure the safety of our children from predatory individuals.”?

“These individuals are responsible for some of the most heinous crimes that we see involving students,” Tipton said. “They should not be allowed to harm our children and then move on to another school district to avoid punishment. HB 275 makes sure these individuals are held accountable, and that school districts have the information necessary to keep them out of the classroom.”

The Senate approved a committee substitute, meaning differences in the House bill must be resolved.?

Sen. Danny Carroll's bill seeks to address problems in Kentucky's juvenile detention system. (Photo by Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — A Kentucky House committee unanimously moved forward a bill that would establish a special mental health juvenile detention facility for housing “high acuity” youth, a move the sponsor called “critical.”

Sponsored by Sen. Danny Carroll, a West Kentucky Republican, Senate Bill 252 can now go to the full House for consideration, having already passed the Senate.

Wednesday is the 57th day of the 60-day legislative session, meaning the bill has a small window to become law. In order to preserve their right to override a veto by Gov. Andy Beshear, the legislature needs to fully pass bills by Friday.

Under Carroll’s bill, Kentucky would begin operating two female detention centers — one in Central Kentucky and one in the western part of the state — by Feb. 1, 2026. The locations were based on female incarceration rates in those areas. If the first two reach capacity, the state may build a third.

Kentucky would also build a 16-bed acute mental health facility meant to house juveniles who need “specialized treatment capable of addressing manifest aggression, violence toward persons or property destruction.”

The Department of Juvenile Justice would own and staff the facility, but the Cabinet for Health and Family Services would partner to provide appropriate mental health treatment.

The General Assembly’s two-year budget is not yet final, but the Senate proposal included $45 million for each of the female-only facilities. The Senate budget also included $5 million for the mental health facility, though Carroll had asked for $22 million.

“What the final product is going to be I don’t know,” Carroll said in the House Families and Children committee Wednesday. “What I do know is how critical this is.”

Having a mental health facility for youth in the justice system is “something that’s just got to happen,” Carroll said. “If we don’t do that now, it’s going to be at least four years before we’re able to get these kids out of detention facilities. In my mind … that’s unacceptable.”

Sen. Danny Carroll declares his early childhood legislation dead. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)

FRANKFORT — The $300 million child care bill called the Horizons Act is “dead,” its sponsor said Wednesday.?

The state budget approved by the Senate failed to allocate all the money the Horizons Act called for — and the final budget that will emerge from a House-Senate conference is also unlikely to do so.

The bill’s death — with three days left in the session — is “a shame for this commonwealth,” said Sen. Danny Carroll, the sponsor. “I don’t know that I’ve seen a piece of legislation that had so much support behind it in my 10 years here.”?

The West Kentucky Republican serves as president and CEO of Easter Seals West Kentucky, whose programs include a child care center, and has been a vocal advocate for child care.?

He said the price tag of $300 million over two years was too much for most lawmakers to get behind. The money alone, he said, “had, probably, the biggest impact on … causing the bill to die.”??

“The reality of it was I never really expected that we would get a full $300 million,” he said. “But my hope was that we would get the opportunity to kind of balance out a lesser amount … to address the most pressing needs, which right now is to keep the current centers open.”?

As federal COVID-19 dollars run out this year, Kentucky centers may be forced to cut pay for their workers, raise tuition for parents and even close, the Lantern has reported.? Kentucky could lose more than a fifth of its child care providers if the state doesn’t help.?

With the state help that is proposed in the House budget — a $52 million a year increase — experts estimated 16,000 kids could lose access to child care in 2024. With the Senate’s proposal, that number dropped to 14,000.?

In his December budget proposal, Gov. Andy Beshear pitched spending $141 million over the next two years to stabilize the child care industry, as well as $172 million to begin funding universal preschool for Kentucky 4-year-olds.

Some lawmakers felt they would be “propping up” a private industry by spending what the Horizons Act asked for, Carroll said. That “couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said.??

To not see child care as education, he said, is “absolutely ludicrous” since so much brain development happens before the age of 5. “We invest in education,” he said. “What’s the difference?”?

“We missed a huge opportunity in our state,” Carroll said. “But my hope is that there will still be significant funding in the right areas. If we do not do some … ongoing funding for the providers, doors are gonna close. We can expand child care assistance all we want,. But (if) we don’t have places for those kids to go … what good is it?”

A Senate committee on families and children approved Carroll’s? Senate Bill 203. It was then recommitted to the Senate budget committee and never received a vote by the full Senate.

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman has called on Blair to resign. (Getty Images)

More Kentucky juveniles would be tried as adults under a bill that has now been approved by both chambers of the legislature.?

‘Victims before perpetrators:’ Senate passes bill to try certain juveniles as adults?

The House on Tuesday approved Senate Bill 20 which mandates that juveniles 15 or older would be transferred to circuit court for trial as an adult if they are alleged to have used a firearm while committing a Class A, B or C felony.?

Democratic Rep. Lindsey Burke of Lexington opposed the bill, saying it would rush kids in the “school to prison pipeline” to the “finish line.”

Burke and Rep. Keturah Herron noted that the bill reverses a change the legislature made just three years giving juvenile judges discretion to decide whether to transfer a gun case to adult court.

Rep. Patrick Flannery, R-Olive Hill, who introduced the measure in the House, said SB 20 is aimed at “very violent criminals.” It is sponsored by Sen. Matthew Deneen, R-Elizabethtown.

Katelyn Foust traveled from her Oldham County home to a birthing center in Indiana to give birth to baby Jude. (Photo provided)

FRANKFORT — Freestanding birth centers could open in Kentucky under narrow guidelines if a bipartisan bill passed by Kentucky’s House Tuesday becomes law.

Time is running short in this session — Tuesday was the 56th day of the 60-day legislative session — and the bill still needs to head to the Senate for committee and floor consideration.?

House Bill 199 would, among other things, remove the certificate of need requirement for freestanding birth centers as long as they have no more than four beds, have transfer agreements with hospitals, are located within 30 miles of a hospital and more.?

Representatives who spoke against the bill voiced concerns about the safety of giving birth in a freestanding center, which are home-like facilities for low-risk births. Supporters have said the centers are safer than home births, which some Kentuckians wishing for a low-intervention birth may choose instead of a hospital.?

Kentucky recorded 177 home births in 1988 and 900 in 2021, the Lantern has reported.

Some Kentuckians also travel out of state to birth centers rather than go to a hospital in the state. In 2022, 110 Kentuckians traveled to Tree of Life, a freestanding birthing center in Jeffersonville, Indiana, the Lantern previously reported. That is an increase from 107 in 2021 and 71 in 2020. And, the Clarksville Midwifery practice in Tennessee delivers about 25-30 Kentucky babies every year.?

Rep. Lisa Willner, D-Louisville, a cosponsor of the bill, said it “would allow us to take care of our own … right here in Kentucky.”

“Regardless of where a parent chooses to give birth, we can all agree that safety for both mother and infant is the most important thing,” she said.

Rep. Kim King, R-Harrodsburg, said births should be attended by “highly trained OBGYNs” who “are able to get the baby out in an emergency situation.” She voted against the bill.?

Nemes said the centers are run by “highly trained professionals that know what they’re doing.” They’re not, he said, run by “Jason Nemes and friends.”?

“This is,” he said, “another safe alternative for a mother having a baby in a hospital or at home.”?

Rep. Josh Calloway, R-Russell, introduced the amendment adding pastoral counselors to the school "guardian" bill. (LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — A bill authorizing armed “guardians” to fill vacant law enforcement positions in Kentucky schools was passed by a House committee Tuesday morning with several new additions, including one allowing pastoral counselors in schools.?

Discussion among House Education Committee members largely centered on an amendment for Senate Bill 2 from Irvington Republican Rep. Josh Calloway that would allow licensed pastoral counselors to serve on trauma-informed teams in schools. He said the addition “gives parents options if they’re helping direct that care inside the school” and allows schools to have more “options based on what type of trauma that they were dealing with.”?

The original Senate Bill 2 directed trauma-informed teams in schools to assist school employees who work with students who have experienced trauma in the past and record an annual report about its activities throughout the school year.?

Republicans and Democrats on the committee raised concerns about the addition, but the amendment ultimately passed in a vote of 13-3 and one pass vote.?

Rep. Steve Riley, R-Glasgow, said his vote was a “wishy-washy yes” as he believes some ministers could excel in this capacity while others could not. He said he wanted to support the bill moving out of committee to avoid killing the entire legislation.?

“I’m concerned that this got dropped on us real fast without us having a chance to process everything about this and I need a little more time to process it,” Riley said.?

Another Republican, Rep. Killian Timoney, of Nicholasville, agreed with Riley. Timoney said that he does see that the addition could address needs in some districts but he did not believe it was necessary with his knowledge of the mental health system. He said in the committee that he has served on trauma-informed teams in the past.?

“If the alternative is to remove trauma-informed care, I’ll take this,” Timoney said.?

While voting no on the amendment, Louisville Democratic Rep. Tina Bojanowski, a teacher, said the committee had little preparation to consider the amendment that “some people would consider extreme” and added that not all of the questions were answered during the meeting.?

Another Louisville Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Josie Raymond, voted no because “school is school and church is church.”?

The primary sponsor of SB 2, Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, said he supported Calloway’s amendment as students who need mental health assistance could have “more offerings” under the change.?

Abby Piper, a lobbyist representing the Kentucky School Counselors Association, told the committee the organization was not consulted about the amendment and isn’t supportive of it. However, the association is supportive of SB 2 and the committee substitute adopted Tuesday.?

After the meeting, the association released a statement urging Kentuckians to tell their lawmakers to oppose Senate Bill 2.

According to the active license directory for the Kentucky Board of Licensure for Pastoral Counselors, the state has 33 active license holders.

Other changes

The committee also adopted a substitute version of the bill Tuesday. Chairman Rep. James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, said the changes included more oversight of the school “guardian” program by giving the Kentucky Center for School Safety a staffer to coordinate the program if funds are available. Tipton said funds were included in the Senate’s proposed budget.?

Under Wise’s original proposal, certified “guardians” would include honorably discharged military veterans and retired or former law enforcement officers. Other states like Florida have similar programs.?

Another change in the committee was that if a local school board does decide to employ a “guardian,” it must enter an agreement with local and state law enforcement to identify the chain of command in emergency situations.?

Wise had said his current legislation is a continuation of a school safety law that he successfully carried in 2019. The General Assembly enacted that as a response to a school shooting at Marshall County High School that killed two students and injured more than a dozen people.?

Representatives from the Kentucky chapter of Moms Demand Action spoke against the bill. The group seeks public safety measures to protect people from gun violence. One volunteer, Cathy Hobart, said she was “impressed with the care and concern” used to enact the 2019 law, but the current bill lacks the same concern behind it. He’s said his current legislation is a continuation of that policy.?

“I think that armed guards in our schools will give many people the illusion of safety, but there is no evidence that they actually provide any safety,” Hobart said. According to a report from The Trace, there are “only a handful of documented cases in which an armed security guard or stationed police officer has stopped a school shooting.”?

“And if we really want to keep our kids safe in school,” Hobart continued, “what we need to do is encourage their parents and grandparents and neighbors to lock up their guns.” Senate Bill 56, requiring safe storage of firearms and filed by Senate Democratic Floor Leader Gerald Neal, has not been given a committee hearing.?

As of Tuesday morning, Senate Bill 2 had no readings on the House floor. After a third reading, the House can vote on the legislation.?

Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong sponsored Senate Bill 240, which would let foster parents in Kentucky get child care benefits while working outside the home or working remotely in the home. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Isabella Sepahban)

The House unanimously passed a Louisville Democrat’s bill aimed at enabling more Kentuckians to become foster parents.

The Monday move means Senate Bill 240, sponsored by Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, is nearly law. It heads now to Gov. Andy Beshear’s desk for a signature or veto.?

The bill will allow foster parents in Kentucky to qualify for child care benefits while working outside the home or working remotely in the home. Currently they must work 20 hours a week outside the home to qualify for assistance.??

The clarification that remote work is acceptable work for these benefits is “a small but needed change that will make it easier for more people to become foster parents as they work remotely,” said Rep. Samara Heavrin, R-Leitchfield, who brought the bill to the House floor.?

Kentucky needs more families to foster. More children were in foster care from 2020-2022 than 2015-2017, the Lantern previously reported.?

A 2023 KIDS COUNT County Data Book, part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, showed there were 50,947 children in foster care in Kentucky between 2020 and 2022.?

Rep. Samara Heavrin, R-Leitchfield, said the bill will help close a gap in resources and support for grandparents and other kinship caregivers who are raising young family members. (LRC Public Information)

Long awaited financial help will be coming to “kinship care” Kentuckians who are raising a minor relative such as a grandchild or niece, thanks to a bill that received unanimous approval in the House Friday.

Senate Bill 151 now heads to Gov. Andy Beshear’s desk for a signature or veto. It passed the Senate in early February.?

Norma Hatfield, president of the Kinship Families Coalition of Kentucky, hailed the bill’s passage as a “game changer for a lot of families in the future.”

Still crusading for ‘kinship care’ families

The bill allows kinship caregivers to change their placement status from temporary custody to a child-specific foster home, a change that will come with financial assistance, as the Lantern previously reported.?

It will also let children being removed from homes list their potential preferred caregivers, allowing them more say in their placements.

Rep. Samara Heavrin, R-Leitchfield, brought the Senate bill to the House floor. The bill, she said, is all about giving kinship care families in Kentucky more flexibility.?

“This flexibility will close the services, supports and resource gap that is currently plaguing many of the families,” she said.?

Hatfield, who has been raising two grandchildren for nearly a decade, is a longtime champion of kinship families and renewed her push for help from the legislature this year. She told the Lantern on Friday that the bill’s passage was “hugely emotional.” She said she cried in the House gallery ?as the bill was approved.

The fact that both chambers passed the measure unanimously “says very clearly this needed to happen,” she said. “And it’s the right thing to do. I mean, there’s just absolutely no doubt anywhere.”?

Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, said ?final passage of HB 151 means “thousands of Kentucky’s kinship and fictive kin families flat out won today.”?

“Just as these caregivers step up at a moment’s notice to provide a safe space for their young loved ones to grow and heal, our General Assembly has stepped up once again to prioritize the well-being of these children who have experienced abuse or neglect,” Brooks said.?

Still, work remains, Hatfield said. She’s closely watching a House resolution that, if passed, would establish a Kinship Care task force. Members would study kinship in Kentucky and submit findings by Dec. 1, which Hatfield said could provide needed data revealing needs facing kinship caregivers.?

“I’m hoping that the study will clearly identify those things, educate the legislators as well, educate the public, and then we can start working on the rest of the supports that are needed for these families that are kind of caught in a gap that don’t have anything,” she said. “I have high hopes for that.”?

A pharmacy technician passes items to a nurse from within a sterile area at the James Graham Brown Cancer Center on April 2, 2021 in Louisville. (Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

A bill giving Kentucky’s health care providers criminal immunity for medical mistakes — which one lawmaker thinks will enshrine protections for in vitro fertilization by default — is on its way to Gov. Andy Beshear’s desk.

House Bill 159, which would decriminalize medical mistakes made by health care providers, passed the House in February unanimously. On Friday it cleared the Senate — also unanimously.?

Bill would give health care providers criminal immunity for medical mistakes

The bill follows a 2022 Tennessee case in which a nurse was found guilty after a patient died from a medical mistake. The conviction? led to protests and resignations within the health care community, KFF Health News has reported.?

The Kentucky Nurses Association says that if medical mistakes are criminalized, providers are less likely to report them.?

“I’m all for responsibility for medical errors,” said Sen. Phillip Wheeler, R-Pikeville, who carried the bill to the Senate floor on the 54th day of the 60-day legislative session. “I think that that is an appropriate domain for civil justice and not for the criminal justice system.”?

Fruit Hill Republican Sen. Whitney Westerfield, who in February filed a bill seeking to protect access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) in Kentucky, said he believes HB 159 will accomplish his goal by default. His colleague, Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, filed a similar bill to protect IVF.

“Neither of our bills have advanced,” Westerfield said while voting in favor of HB 159, which he said will cover IVF access because of its “broad” definition of the word “providers.”?

The criminal liability bill, sponsored by Rep. Patrick Flannery, R-Olive Hill, protects “a person providing health services” who is appropriately licensed and/or certified.??

Bills to protect access to IVF, which is used to treat infertility and can help other people trying to get pregnant to do so, came this session in? response to a ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court stating that frozen embryos are children.?

The ruling led to concerns that it could deter people in Alabama from attempting to conceive children via IVF, which sometimes involves freezing embryos for future attempts at insemination. Several clinics in Alabama, including the University of Alabama Birmingham, paused IVF treatments and embryo transfers in response to the ruling.

Louisville Democratic Rep. Daniel Grossberg filed a similar IVF protection in House Bill 757. His goes a step further than the Senate bills and states explicitly, “A fertilized human egg or human embryo that exists in any form outside of the uterus of a human body shall not be considered an unborn child, a minor child, a natural person, or any other term that connotes a human being for any purpose under state law.”?

Grossberg’s bill has not received a committee assignment.?

But House Bill 159, Westerfield said, will protect IVF.?

“I think this bill accomplishes that and does so without necessary amendments or changes,” Westerfield said. “And so as a proud father of now four IVF children, I’m proud to see this bill make final passage and head to the governor.”?

A? longtime adult corrections official will head the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice, Gov. Andy Beshear announced Thursday.?

The new commissioner, Randy White, worked in the Kentucky prison system for 27 years in multiple roles, including correctional officer, warden and most recently more than five years as deputy corrections commissioner, according to a release from the governor’s office. He retired in December.

White joins recently appointed leaders in the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet.

Beshear appointed? Keith Jackson justice secretary in February. Jackson, who had been the? cabinet’s deputy secretary since 2021, previously served as Lexington’s chief of fire and emergency services and commissioner of the state Department of Veterans Affairs.

Jackson succeeds Kerry Harvey who retired in January.

Mona Womack, the ?justice cabinet’s new deputy secretary, has extensive experience in state government, including 26 years at the Cabinet for Health and Family Services as an attorney, division director and deputy general counsel.

The state’s understaffed juvenile detention facilities have been plagued in recent years by violence and abuse, drawing criticism of Beshear from Republican lawmakers and a critical audit. Lawmakers boosted funding for juvenile facilities and staff pay last year and are expected to do more?this year.

White succeeds Vicki Reed, who retired in January.

A news release from the governor’s office says White will “prioritize reducing youth crime and recidivism, increasing mental health treatment, enhancing employee training and securing all 27 juvenile facilities to better protect youth and staff, while continuing to implement the administration’s aggressive plan to enhance safety in response to violent incidents.”

In addition to eight secure detention centers, the department also runs six youth development centers, group homes and day treatment programs across the state.

The release quotes White: “Juveniles entering the criminal justice system are committing harsher crimes and require stronger rehabilitative programs than when I started in corrections 27 years ago, and as a former deputy commissioner I had a lot of interaction with these juveniles when they would transfer to adult prison,” he said. “And for Kentucky to truly reduce the juvenile population, we must focus our efforts on alternatives to detention, education, programming, employment and mental health. Our juveniles need our support, and I pledge to do just that.”?

Rep. Rebecca Raymer R-Morgantown, said she brought the bill forward after hearing from constituents who lost access to their childrens’ medical records once those children turned 13.?(LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — Members of the Kentucky Senate Health Services committee passed — along party lines — a bill to ensure parents and guardians have access to medical records of the minors in their care unless those records are protected because of abuse or neglect.?

House Bill 174 passed the House in early March. Now that it has cleared a Senate committee on a vote of 8-2, it can go to the floor for consideration.?

Sponsor Rep. Rebecca Raymer, R-Morgantown, said she brought the bill forward after hearing from constituents who lost access to their childrens’ medical records once those children turned 13.?

Under her bill, providers who suspect neglect or abuse, she said, maintain “discretion” on whether to release those records.?

In speaking against the bill, Tamarra Wieder, Kentucky state director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, said it would “create a chilling precedent.”?

Under HB174, Wieder said, “we’re going to have to disclose to minors under the age of 18 that all of your medical records, upon request of your parents — mental health, reproductive health — are going to be turned over to your parents.”?

She testified that some conversations, like those surrounding menstruation and sex, are uncomfortable for children to make with a provider if their parents are privy to that.?

Sen. Donald Douglas, R-Nicholasville, took issue.

“If a child doesn’t want to talk to their parents, that’s not a legislative issue. That is a parenting issue,” he said. “As a parent, I’m responsible for insurance. I’m responsible for food. I’m responsible for paying for the doggone health care. And then someone tells me I may have a role in the decisions that my child makes. Really? Are you kidding me?”?

Douglas, a physician, added: “Don’t ask us to legislate the inability of a parent to communicate with their child.”??

Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville, expressed worry that the bill could expose minor victims of sexual assault, especially when a parent is the perpetrator.?

In voting against the bill, Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, said she is “worried about the way this is going to impact kids’ access to different types of medical treatment, particularly things like mental health.”?

Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser, R-Taylor Mill, is the primary sponsor of a maternal health bill that has advanced to the Senate floor. (LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — Members of the Senate Health Services Committee voted unanimously Thursday to advance the maternal health bill which supporters call “Momnibus.”?

Momnibus — or House Bill 10 — came out of a bipartisan summer working group of female lawmakers who looked into Kentucky’s dismal maternal mortality and how to address it. Male lawmakers have since signed on as co-sponsors.

Primary sponsor Rep. Kim Moser, R-Taylor Mill, said Kentucky’s many poor health points like diabetes, mental illness and heart disease can be “made more difficult during a pregnancy and can cause dangerous situations.”?

“Deaths due to any of these factors are usually preventable,” said Moser, a retired nurse. “Ways to prevent these deaths are to identify and treat these diseases early in pregnancy if not before. This is why prenatal care is so critical.”?

This bill would incentivize Kentuckians to get that prenatal care by adding pregnancy to the list of qualifying life events for health insurance coverage, among other things. It would also launch a hotline, staffed with a psychiatrist and psychologist, that medical providers can call if they’re serving a patient with mental health needs.?

Momnibus passed the House on March 5. Now that it’s passed the Senate committee, it can head to the floor for consideration. Should it pass there, it can go to Gov. Andy Beshear’s desk for a veto or signature.??

Courtney Rhoades Mullins is expecting twins and worries how she will keep working after they're born without child care. (Screenshot)

Courtney Rhoades Mullins faces a difficult predicament: the Eastern Kentucky woman is expecting twins in May but doesn’t know if she can find child care for them any time soon.?

One location, she said, might have openings in April of 2025. Another could take the twins — when they are 3 years old.?

That “leaves the question of what do you do until they’re 3?” Rhoades Mullins said Wednesday. “We’re looking at possibly a year to three years before having any type of child care or day care available to them.”?

She joined other parents on a call with media organized by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, which has released a new survey of 1,357 parents from 88 counties revealing the challenges facing Kentucky families who need child care.

The survey results show:?

• Among private-pay families who do not participate in the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), 30% spend $100 to $200 per week on child care; 30% are spending $200 to $300 per week; 28% are spending $400 or more per week for child care.?
• 67% of parents had reduced non-essential spending in favor of affording child care.?
• 54% of parents have delayed major purchases to afford child care.?
• 34% of parents reduced essential spending to afford child care.?
• 32% of parents used emergency savings to afford child care.?
• 24% of those surveyed delayed their health care needs in favor of child care.?
• 20% of those surveyed delayed having children because of the price of child care.?
• And more.?

Kentucky’s child care industry — which some are working to rebrand under an “early childhood education” umbrella — is counting on a financial boost from the 2024 legislative session as federal COVID-19 dollars that helped stabilize the industry during the last few years are running out. This leaves many centers to cut pay for their workers, raise tuition for parents, cut services and even close.?

Without help from the General Assembly, Kentucky could lose more than a fifth of its child care providers, the Lantern has reported. Industry experts have said neither the Senate nor the House budget proposals adequately address the problem, nor does Gov. Andy Beshear’s proposal.??

Without adequate child care, families cannot reliably go to work and contribute to the overall economy. Wednesday’s survey revealed 12% of parents who responded had already quit work to stay home.?

Situation is ‘not fair’?

For Rhoades Mullins, being forced to stay home is “not fair” but “it’s also not an option for my family.”?

Her husband is a public school teacher, she said, and she works for a Letcher County nonprofit, which currently provides her family’s medical insurance.?

“The loss of an income would not be able to be sustained in our household,” she said.? “We really are having to have difficult conversations and make difficult choices? as we try to … celebrate the opportunity of having these twins here with us soon but at the same time (wondering) ‘how do I go back to work when my maternity leave ends?’”?

Dustin Pugel, policy director for the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, said about 65% of mothers of young children are in the workforce, a number that jumps to 95% for fathers of young children.?

“The reality is that a lot of mothers are involuntarily staying home because they can’t find or afford child care nearby,” he said. “A constant conversation we hear in Frankfort right now is that we need to get more people working. This seems like a situation where you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you want to get people into the workforce, the primary group of prime age folks who are not in the workforce are moms and particularly moms of young kids.”???

Rhoades Mullins lives and works in an area trying to recover from deadly back-to-back floods. She still sees a significant “lack of resources in this area” to recover from the disasters.?

“You talk a lot about the need for economic development, but until there is a robust system of child care, we’re not going to see any change in our community,” she said. “Until the state decides to provide sufficient funding for these opportunities, you cannot expect Eastern Kentucky or our state to grow and to thrive economically.”?

Rep. Richard Heath, R-Mayfield, supported a bill loosening Kentucky's child labor laws. (LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — A bill that would allow some teenagers to work longer and later hours advanced out of a Senate committee Friday just a day after the same committee had blocked it.

House Bill 255, sponsored by Rep. Phillip Pratt, R-Georgetown, was passed 7-4 out of the Senate Economic Development, Tourism, & Labor Committee in a special-called meeting. Republican Sens. Phillip Wheeler and Brandon Storm joined the minority of Democrats in opposing the bill. The bill had failed to receive enough votes to pass the committee on Thursday?

State law limits the number of hours that 16- and 17-year-olds can work on a school day to six. That limit increases to eight hours on a non-school day and up to 30 hours total during a school week, unless they receive parental permission to work more and maintain at least a 2.0 grade point average.?

HB 255 would remove those state limits to align with federal child labor law, which doesn’t have any daily or weekly hour work limits for teenagers aged 16 and 17.?

Speaking to the committee, Jamie Link, secretary of the state Education and Labor Cabinet, reiterated concerns that removing the limits could harm young Kentuckians.?

“It may well create greater liabilities for employers who employ 14- to 17-year-olds outside existing safety guidelines and regulations, and potentially cut short promising careers for our young people,” Link said.?

Rep. Richard Heath, R-Mayfield, the chair of the House Agriculture Committee who was presenting the bill in lieu of the sponsor, said he didn’t “necessarily agree” with Link’s testimony.

“It’s a good thing this wasn’t a law when I was growing up. Our dad wouldn’t have been able to put out a crop,” Heath said. “Obviously I support the bill.” Child labor laws do not apply to children working on their parents’ farm.

The bill also deletes language in state law that mirrors federal prohibitions on employing 14- and 15-year olds in hazardous occupations, such as jobs that require the use of ladders, railroad cars and conveyors and loading and unloading goods from motor vehicles, according to Dwayne Hammonds, the Kentucky Division of Wages and Hours director.?

Education and Labor Cabinet General Counsel Jessica Williamson also said state labor officials wouldn’t be able to enforce those hazardous occupation standards even though they would still be prohibited under federal law.?

Opposing the bill, Sen. Reggie Thomas, D-Lexington, said, “When it comes to allowing 14- to 17- year olds to engage in labor that’s dangerous, harmful and threatens their life, and Kentucky has no oversight on that — we’re taking away Kentucky’s oversight — count me out on that.”?

A House bill to tighten SNAP eligibility fell short Thursday of receiving enough committee votes to advance to the Senate floor. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — A Senate committee on Thursday blocked House bills that would loosen state restrictions on child labor and tighten eligibility for food assistance, but the measures are not necessarily dead.

The committee could consider both bills again at a specially-called meeting Friday, said Sen. Max Wise, chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Economic Development, Tourism, & Labor.?

House Bill 367, which anti-hunger advocates had warned could lead to greater food insecurity in Kentucky fell short of the votes needed to advance to the full Senate, despite changes to the bill made by its sponsor.

The bill sponsor aimed to increase workforce participation with the legislation. It would, among other things, give the General Assembly power over decisions about work requirements for Kentucky’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP.?

Since his bill cleared the House in February, Rep. Wade Williams, R-Earlington, said he made it “a much narrower bill.”?

He deleted a section of the bill that would have restored the federal asset test, ending the Cabinet for Health and Family Services’ ability to waive asset limits through the Broad Based Categorical Eligibility (BBCE). This would have excluded households with savings worth $2,750 as long as there are no disabled or elderly people in the household and excluded seniors and people with disabilities who had $4,250 saved.

The edits weren’t enough to convince some senators.?

Sen. Jason Howell, R-Murray, said that he does not question the intention behind the legislation. But, he said, it “works against everything that we’ve done in the last few years” to address benefits cliffs.??

“All this does is it places another wedge between people who are working and are trying to do what is best for them and what we want them to do policy-wise for the commonwealth,” Howell said. “It throws another wedge in there to keep them down in a lower economic demographic; keeps them from … being able to build any wealth, to build any assets.”?

“I think it flies in the face of everything that we’ve been trying to do as a policy for the Commonwealth of Kentucky for the last few years,” Howell continued. “And I’m a solid no.”?

Dalla Emerson, the director of food service operations for Bowling Green Schools, previously told the Lantern the bill could result in children going hungry. Access to free and reduced school lunches is tied to community poverty levels and participation in programs like SNAP.??

“I commend our legislators in making the best decision for the commonwealth,” she said Thursday.?

Jordan Ojile with Feeding Kentucky said his organization feels “encouraged” about the changes to the bill.?

“However, the remaining provision would still leave Kentuckians hungry, and we are glad the Senate Committee chose not to pass through the amended legislation,” he said. “Obviously, the fight to protect SNAP is not over, but today is worth celebrating.”

Rev. James Todd Smith, the chair of the Justice and Advocacy Commission and of the Kentucky Council on Churches and the pastor of Wesley United Methodist Church, also praised the committee members who voted against HB367.?

“It is my prayer,” he told the Lantern, “that the committee will not take it up again and that hungry people in the commonwealth will continue to have access to SNAP benefits without impediment.”?

Child labor

?Rep. Phillip Pratt’s House Bill 255, which would allow some teenagers to work longer and later hours, also fell short of the votes needed to advance to the Senate floor..?

Lobbyist Jerald Adkins, speaking for the AFL-CIO and Kentucky State Building and Construction Trades Council, told the committee that labor is working with Pratt to improve the bill and asked the members to vote ?“in hopes of making it better on the floor” through amendments.

The measure would repeal Kentucky’s existing child labor laws and align them with federal laws, which are less restrictive for minors aged 16 and 17.

Dustin Pugel of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy testified that the bill would not increase teen employment by opening up the the job market for younger workers but would lower guardrails that protect young workers from hazardous conditions and unlimited hours.???

Jamie Lucke contributed.?

Sen. Cassie Chambers-Armstrong, D-Louisville, sponsored a bill allowing more foster parents to qualify for child care assistance. (Photo by LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — A Louisville Democrat’s bill aimed at getting more foster care parents in Kentucky passed a House committee, placing it two steps from law.?

Senate Bill 240 would allow foster parents in Kentucky to qualify for child care benefits while working outside the home or working remotely in the home. Currently they must work 20 hours a week outside the home to qualify for assistance.?

The bill cleared the Senate with no opposition. The House Families and Children Committee approved it Thursday, sending it to the full House for a vote. From there it would to go Gov. Andy Beshear for a signature or veto.?

The sponsor, Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, told committee members that the bill “will decrease barriers to families who wish to participate in foster care.”?

“We desperately need more foster families in Kentucky,” she said, “and Senate Bill 240 can help us achieve that goal.”?

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman (Kentucky Lantern photo by Mathew Mueller)

Kentucky’s Russell Coleman is among 16 state attorneys general threatening legal action if Maine enacts a law shielding its medical providers from penalties for providing reproductive and gender-affirming care to residents of other states.

The Republican attorneys general assert such a law would be “extraterritorial bullying” and “could also trigger a rapid tit-for-tat escalation that tears apart our Republic.”?

??The Maine legislature is debating a bill that would ensure out-of-state patients and Maine medical professionals aren’t penalized by other states’ laws against abortion and gender-affirming treatments.

“We will not allow laws like LD 227 to deter us from protecting the integrity of our States’ democratic processes. If Maine pursues LD 227’s constitutionally defective approach, we will vigorously avail ourselves of every recourse our Constitution provides,” says the letter dated March 11 on Tennessee AG Jonathan Skrmetti’s letterhead.

It is addressed to Maine’s Gov. Janet T. Mills, Attorney General Aaron Frey, and the top leaders of Maine’s Senate and House.

On Tuesday, Frey, Maine’s attorney general, called the claims “meritless” and an attempt to intimidate proponents of the proposed shield law.

Frey cited Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attempt to subpoena records from a children’s hospital in Seattle, Washington, that Paxton alleged violated Texas law by providing gender affirming care to Texas youths.

“Unfortunately, shield laws have become necessary due to efforts in some objecting states to punish beyond their borders lawful behavior that occurs in Maine and other States,” Frey wrote.

He also dismissed the Republican AGs’ claim that LD 227 would be unconstitutional “because Maine will honor out-of-state judgments as long as they were issued in accord with basic requirements for due process and the court had sufficient jurisdiction.”?

Frey added, “Harmony between our states would be best preserved and promoted by the exercise of restraint by all parties seeking to control health care related policy choices in other states.”

If the bill becomes law, Maine would join other Democratic-led states that have enacted laws shielding providers and out-of-state patients from prosecution or other action by states that have enacted abortion bans and limits on transgender care.? “Shield laws” protect medical providers and in some cases, volunteers and patients, from legal or professional consequences from other states’ bans on certain types of health care. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 22 states and Washington, D.C. have passed shield laws protecting abortion and eleven of those states and D.C. also have protections specifically for gender-affirming care.

Kentucky has enforced? an almost-total ban on abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. Last year the legislature banned gender-affirming medical care for minors.?

Maine lawmakers are also considering additional reproductive rights bills. One proposal would enshrine the right to reproductive autonomy in the state Constitution while another would require insurance providers to cover over-the-counter contraceptives without passing along costs to customers.????

In Kentucky, bills to add exceptions for rape and incest to the state’s abortion ban have not been given a hearing by legislative leaders.

The Maine Morning Star contributed to this report.

Research shows early childhood education has positive impacts on children’s health, cognition and more.?(Photo by Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent)

FRANKFORT — Kentucky’s largest city took steps Tuesday to implement universal, free and optional preschool for its 3- and 4-year-old citizens.?

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg announced that a new nonprofit called Thrive by 5 Louisville will work over the next five years with both public and private dollars to get children in the city better prepared for kindergarten by providing grants to providers and assistance to families.?

To kick this off, Greenberg said he will be asking Metro Council in his April budget proposal for funding in the “high seven figures.”?

Greenberg is also hopeful state, federal and private philanthropic dollars will help make the vision a reality. Gov. Andy Beshear proposed in his December budget that the state spend $172 million to begin funding universal preschool for Kentucky’s 4-year-olds.?

Thrive by 5, separate from the Louisville government, will work in these phases, Greenberg announced:?

• Phase 1: During the first one to two years, which will “begin immediately,” Thrive by 5 will be staffed. It will then establish “pilot participation” with preschools, child care centers and family child care homes. During this phase, the nonprofit will also create an online resource hub for parents, which they can use to learn about eligibility. It will focus, Greenberg said, on getting “early learning professionals hired, trained, supported and compensated at a level that allows them to do the incredibly important work that we know we need them to do.”??

• Phase 2: During the third and fourth years, which should begin in about a year, Thrive by 5 will launch financial assistance for families who earn less than 300% of the federal poverty lLevel (FPL) so their 4-year-olds can attend preschool. This eligibility marker comes out to $93,600 for a family of four. “Using that threshold, there will be thousands of hard working families across our city in every metro council district who will have a much easier time accessing high quality preschool for their children,” Greenberg said.?

• Phase 3: During the fifth years and beyond, Thrive by 5 will expand financial assistance eligibility “to more Louisville children.”?

In statements Tuesday, several Louisville lawmakers praised Greenberg’s plan.?

Republican Sen. Julie Raque-Adams said it “will benefit our kids, our workforce and our economy.”?

“Louisville’s children deserve the best and by supporting early learning we increase their chance at long-term success,” said Raque-Adams.?

Democrat Rep. Josie Raymond said that “early childhood education is the best solution we have to disrupt cycles of generational poverty and create opportunity.”??

Thrive by 5 will be overseen by a board of directors, which Ashley Novak Butler, the executive director of the Lift a Life Novak Family Foundation, will chair.?

She said Tuesday that she wants to “strengthen our current early learning ecosystem while working to build additional resources needed to create access to high quality learning environments for children.”??

Research shows early childhood education has positive impacts on children’s health, cognition and more.?

Louisville Metro Council member Phillip Baker, said that universal pre-kindergarten “embodies the very essence of progress and equality.”?

“Imagine a future where every child in Louisville, regardless of their background, regardless of their circumstance, has access to high quality early childhood education,” he said. “Picture the potential, the possibilities that unfold when we invest in the youngest leaders and learners. This is not merely a dream. It’s a vision that we all in this room and outside this room can turn into a reality.”??

The investment is costly but worth it, he said.?

“Some may say, ‘how do we afford such an ambitious endeavor?’” he said. “To them I (say), ‘how can we afford not to?’”?

Sen. Danny Carroll's bill seeks to address problems in Kentucky's juvenile detention system. (Photo by Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — Kentucky would spend $22 million to build a special mental health juvenile detention facility as well as create a process to test and treat such children under a sweeping bill being discussed in the legislature.?

Sen. Danny Carroll, a West Kentucky Republican, filed Senate Bill 242 as a shell bill on the last day possible, Feb. 28. He’s since substituted the shell for a 52-page proposal on addressing mental health needs among youth offenders that comes with a price tag of around $165 million.?

“We’re a little bit late getting it out,” Carroll said during the Senate Families and Children Committee Tuesday. “But it’s because we wanted to get it as complete as we possibly could.”?

The committee, which he chairs, only discussed the bill. They may vote on it next week.?

Among other provisions, SB242 would delay a requirement for mandatory detention, which came out of 2023 legislation. A 48-hour hold for some juveniles charged with violent crimes is set to go into effect this July, but Carroll’s bill would delay it until Feb. 1, 2026.?

What’s in Carroll’s DJJ bill??

Carrol’s bill includes these points:?

• The Department of Juvenile Justice must operate at least two female detention centers — one in Central Kentucky and one in the western part of the state by Feb. 1, 2026. If there are too many juveniles for two facilities, a third may be added in either Eastern or Northern Kentucky. The facilities must “safely segregate violent offenders.”?
• Defines “high acuity youth” as minors who behavioral health experts determine need “specialized treatment capable of addressing manifest aggression, violence toward persons or property destruction.” These “are the highest level kids that we deal with,” Carroll said.?
• DJJ will build a 16-bed acute mental health facility meant to house juveniles who fit the “high acuity” definition. DJJ would own and staff the facility, but the Cabinet for Health and Family Services would partner to provide appropriate mental health treatment.?
• Dictates that a juvenile who is charged with a public offense or is being ordered by a court to undergo inpatient psychiatric treatment must undergo a behavioral assessment by a clinical professional before the minor goes to the hospital to determine if they fit the definition of “high acuity youth.”?
• If a juvenile fits the definition, the clinical professional must work with DJJ to come up with a treatment plan for that child, including reaching out to appropriate hospitals. The clinician must also prepare an affidavit showing the clinical evidence used to determine the minor qualified as “high acuity.”?
• Inpatient psychiatric hospitals or pediatric teaching hospitals that accept transfer orders for “high acuity youth” will be reimbursed 200% of the current rate by the Department of Medicaid Services. Outpatient facilities would be reimbursed at least 150% of the current rate.?
• Any juvenile who “commits an act of violence against any of the hospital’s staff” will be criminally charged, discharged, and “returned to the youth’s last place of custody.”?
• Delay a controversial 48-hour mandatory detention by more than a year, setting it to go into effect in 2026 rather than 2024.?
• Requires the Finance and Administration Cabinet to report to the Legislative Research Commission by Aug. 1, for referral to the Interim Joint Committee on Judiciary and the Interim Joint Committee on Families and Children the status of the transfer of property deed of the Jefferson County Youth Detention Center.?

“I think this is something that’s really going to make a difference in dealing with high acuity youth,” Carroll said in committee.??

The mental health facility, which would take at least 18 months to build and would hypothetically be on the Central State Hospital grounds, is “breaking new ground from what I understand,” Carroll said.?

It’s “really difficult to find any model in this country that’s currently doing this,” he said. “So we will have to make adjustments as we go.”?

But: “when we talk about DJJ detention, ultimately, that’s the type of facility – or the facility — that we’re talking about,” Carroll said.?

Would locking up an extra 400 kids make Kentucky safer?

“We’re not going to have these kids — once we get this facility built — locked up in a cell, naked, sleeping in feces, no … mental treatment,” he said in committee. “That’s just not going to happen anymore with this.”??

Carroll’s bill continues work from the 2023 legislative session, which heavily featured juvenile justice and detention issues.?

Reports of violence in Kentucky’s juvenile justice system regularly made headlines in 2023, including a riot in Adair County during which a girl in state custody was allegedly sexually assaulted and employees were attacked at a youth detention center in Warren County. The department has also faced persistent staffing issues.

A January 2024 audit found “??disorganization across facilities” and a “lack of leadership from the Beshear administration,” Republican Auditor Allison Ball said at the time.?

Carroll said the audit “confirms the fears and concerns my colleagues and I expressed during last year’s DJJ workgroup efforts.”?

“Our focus is unchanged,” he said, “and our desire to help children in need and protect the public, staff and youth continues to be our top priority.”?

What will Carroll’s DJJ proposal cost??

Carroll has submitted a budget proposal to accompany his bill asking the state to spend around $165 million on these DJJ initiatives.?

That money includes:?

• $45 million for each female DJJ facility (totaling $90 million)
• $22 million for the DJJ mental health facility.?
• Retrofits and maintenance bills.?

“This comes with a price tag,” Carroll said. “As the budget moves forward, we have some decisions to make on this.”?

Is there time left in the session to pass Carroll’s bill??

There is time, but it is tight.?

Tuesday marked the 49th day of the 60-day legislative session and is part of the final full week of proceedings. In order to maintain the ability to override any vetoes by Gov. Andy Beshear, the legislature must pass bills by March 28.?If Carroll’s bill goes up for a vote in committee next Tuesday, that would give it five scheduled session days to go through the entire process of a Senate floor vote, House committee consideration and House vote before the session breaks for the veto period on March 29.

Children eat lunch together on Nov. 28, 2023, at the iKids Childhood Enrichment Center in Benton. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Abbey Cutrer)

FRANKFORT — A Kentucky House bill that encourages local governments to examine available zoning for child care centers received unanimous approval by a Senate committee Tuesday.?

House Bill 561 cleared the House in late February. Now that it cleared the Senate Families and Children Committee 9-0, it can go to the Senate floor.?

“A lot of people have talked about how one of the biggest impediments to opening child care centers is local zoning and land use policies,” said bill sponsor Rep. Samara Heavrin, R-Leitchfield.?

Kentucky’s child care industry — which some are working to rebrand under an “early childhood education” umbrella — is a major theme in the 2024 legislative session as federal COVID-19 dollars that helped stabilize the industry during the last few years are running out. This leaves many centers to cut pay for their workers, raise tuition for parents, cut services and even close.?

Without help from the General Assembly, Kentucky could lose more than a fifth of its child care providers, the Lantern has reported. And even with the state help that is proposed in the House budget — a $52 million a year increase — experts say about 16,000 kids could lose access to child care in 2024.?

West Kentucky Republican Sen. Danny Carroll has pitched a $300 million, two-year bill to stabilize and expand early childhood education, which child care experts in the state have widely praised, but which has yet to get a Senate vote.?

“Increasing access to child care benefits everybody,” Heavrin said in Tuesday’s committee. “It benefits kids, working families, our workforce and our economy.”

Jennifer Vollstedt was pregnant for the second time in 2016, ?after her first?pregnancy was?diagnosed with a fatal chromosomal condition. Her son is now 6. (Courtesy of Jenn Vollstedt)

Jennifer Vollstedt and Ariel Cavanaugh-Okhah have never met, but they are connected by fatal chromosomal abnormalities that affected their wanted pregnancies, and the stress and heartbreak that come with it.

Their experiences of needing to terminate their pregnancies were quite different. One took place before the Dobbs ruling overturned Roe and the federal right to abortion while the other occurred just a few months after.

The two women are separated by nearly 1,500 miles. Vollstedt lives in Wisconsin. Cavanaugh-Okhah is in southern Florida. In some states, like Wisconsin, abortion restrictions were already in place before Roe fell, but the procedure was still accessible.

After June 2022, patients and providers found themselves trying to navigate a patchwork of laws in 14 states that implemented strict or near-total abortion bans, some from any gestational age. Access suddenly became largely dependent on location, with some clinics in bordering states less than an hour away and others more than a 12-hour car ride.

Vollstedt got pregnant for the first time at 27 in December 2014, not long after her wedding. She couldn’t wait to tell friends and family. She called her grandfather to share the news over FaceTime, just weeks before he died.

“He was really excited, he loved babies,” Vollstedt said.

Her doctor ordered standard blood work and other lab tests. But while she was on a family vacation in Florida a few days later, a geneticist called.

“They said my results from the blood test were actually very concerning,” she said.

The test indicated her fetus could have a rare condition called triploidy, which means it has 69 chromosomes instead of the normal 46, and causes many developmental issues such as heart, kidney and neural tube defects. In almost all cases, the pregnancy ends in miscarriage or stillbirth. The few babies that make it to delivery die within hours or days.

“I was just absolutely devastated, because I really wanted this pregnancy,” Vollstedt said.

To confirm the diagnosis, Vollstedt had to wait until 16 weeks for an amniocentesis because of the position of her placenta. Although Roe was still in effect, that year then-Gov. Scott Walker signed a law scaling back abortion to 20 weeks. The clock was ticking.

“I had no doubt that I would get an abortion for this pregnancy, that I did not have any interest in carrying it to term,” Vollstedt said. “I knew this baby, if she survived to term, would experience suffering and then pass away.”

Now with confirmation of the diagnosis, and the termination appointment scheduled, Vollstedt said she avoided leaving the house.

“People could see I was pregnant, and would comment on my belly, and that would just send me into instant tears,” she said. “Everything is going on with your body that you don’t want to be going on, and it’s just really frustrating and disappointing. … I wanted to not be pregnant anymore, and I didn’t have 100% control of when that happened.”

For the abortion, she returned to the same hospital where she had already been receiving care for her pregnancy, where she was already familiar with the nurses and doctors.

“I felt really cared for, and it felt really comfortable to be able to get my abortion in a hospital setting where I knew everybody,” she said. “It was just treated like regular, normal health care.”

Diagnosis came after Florida’s 15-week cutoff?

Cavanaugh-Okhah learned she was pregnant in early October 2022, when her son was about 18 months old. That was the age gap she and her husband, Zachary Okhah, had hoped for.

“We were at that time with my first child when you finally start to sleep, and thought, ‘Okay, we can try again now,’” she said.

Everything went well at her first ultrasound, and she decided to go ahead with genetic testing. Her doctor told her that following the Dobbs ruling, if the test results flagged anything that might cause her to want to terminate the pregnancy, she would have to do it by 15 weeks according to the new Florida abortion law. He wrote the details on a sheet of paper with the name of a clinic and the deadline.

“I remember thinking, ‘Thank you for the information, but that’s not a me problem,’ and just walking out the door,” Cavanaugh-Okhah said.

The test results came back with a high risk of Trisomy 21, better known as Down syndrome. It is the most common chromosomal abnormality, affecting about 1 in every 700 pregnancies, and it has a higher survival rate than several other disorders. But it can come with other severe defects that decrease those odds.

At first, Cavanaugh-Okhah was in denial that the results were accurate. Her doctor seemed to indicate it was probably wrong, she said, and her husband was convinced they were part of the small percentage of people whose babies end up being perfectly fine.

“That was a little too painful, to sit in that place of hope for weeks,” she said.

The doctor ordered an additional diagnostic test just before Cavanaugh-Okhah and her husband left on a trip overseas — her dream vacation to Switzerland at Christmas. But they received the phone call not long after arriving confirming the condition.

“I just fell into my husband, and I was weeping,” she said.

Zach Okhah is a plastic surgeon, and he called in a favor with a friend in Germany who helped them schedule an appointment with an OB-GYN who was willing to perform another ultrasound. That doctor found fluid present in the fetus’ brain, a heart defect, and a gastrointestinal tract that was so poorly developed, the doctor said termination was worth discussing for that abnormality alone.

At that point, Cavanaugh-Okhah was right around 15 weeks, so she wouldn’t be able to get an abortion at home. In Germany, they didn’t offer the type of procedure she preferred to have. And if she wanted her husband to be able to come with her, it needed to happen within the next week. So on Dec. 23, 2022, Cavanaugh-Okhah first called an abortion hotline to figure out her options, then called as many clinics as she could back in the states to find an appointment.

Massachusetts was one of the options on the list, and since she met her husband in Boston, they still had family there who could offer support. But that meant disclosing the whole story to more people than she wanted to tell.

“We hadn’t told those family members we were pregnant, so (my husband) called them and said, ‘Hey, we’re pregnant, and we need an abortion, a place to stay, and child care,’” Cavanaugh-Okhah said.

She contacted her doctor to get all of the ultrasound images and medical documents sent to the clinic, she said, because it felt like no one back home in Florida wanted to be involved with it at that point.

There was one appointment available. They changed their flights and flew straight from Stuttgart, Germany, to Boston.

“It’s so painful getting on an airplane knowing you’re flying to end your pregnancy,” she said. “I kept on saying, ‘I don’t know that I can do this.’”

The hospital was calm and quiet the day of her appointment, and Cavanaugh-Okhah said the doctor who cared for her helped give her the emotional support she needed to make it through the procedure.

“I wanted someone to tell me how many people go through this, because I couldn’t find it anywhere,” she said. “I’ll never forget, she just rolled her little chair closer to me and said, ‘I don’t have that number, but I can tell you there’s a lot of you.’ And then I think she placed her hand on me and said, ‘I know what you’re doing today is done with absolute love and compassion for your child.’”

‘We can love that pregnancy … and still make that decision’?

By the end of 2016, Vollstedt was pregnant again with her son, who is now 6. To process her grief and start to move forward took more than a year, she said, and she’s not sure if she ever would have wanted to get pregnant again if she had been forced to carry that pregnancy to term.

“(When Roe fell) I just thought so much about where I would’ve been had all this happened after that, what other people who are going to be in my situation or similar situations are going to experience,” Vollstedt said. If she had faced the same situation after the Dobbs decision, she would have been forced to look out of state for help, since Wisconsin had a full abortion ban in effect for more than a year.

“To have to do that many extra steps to get to Illinois or Michigan is so challenging when you’re already in this really fragile mental state,” she said.

Cavanaugh-Okhah knows she was able to get the care she needed because she had the means to book a last-minute overseas flight, but that didn’t make the experience any easier or less frightening. Even wealthy people can still lose their lives because care is too far away or otherwise inaccessible. As someone who had an ectopic pregnancy before her abortion and two miscarriages since, Cavanaugh-Okhah is all too familiar with potential complications.

The Florida Supreme Court has yet to decide whether the state’s 15-week ban should become a six-week ban after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law in 2023 to further restrict reproductive care.

“We’re in Miami, and if this thing passes and it’s a six-week ban, what’s going to happen if something goes wrong?” she said.

“I really want for people to see the humanness of us women, and that we can love that pregnancy and have so much compassion and connection, and still make that decision. Both can exist at the same time. We’re not heartless monsters.”

Angela Anderson of the Brighton Center in Newport participated in the grant announcement Monday in Washington, D.C. The center provides a range of human services and opportunities in eight counties in Northern Kentucky. (Doris Duke Foundation photo)

Kentucky will share in a $30 million grant seeking to build supports for families who fall through cracks in the child welfare system.?

The Doris Duke Foundation is funding the three-year initiative called Opt-in for Families (Opportunities for Prevention and Transformation). Pilot sites will be in Kentucky, South Carolina, Oregon and Washington, D.C.

A release from the foundation said the program is specifically focused on reaching families who get referred to Child Protective Services for “well-being needs rather than safety concerns that do not warrant investigation of neglect or abuse — and who therefore often get no help at all.”

“The child welfare system’s narrow focus on removal is a system design flaw that fails communities, fails many good intentioned caseworkers, and, most of all, fails the children and families who need support and compassion to succeed,” said Sam Gill, Doris Duke Foundation President and CEO. “This effort is intended to demonstrate the potential gains from redesigning a system to ask a new question: what do children and families need to thrive? Kentucky was selected for its commitment to and progress in developing new ways of supporting families.”

Eric Friedlander, secretary of Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services, said Kentucky is “committed to demonstrating how to build a multi-dimensional child wellbeing system for families who we know are at risk of foster care without waiting for children to experience harm compounded by the trauma of family separation,” according to the release.

The release also says: “The three-year funding, on-the-ground expertise, and staffing provided through Opt-in for Families will enable Kentucky to serve families in new and innovative ways. Opt-in for Families will give Kentucky families options and support, when they need it the most. This groundbreaking partnership connects Kentucky’s Department for Community Based Services (DCBS) with community-based organizations to provide resources and support to children and families. Opt-In for Families supports family choice and supports new pathways for DCBS to support families.”

Additional information can be found at www.ddf-opt-in.org.

Former Kentucky House Speaker Bobby Richardson served as master of ceremonies at the Fancy Farm political speaking in 2017. In 1984, he made a speech that swung a Kentucky House vote in favor of in vitro fertilization. (KET screenshot)

Veteran Kentucky lawmakers call it one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the state’s General Assembly.? Memory of it has revived this spring as the nation — and Kentucky lawmakers — weigh a controversy over in vitro fertilization, a way to help infertile couples have a baby.

“What happened back in the state House in 1984 in that debate on in vitro fertilization in its early stages is a story worth telling again, especially now,” said Democrat Greg Stumbo of Prestonsburg.

“It certainly resonates today with all the talk on the topic.”

Stumbo was a rank-and-file legislator in that session 40 years ago before becoming majority floor leader, House speaker and attorney general.

The current debate over in vitro fertilization started last month in Alabama.

In a first-of-its-kind ruling Feb. 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children and those who destroy them can be held liable for wrongful death.

Critics immediately said the ruling could have a chilling effect on infertility treatments like in vitro fertilization.

In vitro fertilization, also called IVF, is a complex series of medical procedures that can lead to a pregnancy. It’s a treatment for couples that cannot get pregnant after at least a year of trying. It also can be used to prevent passing on genetic problems to a child.

In the process, a woman’s egg is combined with male sperm in vitro (“in glass”) in a lab to produce a fertilized egg. One or more of the fertilized eggs, called embryos, are placed in a woman’s uterus, which is where babies develop.

The embryos can be stored in liquid nitrogen at minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit indefinitely.

The history of IVF goes back more than half a century. In 1959, the first birth in a nonhuman mammal — mice — occurred from IVF.? In 1978, a woman in England gave birth after the first human IVF pregnancy.? Since then, millions of babies have been born as a result of IVF.

Is in vitro fertilization under threat in Kentucky too? Law matching Alabama’s deepens concerns

Many state legislatures — including Kentucky’s — and the U.S. Congress have seen IVF legislation sprout up since the Alabama ruling. Alabama’s legislature and governor last week enacted a law meant to shield health providers from prosecution or lawsuits, in hopes that IVF providers in Alabama would resume services. But critics said the measure? fails to address the state’s Supreme Court finding that frozen embryos are children and merit protection as human life.

The Kentucky General Assembly currently is considering three bills dealing with IVF. ?Kentucky Right to Life, the state’s most prominent anti-abortion group, supports one of them and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who has called IVF “a gift from God,” has thrown his support behind all three.

It will be interesting to see if the legislative debate around IVG becomes as intense as it did in 1984.

‘A magical moment’ in the Kentucky House

IVF was not that well known in Kentucky in 1984, but Rep. Stumbo, a lawyer, had a constituent who asked him to sponsor a bill that would allow public funds to be used to perform the fertility treatment.

The powerful Kentucky Right to Life opposed it. The anti-abortion group was concerned about handling of the embryos in the treatment. It backed legislation to prohibit IVF.

Stumbo was friends with law school classmate, Rep. Bob Heleringer, a Republican attorney from Louisville who was a strong supporter of Right to Life.

Stumbo asked Heleringer for his help on his IVF bill. Heleringer added to it a provision that said the public funding was permissible “as long as such procedures do not result in the intentional destruction of a human embryo.”

“I will never forget that session of the House when we debated IVF,” Stumbo recently recalled.? “I have seen a lot of magical moments in my time in the legislature but that one was right up there.”

The debate was tense. Some members cited the sanctity of life and said embryos were very much human and alive.? Some mentioned the need for the special treatment to help couples who wanted to have children.

The time came to take the vote.? The large boards on the sides of the speaker’s chair that record the individual votes showed that IVF was in trouble.

Unbeknownst to Stumbo, House Speaker Bobby Richardson, a Democrat from Glasgow who was an attorney known for his down-home common sense, stepped down from the speaker’s chair and walked down to one of the member’s desk to deliver a floor speech on the bill

“It got so quiet in the chamber,” said Stumbo.? “A speaker never does that unless the speaker considers it extremely important.? It gets members’ attention. He thought it was extremely important and his speech turned the tide.”

“The best I remember about that speech,” said Richardson in a recent interview, “is that I was thinking about one of the worst tragedies in life is the couple who wants to have a baby and cannot.

“If in vitro is the only way they can have a family, we would be opposing them if we did not support the treatment. I still believe that.”

Richardson made his speech emotional and personal.

“My wife and I had infertility problems.? I talked about that, though we never used IVF.? What I said must have hit a nerve with some members.”

Votes started to change.? The measure eventually prevailed.

Asked if it were his words or the power he carried as speaker that influenced the final vote, Richardson said, “Who knows?? I just know it had an impact.”

In a 2008 interview with the University of Kentucky Oral History Center about his legislative career, Richardson said he was “proud” to have taken the lead on the IVF measure.

“The right-to-life people opposed in vitro fertilization. You are familiar with that,” he said in that interview. “Why, I don’t know except they might have thought there may have been additional eggs fertilized or something, but I thought the technology was a wonderful way for childless couples to end up parents, and I still do.

“That was a fight that I took a lot of pleasure in, after we were successful.”

The 1984 Richardson speech was “the most effective” Heleringer said he heard in his 22 years in the legislature.

“Other members spoke passionately about the issue that day but it was the speaker’s words that took the day. None of us knew the personal pain of infertility as he did.”

Heleringer said he had no problem helping Stumbo with his bill. “That’s when we compromised in the legislature, though Margie didn’t talk to me for a year.” He was referring to the late Margie Montgomery, the co-founder and longtime executive director of Kentucky Right to Life.

“Bobby’s speech was so spontaneous,” said Stumbo.? “It was the first time in the Kentucky legislature that Right to Life had experienced such a legislative defeat.? I remember like it was yesterday.”

The IVF debate today

Richardson said the controversial Alabama Supreme Court ruling was an offshoot of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in June 2022 to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to an abortion.

“I think it was the wrong decision by that state court,” he said. “I don’t believe fertilized embryos used in starting IVF are human beings. They have no heartbeat.”

Cardiac tissue begins pulsing in an embryo around the fifth week of pregnancy, creating electric pulses that an ultrasound procedure can detect and turn into sound.

“I am no longer a politician but I hope IVF remains protected,” said Richardson.? “That is the right thing to do.”

Of the three bills now in the Kentucky General Assembly, ?Kentucky Right to Life supports Senate Bill 373, sponsored by Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill.? It would limit liability for doctors and other health care providers if they lose or damage a human embryo.

Westerfield has told his colleagues that his and his wife’s son was conceived through an adopted embryo and that his wife is now pregnant with triplets from embryos that they adopted.

“We do support this bill because it protects the fertilized embryo,” said Addia Wuchner, the current director of Kentucky Right to Life. “Our goal is not to oppose proper fertility treatments but to protect the embryo.”

Wuchner said her organization could not support House Bill 757, sponsored by Rep. Daniel Grossberg, D-Louisville, which says a fertilized embryo outside of the human body is not an unborn child.

Grossberg said it would make sure women have the right to use IVF and would protect them from any prosecution.

“That bill undermines what we affirm,” said Wuchner.

She said she has no comment on SB 301, sponsored----- by Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville.? It protects health care providers who use IVF from criminal li--------ability.

Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, presents her first bill, Senate Bill 240, in the Senate on Thursday. The child care legislation won support on the chamber floor. (LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — A Democrat’s bill aimed at making it easier for Kentuckians to become foster parents unanimously passed the Senate Thursday — after some friendly hazing aimed at the sponsor upon passing her first bill.?

Senate Bill 240 would allow foster parents in Kentucky to qualify for? child care benefits while working outside the home or working remotely in the home. Currently they must work 20 hours a week outside the home to qualify for assistance.?

The sponsor, Louisville Democrat Cassie Chambers Armstrong, said in committee that it “will decrease barriers to families who wish to participate in foster care.” Chambers Armstrong won a special election in February 2023 to fill the Senate seat vacated by Democrat Morgan McGarvey’s election to the U.S. House.

On the Senate floor she said clarifying remote work requirement eligibility for stipends is a “small but needed change that will make it easier for more people to become foster parents” in Kentucky.?

It can now go to the House for consideration.?

Three women challenging Kentucky's abortion law with their lawyers: From left, Aaron Kemper, Jessica Kalb, Sarah Baron, Lisa Sobel and Benjamin Potash. (Photo provided)

For Lisa Sobel and her husband, being able to have a child through in vitro fertilization, or IVF, was “a dream come true.”

“For us, this really is a joy,” Sobel, of Louisville, said. “We want for there to be other families to be able to have this joy.”

But the recent state Supreme Court ruling in Alabama defining frozen embryos as live children — effectively suspending IVF in that state — has sent shock waves through the IVF community nationwide.?

That includes Sobel and her lawyers, who believe Kentucky’s laws on abortion — one virtually identical to Alabama’s — jeopardize IVF here because they define life as starting at fertilization.

“We read the laws and saw that what happened in Alabama could happen in Kentucky,” said Aaron Kemper. “We’re in trouble.”

He and lawyer Benjamin Potash represent Sobel, the lead plaintiff of three Jewish women suing over Kentucky’s abortion laws, in part because of the potential impact on IVF. They also allege the laws violate their rights under the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act because the abortion laws state life begins at the moment a human egg is fertilized, a Christian religious belief not shared by Jews.

In Alabama, several clinics, including one at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, stopped IVF services after the Feb. 16 ruling that frozen embryos are “extrauterine children” and thereby are entitled to protection as a human life.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey late Wednesday signed a measure the Republican-controlled legislature rushed into law meant to shield health providers from prosecution or lawsuits, which could allow IVF services to resume. But critics said the measure? fails to address the state’s Supreme Court finding that frozen embryos are children and merit protection as human life, allowing likely further legal disputes.

Sobel and her lawyers say the Alabama ruling heightens the urgency for a ruling in their lawsuit which was submitted to Jefferson Circuit Judge Brian Edwards nearly a year ago for a decision. The lawsuit, asking the judge to find the laws violate Kentucky’s Constitution, was filed in the wake of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling ending the federal right to abortion.

“We’re waiting on a decision, that’s where we are,” Kemper said.

Claims ‘hypothetical’

The Kentucky Attorney General’s office, which is defending the abortion laws, agreed to seek a decision, or summary judgment, from the judge in a May 2023 filing, asking Edwards to rule in its favor.

It argues the laws are constitutional and said the women’s claims of harm are “hypothetical.”?

The filing, under former Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican, also argues the laws have no impact on IVF. Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman, who took office in January, is now handling the case.

Coleman, in a statement, called on state officials to focus on “safeguarding access to IVF,”? which he described as “an incredible blessing for so many seeking to become parents.”

Under IVF, a woman’s eggs are extracted and fertilized in the lab to be implanted in the uterus; unused embryos may be frozen for future use, donated for research or “adoption” by other parents or discarded.

“The plain language of Kentucky’s laws makes it clear that neither IVF nor the disposal of embryos created through IVF and not yet implanted are prohibited,” the attorney general’s filing said.

The women’s lawyers disagree, saying that Kentucky’s laws explicitly state human life begins at fertilization, leaving the door open for a challenge to IVF for the potential loss or destruction of embryos.

“The previous attorney general said until he was blue in the face that IVF is not illegal,” Potash said. “It’s come to pass.”

That leaves health providers scared of lawsuits or prosecution, they said.

That’s what happened in Alabama after three couples whose frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed in a fertility clinic filed a lawsuit under the state’s “wrongful death of a child” law. The high court ruled in their favor, saying state law “applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation.”

The Sobel lawsuit challenges a pair of Kentucky laws that took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022 struck down Roe v. Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to abortion. One, the “trigger law,” ended abortion upon such a decision; the other bans abortion after about six weeks, once embryonic cardiac activity is detected and before many women realize they are pregnant.

Both laws permit very narrow exceptions, allowing abortion only to save the life of or prevent disabling injury to a patient. The laws have no exemptions for rape or incest.

“Word for word, the law in Alabama is identical to the law in Kentucky,” Potash said, referring to the trigger law.

The Alabama law banning abortion even has the same title as Kentucky’s “trigger” law, the “Human Life Protection Act,” and both were passed in 2019, Potash said.

“In all likelihood, this is part of a larger concerted effort by conservatives,” Potash said.

Sobel and plaintiff Jessica Kalb both had children through IVF after struggling with fertility. A third plaintiff, Sarah Baron, was considering the procedure, said the lawsuit filed in October 2022.

A ruling in their favor would protect IVF — as well as restore the right to abortion, Potash said.

“We’re hoping we can get a ruling here in Kentucky,” he said.

The lawyers said they don’t know why Edwards hasn’t yet ruled.

Lawmakers scurry to save IVF

The potential threat to IVF has sent lawmakers scurrying to protect the procedure.

Three Kentucky lawmakers have filed such bills.

Senate Bill 373, filed by Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill, would protect health care providers from liability or prosecution over the loss of a human embryo.

Westerfield is a staunch opponent of abortion and has supported state laws pushed through by the legislature’s Republican supermajority that ban the procedure in almost all circumstances.

But he is an outspoken supporter of IVF.

Westerfield’s filing comes as he and his wife are?expecting triplets, he announced in January. He said on the Senate floor that they adopted and transferred embryos for the pregnancy. His 6-year-old son is an “embryo adoption” baby, he said.?

Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, filed Senate Bill 301, which would protect? from “criminal liability” IVF health care providers who meet a “professional standard of care.”

And Rep. Daniel Grossberg, D-Louisville, filed House Bill 757, which would prohibit state or local authorities from trying to limit or interfere with reproductive technology.?

It also calls for a new provision in state law declaring that a fertilized human egg or embryo in any form outside the uterus “shall not be considered an unborn child.”

The bills follow a recent flurry of action in the Alabama legislature which has advanced bills meant to shield IVF providers following a public outcry over that state’s Supreme Court decision.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican who opposes abortion, said she supports such legislation.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat and supporter of abortion rights, last week blasted Republicans for the current predicament over IVF.

“This is what happens, though, when you embrace extremism,” Beshear said.

In the U.S. Senate, a bill to establish national protections for IVF was blocked by Republicans last week.

Potash and Kemper, the lawyers for the women seeking to overturn Kentucky’s abortion ban, said the problem with most such efforts at the state level is that they try to sidestep laws that say human life begins at fertilization.

“These people want to pass an IVF law while maintaining that a fertilized egg is a human being and I don’t see how that’s possible,” Kemper said. “I don’t see how they’re ever going to be able to enact a law that protects IVF while maintaining that a fertilized embryo is a human being.”

The best outcome to clarify things in Kentucky would be a ruling in the pending lawsuit, the lawyers said.

“We’re hoping we get a decision on our case before someone sues for wrongful death in Kentucky,” Kemper said.

Sobel said the delays are frustrating for her and others in her position considering? IVF. The procedure is expensive — costing couples tens of thousands of dollars — and takes an emotional toll, she said.

It’s especially frustrating that the decision rests largely with male officials including a judge, she said.

“Women can only have children for so many years,” she said. “The older you get the more complicated your pregnancy is.”

Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Ryland Heights, allowed children to leave the Senate chamber before receiving unanimous approval for a bill to protect children from sexual victimization. (Photo by LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — A bill felonzing the intentional ownership of a child sex doll has now passed both the Kentucky House and Senate and is on its way to Gov. Andy Beshear’s desk.?

Sen. Chris McDaniel presented the bill, sponsored in the House by Edgewood Republican Rep. Stephanie Dietz, on the Senate floor. It passed unanimously 38-0 after 10 minutes of supportive discussion.?

Before discussing the bill, McDaniel gave parents and guardians a few moments of silence to take children out of the floor and balconies.?

House Bill 207 would make it a Class D felony to knowingly own or sell a child sex doll — defined as a doll, mannequin or robot that is intended for sexual stimulation or gratification and that has the features of, or has features that resemble those of, a minor.

Attorney General Russell Coleman and others in law enforcement testified previously that people who use these dolls often escalate to harming children in real life.?

The bill also criminalizes the use of artificial intelligence to create child pornography or to create fake images that use real children as the source.?

“This piece of legislation will give our law enforcement the tools that they need to protect our children from predators and exploitation,” McDaniel said. “There’s a lot of pedophiles who practice victimization of children. This bill will save countless children rape, sexual abuse and trafficking.”

Katelyn Foust traveled from her Oldham County home to a birthing center in Indiana to give birth to baby Jude. (Photo provided)

FRANKFORT — A bill paving the way for freestanding birth centers in Kentucky was approved by a committee Wednesday despite concerns — but the sponsor says he won’t take it to the House floor without amendments addressing some of those worries.?

House Bill 199 would, among other things, remove the certificate of need requirement for freestanding birth centers, which the Kentucky Birth Coalition has said is a huge barrier to opening the centers in the state. It passed the House Standing Committee on Licensing, Occupations, and Administrative Regulations with 13 yay votes, no nays and five passes.?

Certificate of need, or CON, attempts to certify that there is a need for a service, be that extra beds in a hospital, an extra MRI machine or a new facility altogether, like a freestanding birthing center. These centers are home-like facilities for low-risk births and run by midwives.?

What to know about the certificate of need debate in Kentucky

Reforming the process is not a strictly partisan issue, and Kentucky has had at least one bill for the last four years seeking to remove CON for freestanding birth centers.?

HB 199 sponsor Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, told committee members he would “ not seek for this to be moved on the floor” without introducing floor amendments to address some concerns raised by hospitals, including laying the framework for centers to be located close to hospitals for timely transfer and having transfer agreements with hospitals.?

St. Elizabeth Healthcare obstetrician Dr. Allana Oak said she wants to also see the bill “add in the very important presence of an obstetrician or a physician to help oversee and work collaboratively with the midwives that are delivering at the freestanding birth centers.”?

Without this oversight “by experienced providers, physicians, this could be catastrophic,” Oak said.?

But requiring a physician would present another practical obstacle to ever opening birth centers in Kentucky said, Christy Peterson, a certified nurse midwife in Kentucky and Tennessee.

“It is very difficult as an out-of-hospital provider to find supervision from people who are going to be your competitors,” Peterson said. ?The requirement could also constitute?a “restriction of trade.”?

“I have grave concerns about the women of Kentucky thinking they are getting a higher level of care,” said Oak of freestanding birth centers. “It’s just not a higher level of care.”?

Nemes said there are “horror stories” from home births, hospitals and freestanding birth centers. But: “We think that this is a very safe option for women.”?

Terry Brooks, the executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, said easing the way to opening birth centers in Kentucky is an “important equity and access to care issue.”?

“Maternal health is critical to babies’ birth outcomes and how new mothers fare,” Brooks said. “It relies on access to prenatal, delivery and postpartum care.”?

Kentucky’s ‘unicorns’

“Currently, there are no statutory requirements for licensing of birth centers,” Mary Kathryn DeLodder, the director of the Kentucky Birth Coalition, told lawmakers while testifying in favor of HB199. “It’s all in regulation currently. So we see this bill as raising the bar.”?

Freestanding birth centers, she said, are for physiological or “natural” birth experiences and are “guided by principles of prevention, sensitivity, safety, appropriate medical intervention and cost effectiveness.”?

Oak said that there aren’t many people who fit the bill for low risk in Kentucky.?

“We have to look at the health of Kentuckians. It’s not good,” she said. “So to have a completely low risk, birth, you know what we call that? We call it a unicorn, because that patient is a magical creature. To find people that are truly low risk in the state of Kentucky is very difficult sometimes.”?

In the past advocates have said having freestanding birth centers would offer a middle ground for people who will choose a home birth. Kentucky recorded 177 home births in 1988 and 900 in 2021.?

Some Kentuckians also travel out of state to birth centers rather than go to a hospital in the state. In 2022, 110 Kentuckians traveled to Tree of Life, a freestanding birthing center in Jeffersonville, Indiana, the Lantern previously reported. That is an increase from 107 in 2021 and 71 in 2020. And, the Clarksville Midwifery practice in Tennessee delivers about 25-30 Kentucky babies every year.?

“I think women can be trusted with their own decision,” said Nemes, the bill sponsor. “I don’t think we have to act like they can’t make a decision on their own. … To say that they don’t know what’s best for them — I just don’t agree with that.”

Sen. Whitney Westerfield discusses his bill to allow child support during the months of pregnancy. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Isabella Sepahban)

FRANKFORT — A?bill that would allow Kentuckians to collect child support payments for fetuses as long as there is an order in place within a year of birth passed the Senate 36-2 Tuesday.?

Senate Bill 110, sponsored by Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill, can now go to the House side for consideration.?

“I believe that life begins at conception,” said Westerfield on the floor. “But even if you don’t there’s no question there are obligations and costs involved with having a child.”?

There are doctor’s visits and medical care bills even before expenses like car seats, he said.?“These costs are very real and add stress to what is and should be an exciting and beautiful time in a young mother’s life,” Westerfield said in a statement. “Our courts should be able to order those costs as recoverable through a child support order.”

In allowing for retroactive child support, the Senate Majority Caucus said in a statement that Westerfield is “addressing the concern of absent fathers” in Kentucky.?

Sen. Amanda Mays Bledsoe discusses her bill to get paid parental leave for state workers. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Isabella Sepahban)

FRANKFORT — State employees could take up to four weeks of paid parental leave under a bill that the Kentucky Senate approved 28-10 on Tuesday.?

Senate Bill 142 would entitle state government workers who’ve held their jobs for at least a year to take up to four weeks of paid leave after birth or adoption. State employees would also be able to take two weeks of paid parental leave for a foster care or kinship care placement.?

Sen. Amanda Mays Bledsoe, the sponsor, called the measure “a step in the right direction” and said it would spare would-be parents from having to hoard sick days and vacation time in order to prepare for the arrival of a child.

The Lexington Republican recalled that when she was a member of Lexington’s council she saw how “incredible young professionals … saved sick time over several years … in order to have a way to pay for the first weeks home with a new baby.”

Bledsoe said employees she knew in Lexington would even go as far as “working when they were sick,” to prevent using a sick day so they could save it for future leave.

According to the nonprofit A Better Balance, Kentucky neighbors Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, and Missouri have paid parental leave policies in place for state employees. Federal employees can take up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave.?

A Better Balance also found that when people have access to paid parental leave, they are less likely to rely on public assistance programs.?

Jennifer Washburn at iKids Childhood Enrichment Center in Benton, where she is director and owner, Nov. 28, 2023. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Abbey Cutrer)

FRANKFORT — As the Kentucky legislative session approaches “late in the game,” Sen. Danny Carroll said Tuesday the status of his Horizons Act is a “little concerning.”?

The bill, which proposes Kentucky spend $300 million over the next two years to stabilize the child care industry, passed out of the Senate Families and Children Committee Feb. 27. It has not received a vote on the floor.?

Carroll will likely present the bill before the Appropriations and Revenue Committee next, he said while participating in a Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence panel to discuss the state of early childhood education in the state. Tuesday was the 44th day of the 60-day session.?

Carroll spoke alongside Jennifer Washburn, who owns iKids Childhood Enrichment Center in West Kentucky; Zach Morgan with the Kentucky Association of Manufacturers; and Sarah Vanover, a policy expert with Kentucky Youth Advocates. Carroll serves as president and CEO of Easter Seals West Kentucky, whose programs include a child care center.?

“This is clearly the session for child care,” said Brigitte Blom, the president and CEO of the Prichard Committee. Carroll’s Horizons Act would make “a huge dent” in addressing the needs facing the child care industry in Kentucky, she added.?

Federal COVID-19 dollars are running out, leaving centers to cut pay for their workers, raise tuition for parents and even close, the Lantern has reported.?

Kentucky could lose more than a fifth of its child care providers if the state doesn’t help. And even with the state help that is proposed in the House budget — a $52 million a year increase? — experts say about 16,000 kids could lose access to child care in 2024.

Child care providers are already raising tuition. Washburn said her families will start paying 12.5% more starting on Monday. Without the Horizons Act, she said, those families will face another 7% to 12% tuition increase in June.?

The Horizons Act proposes $300 million in state funding over the next two years to child care providers across Kentucky.?

The price tag, Carroll admitted, is a “huge ask.”?

“I just think there was a lot of sticker shock with that” amount of money, he added. But, “it’s our kids,” he said, and “to me it’s worth every penny of it.”?

The state can afford it, child advocates say. Kentucky has a record revenue surplus in its General Fund.?

Among other things, the Horizons Act — Senate Bill 203 — would allocate $66 million annually to the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), which helps families with child care tuition. It would also create an associate’s degree that aims to educate and train students in early childhood development and set them up to open new centers upon graduation.?

“We were invested in for a little bit,” Washburn said. “And in that little bit of investment, we have been able to feel important. We have been able to do bigger and better things.”?

Without this stabilization money, she and others said, the child care landscape in Kentucky will only worsen, taking the economy and overall child welfare with it.?

“I’m running out of words,” Washburn said. “And my (families) are running out of options. They’re going to get creative in how they get care for their children. And in that creativity, children will be hurt.”?

Isabella Sepahban contributed to this report.

Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser, R-Taylor Mill, introduced legislation dubbed “Momnibus” on Jan. 17. The House on Tuesday approved the bill which aims to produce better outcomes for moms and their babies. (Photo provided)

FRANKFORT — A maternal health bill nicknamed “Momnibus’ was unanimously approved by the Kentucky House Tuesday after about 20 minutes of discussion.?

The bipartisan Momnibus came out of a working group of Republican and Democratic women in the House and the Senate.?

The Momnibus legislation would expand the Health Access Nurturing Development Services (HANDS) program and allow for home visitation programs to be available up to three years after a child’s birth. It also would educate mothers on topics such as the benefits of breastfeeding, safe sleep for infants, and provide lactation consultation and equipment. These services would also be available via Telehealth.

Supporters say Momnibus addresses Kentucky’s high rate of maternal deaths following childbirth.

Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser, the bill’s sponsor,? said that “53% of women who die in the year following childbirth die as a result of their substance-use disorder.”?

Other factors that increase maternal mortality include diabetes, heart disease and mental illness.?

“These are all made more difficult during and after pregnancy,” Moser said, “and can cause dangerous situations.”

Although these situations are harmful and at times, even deadly, Moser said that “deaths due to any of these factors are usually preventable, and the ways to prevent these deaths are to identify and treat these diseases early in the pregnancy, if not before.”?

“This is why prenatal care is so critical,” she said.?

During their workgroup, Moser and her colleagues discovered that “there’s no structured mechanism to accessing mental health care quickly, in that Kentucky families lack support during the postpartum period to keep mothers, babies, and their families healthy.”

Momnibus aims to help decrease these high maternal mortality rates by ensuring access to insurance coverage for pregnant women.?

Although there are special enrollment periods to buy insurance coverage for marriage, divorce, and fostering children, there are no special enrollment periods available for pregnancy, said Moser.?

“A special enrollment period will allow pregnant women to purchase insurance coverage for pregnancy to get the care that she and her baby need during the prenatal period, for a healthy delivery, and during postpartum,” she said.?

Momnibus also aims to address the lack of mental health care available to pregnant women by implementing a new psychiatric access program called Lifeline for Moms.

According to Moser, this program will establish “a hotline for providers to get an immediate consultation for a mother in need of mental health services.”

The lawmakers working on Momnibus have already applied and received a $750,000 grant to start implementing the program. This grant would be used to “specify the needed stakeholders to study birth and pregnancy outcomes, make recommendations to improve outcomes, provide oversight for the Lifeline for Moms program, and provide an annual report of their research and observations,” according to Moser.?

Momnibus can now head to the Senate for consideration.

Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong sponsored Senate Bill 240, which would let foster parents in Kentucky get child care benefits while working outside the home or working remotely in the home. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Isabella Sepahban)

FRANKFORT — Megan Hamilton wants to be a foster mom.?

But Hamilton, who lives in Bullitt County, works remotely for a Las Vegas company.?

That means she cannot qualify for a child care subsidy in Kentucky, all because she works from home.?

“Marketing writers do not make enough money to commute by private jet,” she chuckled to members of the Senate Families and Children Committee on Tuesday while testifying in support of a Democratic bill aimed at getting more foster families in Kentucky.?

Senate Bill 240 would allow foster parents in Kentucky to qualify for? child care benefits while working outside the home or working remotely in the home. The bill passed 8-0 and can head to the floor for consideration.?

Sponsor Louisville Democrat Cassie Chambers Armstrong said it “will decrease barriers to families who wish to participate in foster care.”?

“We desperately need more foster families in Kentucky,” she said, “and Senate Bill 240 can help us do just that.”?

Currently, foster families have to work outside the home 20 hours a week to qualify for this assistance, Chambers Armstrong said.?

“These subsidies help foster families so that they can both work and open their home to a child in need,” she added. “Inability to afford child care … should not be the reason a person who wants to provide a loving home to a child cannot do so.”??

Rep. Stephanie Dietz said her bill will close a loophole used to victimize children. (LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — A House bill that would make it a felony to knowingly own a child sex doll in Kentucky passed the Senate Judiciary committee unanimously Thursday morning.

House Bill 207 passed the House in early February and is making its way through the Senate. It can now go to the floor for consideration. Should it pass there, it will head to Gov. Andy Beshear’s desk for a signature or veto.

The bill would make it a Class D felony to knowingly own or sell a child sex doll — defined as a doll, mannequin or robot that is intended for sexual stimulation or gratification and that has the features of, or has features that resemble those of, a minor.

It also criminalizes the use of artificial intelligence to create child pornography or to create fake images that use real children as the source.

Edgewood Republican Rep. Stephanie Dietz said in committee that her bill “closes a loophole that has allowed pedophiles to practice victimization of children.”

“This bill,” she said, “will save countless children from rape, sexual abuse and trafficking.”

Sen. Cassie Chambers-Armstrong, D-Louisville, sponsored a bill allowing more foster parents to qualify for child care assistance. (Photo by LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — A Louisville Democrat filed a bill Tuesday aimed at “safeguarding” access to in vitro fertilization in Kentucky.

Senate Bill 301, sponsored by Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, would protect from criminal liability medical providers who “engaged in assisted reproduction who meet the professional standard of care,” according to a copy provided to the Lantern. The bill is not yet available online.?

?“This bill has a clear objective: to protect IVF providers, enabling them to continue their vital work,” Chambers Armstrong said in a statement. “Kentuckians pursuing IVF treatments should not fear the abrupt cessation of these services. Every individual aspiring to start a family deserves the opportunity to do so.”

This comes after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in mid February that frozen embryos are children, as the Alabama Reflector reported. Some worry this ruling will deter people in Alabama from attempting to conceive children via IVF, which sometimes involves freezing embryos for future attempts at insemination. Several clinics in Alabama, including the University of Alabama Birmingham, have paused IVF treatments and embryo transfers in response to the ruling.

Chambers Armstrong’s bill has little chance of being debated in the Republican-controlled legislature. Few Democratic bills have moved this session – three? in the Senate and two in the House as of Tuesday evening.?

The Alabama ruling, which is supported by many in the anti-abortion movement, has put Republican politicians on the spot. Last week former President Donald Trump, the GOP frontrunner for president, called on the Alabama legislature to act to protect IVF in the state. Republicans in other races scrambled to voice their support for fertility related services such as in vitro fertilization. In the U.S. Senate, Democrats hope to force a vote on the issue Wednesday.

IVF is used to treat infertility, according to the Mayo Clinic, and can help other people trying to get pregnant to do so.?

Sen. Whitney Westerfield before the Senate Families and Children Committee. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)

FRANKFORT — A bill paving the way for Kentuckians to collect child support for fetuses as long as there is an order in place within a year of a child’s birth passed unanimously out of a Senate committee Tuesday.?

Senate Bill 110 would not apply if a child support order was filed when a child was older, said sponsor Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill.?

“There’s not a child support order until the child’s eight? This isn’t going to apply,” he explained. “Even a year and a day, this doesn’t apply. It’s only for orders that are in place within a year of the child’s birth.”?

One hurdle facing the bill, Westerfield said, is that county attorneys cannot use federal resources to enforce such a law. He would support the legislature making an appropriation to help fund the enforcement, he said.?

“The support obligation begins as soon as that life begins,” Westerfield said. “And I think we ought to be able to go after that.”?

Chair Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, called the bill a “fundamental fairness issue.”?

“Look at where we are, those of us who are pro life in this room, that’s where life starts,” he said. “And that’s where that obligation to take care of that child should begin.”??

Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, voted for the bill because “this bill is going to help a lot of folks who have given birth.”?

But, she’d like to see the support categorized as maternity care support instead of child support, she said.?

“I worry about this being a stepping stone to things like in-utero visitation and … the downstream consequences that could arise.”?

Sen. Danny Carroll, right, with Dr. Sarah Vanover, middle, and Charles Aull, left.

FRANKFORT — The Horizons Act, which proposes supporting child care in Kentucky with $300 million in state funding over the next two years, sailed out of a Senate committee Tuesday morning 9-1 after about half an hour of discussion.?

The lone “no” vote was Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, R-Smithfield, who said she worries the bill’s focus on education will hold it up.

One person, Ann Thompson with the League of Women Voters, testified in support of the bill before the Senate Families and Children Committee. No one testified in opposition.?

Sponsor Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, serves as president and CEO of Easter Seals West Kentucky, whose programs include a child care center.?

“If there were child care providers out there, and it was common in the industry, that they were making loads of money, and they were getting wealthy off of this, I wouldn’t be here today,” Carroll said. “I know the frustration that I see every month, when I look at the financials for my organization. And every month without fail, we lose money in early childhood education. And if it weren’t for the other programs we offer, our doors would be closed.”?

Federal COVID-19 dollars are running out, leaving centers to cut pay for their workers, raise tuition for parents and even close, the Lantern has reported.?

Kentucky could lose more than a fifth of its child care providers if the state doesn’t help. And even with the state help that is proposed in the House budget — a $52 million a year increase? — experts say about 16,000 kids could lose access to child care in 2024.

Among other provisions, Carroll’s bill would create a new degree through the Kentucky Community and Technical College System aimed at educating more child care providers, codify the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) eligibility at 85% of the state median income and create grant funds to incentivize businesses to innovate how they deliver child care in Kentucky.?

In explaining his support Tuesday, Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, said: “I think the worst thing that could possibly happen for our commonwealth is to do nothing.”?

The Horizons Act can now head to the floor for consideration.

In a statement after the bill passed committee, Terry Brooks, the executive director for Kentucky Youth Advocates, praised the committee for moving the bill forward.

“It’s rare that a piece of legislation has the potential to benefit kids, parents, small businesses and Kentucky’s workforce and economy,” Brooks said. “Yet Senator Danny Carroll’s Horizons Act would do just that.”

Preschool children say a prayer before lunch on Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023, at the iKids Childhood Enrichment Center in Benton, Kentucky. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Abbey Cutrer)

A bill that encourages local governments to examine available zoning for child care centers in Kentucky passed out of a House committee Thursday 12-2 with one pass.?

House Bill 561 sponsor Rep. Samara Heavrin, R-Leitchfield, said her bill encourages local officials to “??make sure there’s not any regulation preventing childcare centers from opening in their local counties or cities.”?

“While we’re looking at steps to help child care in Kentucky, this is the number one thing that we need to start working on,” said Heavrin, who chairs the House Families and Children Committee, whose members passed HB561 after half an hour of discussion.?

Charles Aull, executive director of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Center for Policy and Research, said zoning issues come up a lot for businesses that may want to add child care services for their employees. And this bill, he said, would simplify the process for them.?

“One of the things we’ve discovered in talking with a lot of early childhood education providers and childcare service providers is that land use rules and zoning regulations can often create inadvertent barriers, oftentimes, to the availability of childcare services,” Aull said.??

“That’s something they have to look at very closely to determine, ‘Okay, we would love to have an on-site facility but can we even do that in the first place? And what are the rules? How do we navigate this?’ ” Aull told committee members. “And when you run into rules … it can create a lot of reasons to say no. It can create a lot of reasons not to do something if it becomes excessively complicated.”

Heavrin’s House Concurrent Resolution 43 also passed out of the committee, which proposes to re-establish the Early Childhood Education Task Force this year and have its members submit findings by Dec. 1.?

These measures come as the child care industry — which some are working to rebrand under an “early childhood education” umbrella — is a major theme in the 2024 legislative session.?

As the Lantern has reported, federal COVID-19 dollars that helped stabilize the industry during the last few years are running out. This leaves centers to cut pay for their workers, raise tuition for parents and even close.?

Kentucky could lose more than a fifth of its child care providers if the state doesn’t help. And even with the state help that is proposed in the House budget – a $52 million a year increase – experts say about 16,000 kids could lose access to child care in 2024.?

Meanwhile, West Kentucky Republican Sen. Danny Carroll has pitched a $300 million, two-year bill to stabilize and expand early childhood education, which child care experts in the state have widely praised.

Heavrin’s HB561 also proposes removing the word “pilot” from the Employee Child-Care Assistance Partnership program, enacted into law in 2022. The law incentivized employers to help employees pay for child care. Advocates have said it is a good start, but it’s also new and has low participation.?

It’s a “remarkably new and innovative program,” Aull said.

However, “Employers tend to be very cautious when it comes to changing benefit packages,” he said. “They want to study this program. They want to learn about it. They want to understand how this works and how it would intersect with their broader benefit packages. They’re not going to make that decision in six months. They’re going to make it over the span of a couple of years and so having this program continue to exist will give them that runway to learn about it.”?

Kentucky teachers and other public school employees now must use sick leave after giving birth. A Republican senator is proposing adding 20 days of maternity leave to their current benefits. (Getty Images)

FRANKFORT —?If a Republican-backed bill passes, Kentucky public school teachers would gain maternity leave, something not currently available to them.

Senate Bill 205, sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, of Smithfield, would provide 20 days of maternity leave to? public school employees after giving birth. Under the bill, employees could? begin to use sick leave after the maternity leave has ended. Any unused maternity leave could not be transferred into sick leave.

Tichenor said she did not realize that teachers lacked paid maternity leave until it came to her attention through her daughter-in-law, who is a teacher, and through recent discussions on teachers’ sick leave. Senate Bill 4, which recently passed out of the Senate, would limit how much compensation retiring teachers could receive for accrued sick days.

Nearly 80% of Kentucky school teachers are women. Tichenor said younger women who are educators and start their own families dedicate themselves to bettering the lives of all children and should have time for their own.

“So in that time of life, when they are giving birth to a baby, they should be able to afford to stay home for that length of time to recover and bond with their baby,” she said.?

Jessica Hiler, president of the Fayette County Education Association, said during her testimony against Senate Bill 4 that she used her sick leave early on in her career as maternity leave or to care for her children, which is common practice for Kentucky teachers. In her view, Tichenor’s bill would be “quite a huge change for teachers” and a welcomed one.?

Under the current system, teachers who are beginning to start their families early on in their careers face challenges if they have fewer accrued sick days, Hiler said. Teachers must also decide how to use sick time to go to prenatal appointments.?

She added that she thought Tichenor’s bill could go further but it is a “great start.”?

“If you think about it, 20 days is really five weeks of work for the most part,” Hiler said. “And most of the time after giving birth, doctors typically want you to be out at least six weeks, sometimes eight weeks, depending on what kind of delivery or complications you might have.”?

Hiler also said the General Assembly should consider adding paternity leave for parents who do not give birth to bond with their child as well and help their partners heal.?

However, Tichenor said she wasn’t supportive of paid paternity leave. She said her bill is specifically for mothers who are recovering from birth and adjusting to life with their new child. Maternity leave could be a benefit to draw new teachers into the profession, she added.?

“I think this is specific towards a mother and the process her body goes through in order to bring a life into the world and making sure that she has that time with that newborn.”?

The bill has been assigned to the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee and has gained three other Republican co-sponsors. Tichenor said a few minute details may be changed in a committee substitute version of the bill, but so far she’s had broad support.?

Kentucky Education Association President Eddie Campbell said in a statement that KEA “supports paid maternity leave for educators and has strongly advocated for it in Frankfort.”

“Paid maternity leave is a common benefit for professionals in the private sector,” he said. “Our educators are professionals, and a paid benefit like maternity leave is a positive step forward to competing with the private sector. It illustrates that Kentucky values and respects the work our public school educators do.”?

Campbell added that paid maternity leave “is vital to ensuring Kentucky recruits and retains quality educators” and that lawmakers should “promote more benefits like paid maternity leave — legislation that values educators and provides a tangible benefit to their profession, and also demonstrates that our teachers are valued, respected, and essential to the success of our children and our commonwealth.”

Tichenor views her legislation as a companion to Senate Bill 4. She also said Sen. Amanda Mays Bledose, R-Lexington, has filed a similar bill that would give parental leave to state workers, Senate Bill 142.?

Kathy Donelan, owner of Aunt Kathy's Child Care and Preschool in Northern Kentucky, testified in favor of more state support for child care providers. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)

FRANKFORT — Kathy Donelan doesn’t like the options facing her Northern Kentucky child care and preschool center if the state doesn’t put money into the child care industry this session.?

“I could close,” Donelan told members of the Senate Families and Children Committee Tuesday as she testified in support of the Horizons Act, a $300 million, two-year proposal to support and expand early childhood education in Kentucky.?

She later told the Lantern: “I don’t want to look at (closing) as a possibility” but she’s already raised tuition 15% recently and may have to raise it again.?

The committee only discussed the bill. Sponsor Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, who unveiled the plan last week, told reporters it may come before the committee again for a vote next week and that “the support for this is growing every day.”??

He has also filed a budget request outlining how the $150 million per year would be spent, which will go through the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee.

As the Lantern has reported, federal COVID-19 dollars are running out, leaving centers to cut pay for their workers, raise tuition for parents and even close.?Kentucky could lose more than a fifth of its child care providers if the state doesn’t help.

Donelan and others wait anxiously for help.?

“If I did close, that would impact 80 families,” Donelan told senators. “And that would be people leaving the workforce.”?

The 25 teachers she employs would be out of work, she said, and more than 120 children — including 10 infants, 27 toddlers and 84 preschoolers — would lose access to safe and quality early education.?

“I believe that investing in early childhood industry is investing in the future and the present workforce of Kentucky,” Donelan said. “We are the brain builders teaching the children durable skills to use throughout their life.”?

Imploring his colleagues to “seize the day,” Caroll said people need to reframe how they think of the services that have been called “day care” and “child care” in the past.?

“It’s not child care, it’s not day care, it’s education,” he said. Because most brain development happens before a child reaches the age of 5, Carroll said, Kentucky must think of education as “not K through 12, but birth through 12.”?

“Child care, early childhood education, it’s always looked at as an afterthought,” he said. “We think about what it is, that it’s just a service that we have so our parents can go to work, or they can go run errands … or whatever. And we have done our children a great disservice by taking this approach, by the terms ‘child care,’ ‘day care.’”

Carroll is a West Kentucky Republican who serves as president and CEO of Easter Seals West Kentucky, whose programs include a child care center.?

Charles Aull, executive director of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Center for Policy and Research, pointed to the state’s aging population and lower birth rates and how they will make it “harder and harder to find working age people and bring those into the labor market.”?

Carroll’s legislation, Aull said, “would ensure that more parents can access and afford quality early childhood services, which in turn would help us mitigate our unsustainable workforce trends.”?

Andrew McNeill, the president of the policy nonprofit Kentucky Forum for Rights, Economics and Education, told lawmakers he finds the $300 million price tag on Carroll’s bill to be a “major concern.”?

“It is unclear to me exactly what the requirement is for educational content to be provided in these centers,” he said. He added: “These are businesses. It is not the taxpayer’s responsibility to ensure they achieve and remain profitable.”??

McNeill also worries about sustainability, he said. “What we’re talking about here is subsidizing Kentucky’s child care industry,” he told lawmakers. “Subsidies result in higher prices over the long term. The cost of health care and higher education are informative. If policymakers are concerned about the cost of child care for families, providing permanent subsidies is the last thing that should be under consideration.”?

In response, Carroll said centers are already held accountable for educational standards through regulations. And because ratios of children per teacher are limited for safety reasons, the model makes it impossible to add more students and thus make more money.?

“No one wants funding from the state,” Carroll said. “Everybody that starts their own business … they want to be able to succeed, sustain and grow. The model does not foster that. And again, this is not an investment in propping up an industry. This is an investment in the education of our youngest students.”?

Carroll later reiterated this point to reporters.?“I’m fiscally conservative,” he said. “We know we could go back into recession at any time. And we have to be sensitive to that.”

But when he looks at every aspect of the early childhood education space, “it’s worth the investment,” he said. “And it’s not a handout, it’s an investment.”

Rep. Phillip Pratt, R-Georgetown, said HB 500 was about helping small businesses navigating confusion surrounding labor law. (LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — Some Kentucky teenagers could work longer and later hours —? something critics say threatens youngsters’ safety and success in life — under a bill approved by a House committee Thursday with Republican support.

House Bill 255, sponsored by Rep. Phillip Pratt, R-Georgetown, would repeal Kentucky’s existing child labor laws and align them with federal laws, which are less restrictive for minors aged 16 and 17.?

Kentucky law currently limits the number of hours that 16- and 17-year-olds can work on a school day to six. The limit increases to eight hours on a non-school day and up to 30 hours total during a school week, unless they receive parental permission to work more and maintain at least a 2.0 grade point average. Federal law doesn’t have any daily or weekly hourly work limits for ages 16 and 17.?

Kentucky law also prohibits minors aged 16 and 17 from working later than 11 p.m.; federal law places no limits.?

Pratt, who owns a lawn and landscaping business, told the House Economic Development and Workforce Investment Committee that his bill would help teenagers “gain valuable experience in the workplace.”?

“I think this is good to get people out into the workplace, get them some work experience, and hopefully they’ll get off the couch, quit playing Nintendo games and actually make money,” Pratt said.?

The bill passed along party lines and heads to the full House of Representatives for its consideration.?

Opponents of the bill said the legislation would threaten the safety of children and their success in high school by potentially allowing teenagers to work unlimited hours while school is in session.?

Child labor laws protect children at risk of being exploited, not those who “have good family support,” said Rep. Nima Kulkarni. “These are for the kids that are already at risk, they’re already going to be exploited, they’re vulnerable, and we need to be protecting them.”

“Kids could work very late at night and even work third shift or overnight,” said Dustin Pugel, a policy director with the progressive think tank Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.?

“There are 19,000 Kentucky kids ages 16 to 19 who are not in school, and we are concerned that this bill could exacerbate that problem threatening the progress Kentucky has made in graduation rates in recent decades,” he said.?

Pugel, joined by a lobbyist with the Kentucky State AFL-CIO, also said the bill would loosen the hour limits for minors aged 14 and 15 years old and could allow kids to work in hazardous jobs disallowed by current state law.?

Democrats on the committee echoed those concerns. Rep. Nima Kulkarni, D-Louisville, said state child labor laws protect children at risk of being exploited, not children who “have good family support.”?

“These are for the kids that are already at risk, they’re already going to be exploited, they’re vulnerable, and we need to be protecting them,” Kulkarni said.?

After the bill was passed, Pratt asserted that Kentucky’s high school graduation rates aligned closely with other states that have child labor laws consistent with? federal minimum requirements.?

“I think after you do a hard day’s work, you will think, ‘Maybe I need to stay in school. Maybe I actually need to graduate and have a successful career,’” Pratt said.?

In a Thursday press conference, Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear also pushed back against the bill, saying that such protections “exist for a reason.”?

“We’re not the stereotype that some people have tried to make of us in Kentucky in the past,” Beshear said. “We need to be really thoughtful about what type of message it sends when we file certain bills, much less move them through the legislative process.”?

At least 10 states in recent years have proposed loosening child labor laws, with some bills being withdrawn or vetoed.

Jessie Schook, the vice president for workforce and economic development at the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, is also an expectant mother concerned about limited child care openings. She spoke at the unveiling of Sen. Danny Carroll's Horizon Act. From left, Jennifer Washburn, Sarah Vanover, Charles Aull and Sen. Danny Carroll. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)

FRANKFORT — When Jessie Schook, the vice president of workforce and economic development for the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, tells people she is expecting her first child in June, many want to know: “Are you on a (child care) list?”?

The wait to get a new baby into a child care center can take a year, Schook told reporters Tuesday. That’s one reason she and others gathered to unveil the Horizons Act, an ambitious two-year, $300 million bill aimed at stabilizing and supporting the child care industry in Kentucky.?

“Any woman professional, male professional, in the commonwealth, has to cope with that challenge when they find out this exciting news that their family is growing,” Schook said. They must wonder: “Am I going to have to leave my career? Am I going to have to step out of the workforce?”??

Sen. Danny Carroll, who is sponsoring the Horizons Act and filed it Tuesday, has heard similar stories. The West Kentucky Republican serves as president and CEO of Easter Seals West Kentucky, whose programs include a child care center.?

“Our families are planning the birth of their kids around the shortage of child care in our commonwealth,” he said.?

The shortage of providers isn’t the only challenge facing the industry. As the Lantern has reported, federal COVID-19 dollars are running out, leaving centers to cut pay for their workers, raise tuition for parents and even close.?

Kentucky could lose more than a fifth of its child care providers if the state doesn’t help. And even with the state help that is proposed in the House budget – a $52 million a year increase? – experts say about 16,000 kids could lose access to child care in 2024.

“This transformational piece of legislation and the accompanying $150 million per year appropriation request will go a long way towards averting the impending crisis we’re about to face if we don’t act with purpose and certainty,” Carroll said at his Tuesday press conference.?

“I would encourage my colleagues in the legislature,” he added: “This is a time that Kentucky needs to step up and be a shining example for the rest of the country. And we will reap the benefits of that if we make that decision.”?

What is in the Horizons Act??

The 50-page Horizons Act would:?

• Establish a new associate degree through KCTCS, which is Kentucky’s largest provider of postsecondary education, to train and prepare students to open an early childhood education (ECE) center upon graduation. The degree program will include training on how to spot abuse and neglect, how to teach youth between 0 and 5, the business of child care and more.?
• Add this new KCTCS degree to the Work Ready Scholarship.?
• Establish the Division of Regulated Early Childhood Education in the Office of Inspector General within the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and establish the Division of Early Childhood Education within the Department of Community Based Services. The goal is to “raise the importance of what we do,” Carroll said. The new terms replace references to “child care.” He one day wants to see a Department of Early Childhood Education within the cabinet with a commissioner.
• Create an Innovations in Early Childhood Education Delivery Program fund within CHFS. People, companies, businesses and entrepreneurs who “have ideas on non-traditional delivery models” for the industry can have access to up to $100,000 in grant money through this fund, Carroll said. The bill states that no county can get more than 20% of the fund in a single fiscal year.?
• Establish the Families Early Childhood Education Provider Startup fund, which will offer grants to Kentuckians starting traditional child care centers.?
• Codify the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) eligibility at 85% of the state median income. CCAP helps families with tuition. The CCAP reimbursement to providers will stay at the 80th percentile of the market rate survey, Carroll said. The CCAP portions of the bills alone will cost roughly $66 million annually, explained Sarah Vanover, the policy and research director at Kentucky Youth Advocates.?
• Direct CHFS to cover the cost of the fees for background checks to the extent funding is available.??

KCTCS already offers ECE degrees, Schook told the Lantern, but they “don’t necessarily equip an individual with the nuances of operating a business.” The new degree offering will include education on finances, marketing, human resources and more.?

“The idea here,” she said, “is we’re not just creating additional workers to be within those roles. We are positioning individuals to own and operate their own facilities.”?

It’s not yet clear if the degree would be available at all 16 colleges within the KCTCS system, Schook said. And staffing the degree with enough faculty who can teach it is “always a concern,” she said.?

“I think in general in higher ed, anytime you have a technical faculty role that you’re trying to build, it can be difficult to offer a wage that is higher than the wages that they would earn within the industry,” she said.?

But in this case, especially with people who have been in the industry for a couple of decades and have hit a cap on what the sector can afford to pay them “there’s an opportunity, I think, for us to create some type of talent attraction strategy to pull them in to help us build a pipeline.”?

What do advocates think of the bill??

With The Horizons Act, Carrol is “guaranteeing a quality future for kids, meeting the core needs of working families, and lifting local economies by bolstering Kentucky’s workforce,” Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, said in a statement.

“The Horizons Act puts into motion the state budget investments and policy changes necessary to stabilize Kentucky’s struggling child care sector and ensure parents can go to work knowing their child is safe and learning,” Brooks said.??

Vanover with Kentucky Youth Advocates spoke alongside Carroll and others about the bill Tuesday. His bill, she said, “has the opportunity to bolster local communities, to support families who are out in the workforce trying to support their children and give them what they need, as well as improve the education of our youngest children throughout the state.”??

“Child care is statewide infrastructure that we have to have in place to support children, families and local economies,” Vanover said. “Kentucky’s youngest children are our next workforce. And learning begins at birth, not at age five.”?

Jennifer Washburn, the director and owner at iKids Childhood Enrichment Center in West Kentucky, said Carroll’s bill gives her “hope that real change is on the horizon for Kentucky’s youngest citizens and their families.”?

Charles Aull, executive director of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Center for Policy and Research, also praised the legislation and said it “makes Kentucky a more competitive business climate.”

“A strong early childhood ecosystem will remove barriers to work and support workforce participation among adults,” Aull said. “This means more working parents, more self sufficiency, more taxpayers, more jobs filled and a stronger economy.”??

How does Carroll’s bill compare to previous proposals??

In his budget proposal, Gov. Andy Beshear asked the legislature to spend $141 million over the next two years to stabilize the child care industry, but advocates said that it was not enough.?

Beshear also asked for? $172 million to begin funding universal preschool for Kentucky 4-year-olds, though advocates worried that would cannibalize child care and exacerbate its challenges. That’s because, as the Lantern has reported, early childhood education centers don’t make money on children until they reach three and four years old and the ratios between them and teachers can be higher. Beshear’s proposal would have taken that demographic away from child care centers.?

“I think we’re all open to universal pre-K, but … the delivery model is where the difference lies,” Carroll said Tuesday. “The governor’s proposal would require huge investments in infrastructure, capital expenses … quite frankly, our school system is just not ready to take all of those kids in, not to mention the devastation that would cause within early childhood education.”??

“I think that proposal is a political statement not based on reality,” Carroll added.?

In an interview with the Kentucky Lantern Tuesday afternoon, Beshear said “our plan recognizes that we are asking the child care industry to change and to have the flexibility to focus on younger kids.”?

“I believe that our school system is the only entity that can address a major part of child care, though pre-k is much more than child care, and ensure it’s done in every single part of Kentucky,” Beshear said.?

The House GOP budget, approved in late January, also did not do enough for child care, advocates said. The proposed $52 million annual increase would still result in mass closures, they said.?

Carroll acknowledged his bill is “a significant amount more” than what the House proposed.

“You got to swing for the fences sometimes,” he said. “And our kids are worth it.”

When considering job applicants, schools would have more information about any record of sexual misconduct with students if House Bill 275 becomes law. It awaits consideration in the Senate. (Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — A renewed effort to help schools avoid new hires who have a history of sexual misconduct, a response to the substitute teacher shortage and a fresh look at the school funding formula are among education legislation introduced in this session of the Kentucky General Assembly.

House Education Committee Chair Rep. James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, is once again proposing changes aimed at keeping sexual abusers from moving from school to school.

The House already has approved Tipton’s House Bill 275, which would require those applying for jobs in schools to disclose if they have been the subject of an allegation, investigation or disciplinary action within the last year involving abusive misconduct while working in a school.

Applicants also would be required to agree to a reference check. Districts would be required to internally report and fully investigate allegations of abusive conduct. And districts would be prohibited from entering into nondisclosure agreements related to misconduct involving a minor or student.??

Last year, Tipton sponsored a similar bill that got through the House but died in the Senate. After this year’s bill made it out of the House last week on a 95-0 vote, Tipton said it would give “school districts the tools to ensure the safety of our children from predatory individuals.”?

“These individuals are responsible for some of the most heinous crimes that we see involving students,” Tipton said. “They should not be allowed to harm our children and then move on to another school district to avoid punishment. HB 275 makes sure these individuals are held accountable, and that school districts have the information necessary to keep them out of the classroom.”

Here are other education bills that are moving through the Kentucky General Assembly:?

Quicker notification to schools when students face criminal charges

Sen. John Schickel, R-Union, is sponsoring a bill that would allow school districts to be notified if a student has been charged with a crime in certain cases. Senate Bill 11 was forwarded by the Senate Education Committee last week and was passed by the Senate in a vote of 35-1 Tuesday.

Schickel, appearing in committee with local law enforcement and court and school representatives from his district, said there is now a delay of up to 20 days for schools to be notified a student has been charged with a crime, which if they were an adult would be a felony or a misdemeanor involving a drug, weapon, assault or a sex crime.?

Jon Akers, the executive director of the Kentucky Center for School Safety, told the committee that he saw issues as a school principal where the school did not have information about a student being charged.?

“I didn’t want to wait 20 days to find out what’s going on. I wanted to know something immediately so I can prepare for this,” Akers said. “The student’s going to be in there, I understand that, but we can make preparations, and so that’s why I would be very supportive of this program.”?

Making it easier to sub

Backed by several House Republicans, House Bill 387 would lower the requirements to become a substitute teacher in Kentucky. The House Education Committee forwarded the bill last week.

The measure would allow the Education Professional Standards Board (EPSB) to authorize a one-year emergency certificate to eligible applicants with a high school diploma or an equivalent, according to the committee substitute adopted. The board may give applicants with a bachelor’s degree a five-year emergency certificate and a ten-year certificate to anyone eligible for a Kentucky teaching certificate or previously had a Kentucky teaching certificate.?

If passed, the bill would allow those with one-year and five-year certificates to be employed by a school district as a full-time substitute teacher or replace a teacher for more than 20 consecutive instructional days.?

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Timmy Truett, R-McKee, is an elementary school principal. He told the House Education committee he recently called the vice principal and asked how the school was. Nine teachers were out and there were zero substitutes available.?

Currently, substitute teachers are required to have at least 64 hours of college credit. Truett said he can think of several people he would like to have as a substitute teacher, but they do not meet this requirement.?

“We need teachers, we need aides, we need cooks, we need janitors, we need bus drivers, but we also need substitute teachers,” Truett said. “And there’s probably a lot of people out there who love to be in the classrooms helping teach.”?

Sen. Brandon Storm, R-London, referenced the bill while voting against another piece of legislation that would change how teachers are paid for sick days, Senate Bill 4, during a committee meeting last week. That bill could lead to some teachers using more sick days ahead of their retirement, leading to a greater need for more substitute teachers, some educators said.?

SEEKing a new funding formula?

Truett is also the sponsor of House Concurrent Resolution 60, which would create a task force to study the Support Education Excellence in Kentucky (SEEK) formula and deliver a report to the Legislative Research Commission by Dec. 1, 2024. The task force would review the formula and evaluate what changes should be made to it.?

While speaking to the House Education Committee, Truett said the formula has received a lot of recent attention, especially as lawmakers consider the next state budget.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to include a Tuesday Senate vote.?

Republican Sen. Danny Carroll is expected to unveil his relief package for Kentucky child care on Tuesday. (LRC Public Information)

Republican state Sen. Danny Carroll has announced his anticipated child care legislation will come with a $300 million, two-year price tag.?

The ambitious proposal, called the Horizons Act, would have Kentucky spend far more than the $104 million over the biennium approved by the House for the child care sector and the $141 million that Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear proposed. Child care advocates have said both proposals fall short of what is needed with the end of pandemic-era federal aid that has been sustaining child care in Kentucky.

Without help from General Assembly, Kentucky child care industry facing ‘scary’ 2024

The Horizons Act would spend $150 million per year of the two-year budget cycle to “help the industry sustain operations and create more opportunities for working Kentucky families and children,” says a media advisory from the Senate Majority Caucus. It will address “Kentucky’s early childhood education crisis, particularly as federal pandemic-era funding dries up.”??

The advisory says the bill will focus on early childhood education (ECE) opportunities and providers.?

“The name of the bill reflects Carroll’s commitment to creating a brighter future for Kentucky’s children, working families, and business sector (large and small) through an intense focus on quality ECE, entrepreneurship opportunities, provider growth, and innovation in the delivery of ECE services, all to ensure a stable foundation for families across the socioeconomic spectrum,” the caucus said.?

Carroll is a West Kentucky Republican who serves as president and CEO of Easter Seals West Kentucky, whose programs include a child care center. Last week he told the Lantern that the House budget allocation for child care was “insufficient” to address the challenges facing the child care industry this year and his proposed solution to the crisis would be a “big swing.”?

“We need to take the opportunity that we have to change the way we look at early childhood education,” he said on Feb. 7.?

He added: “The focus is going to be getting rid of the terms ‘child care,’ ‘day care,’ and call it what it is: early childhood education.”? His bill, he told the Lantern last week, will address many topics including child abuse and neglect, education and workforce.??

The Lantern previously reported that Kentucky could lose more than a fifth of its child care providers if the state doesn’t help. And even with the state help that is proposed in the House budget, experts say about 16,000 kids could lose access to child care in 2024.

Beshear asked lawmakers for an additional $68 million for Child Care Assistance Program in the first year of the budget and $73 million in the second year. Beshear’s proposal also includes a pitch to spend $172 million a year to begin funding universal preschool for Kentucky 4-year-olds, though child care advocates worried that would cannibalize child care and exacerbate the problems the industry faces.?

“We’ve seen the devastation that happens in this state, when child care shuts down,” Carroll said on Feb. 7. “And we’ve got to make sure that never happens again.”??

Carroll is expected to file his Horizons Act on Tuesday. The media advisory says he will talk about the legislation and early childhood issues at a? press conference along with Sarah Vanover of? Kentucky Youth Advocates, Charles Aull of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, Jennifer Washburn, owner and operator of an early childhood education (ECE) center, and others.?

This story has been updated to clarify the amount of child care spending proposed in the House and Gov. Andy Beshear’s budget plans.

Amanda D'Angelo and husband James honeymooned in Hawaii in 2021. The rainbow is widely regarded as a symbol of having a living child after losing one during pregnancy. (Courtesy Amanda D'Angelo)

Amanda D’Angelo only had a few weeks to get used to the idea that she was going to be a twin mom, before her eight-week scan revealed one had died.

It’s a relatively common occurrence early on in twin pregnancies, and while it was upsetting, she took comfort in still being pregnant. She went on her honeymoon with her husband to Hawaii in July 2021, and the newlyweds smiled for a photo on the beach with a double rainbow behind them — a rainbow being the widely regarded symbol of having a living child after losing one during pregnancy.

She didn’t know just how symbolic that rainbow would become until a few weeks later.

D’Angelo went to a clinic in Manchester, New Hampshire, for a routine 12-week scan on her lunch break, without her husband, James, who had to work. But when the ultrasound technician began looking in detail, she told D’Angelo, “I don’t like the look of the head.”

The technician went to talk to the doctor, and D’Angelo was left alone in silence for about 20 minutes, staring up at an orange-brown overhead light, repeating to herself, “There’s no way two bad things can happen.”

Before and after Dobbs, questions of ‘when and where’ affect abortion access

The doctor’s look said it all. ‘“I wish I was meeting you on better terms,’” she recalled him saying. She started to cry.

“I was beside myself.”

The connection of mental health and abortion is a talking point used by anti-abortion and abortion rights advocates alike, for different reasons. Research shows that most women do not experience significant emotional harm after an abortion and do not regret the decision, and those denied an abortion are more likely to have anxiety, low self-esteem, and fewer aspirational goals for the future.

For mothers whose pregnancies have been diagnosed with fetal anomalies, there is a high risk of traumatic stress and depression at the time of the diagnosis and over time.

D’Angelo’s doctor told her the fetus suffered a defect of a neural tube that never closed, leading to a condition called anencephaly, where the skull and large sections of the brain do not form. The condition affects 1 in 4,600 pregnancies, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many cases end in miscarriage or stillbirth. Those that make it to delivery die shortly afterward. It’s more common in females, which is what D’Angelo was carrying.

“I knew right away I mentally could not handle carrying a baby that was going to die,” D’Angelo said. “I knew that prolonging the suffering for myself and for her was not going to be a good environment.”

She walked out of the appointment in a daze, along the skywalk at the hospital to the parking garage.

“I kept looking over the edge, and I remember thinking, ‘I could just throw myself off of here right now,’” D’Angelo said. “What made me stop, and cry even harder, was that my husband would have no answers as to why I did that.”

Abortion stigma still exists in places like New England

A study from Saint Martin’s University in 2022 showed about 2.4 million deaths occur every year in utero or by stillbirth, which is four times greater than the annual number of deaths from cancer. That type of loss was not recognized by many health care professionals as an emotional trauma prior to 1970, the research said, but is now considered a traumatic event that can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder. Symptoms can be debilitating, and include depression, substance abuse and suicidal ideation.

D’Angelo’s diagnosis came nearly a year before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision to overturn Roe and return the right to regulate abortion to the states. In New Hampshire, access to abortion is legal until 24 weeks. Both sides of the abortion rights debate have tried to change that, but as recently as Feb. 1, members of the state’s General Court are in a stalemate. Representatives voted on a proposed constitutional amendment that would have asked voters to guarantee a right to abortion until 24 weeks, but it needed 226 votes to pass and received 193.

A competing bill would have banned abortion after a fetus has reached 15 days of gestation, which is before a menstrual period is considered “late” if gestational age is counted from the last menstrual period. Representatives voted 363-11 to indefinitely postpone the bill, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin.

Unlike in 14 other states, D’Angelo’s doctor was free to refer her to another clinic for termination. Within a week, she was able to get an appointment at a Dartmouth facility in Lebanon, New Hampshire, about an hour and a half away, at almost 14 weeks. Her husband didn’t question the decision, she said, and gave his full support.

She acknowledged she lives in an area of the country where abortion access is widely available, but said that doesn’t stop societal stigma. A 2020 study of 4,000 abortion patients found nearly two-thirds thought people would look down on them if they knew they had an abortion. A 2012 survey of college students in New England found 87% of participants agreed there is a stigma around women who have abortions, and 23% felt they had to withhold their beliefs about abortion from people they were closest to.

“In New England, a lot of places are very liberal and open about abortion, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a ton of people around here that judge someone for that,” D’Angelo said.

Although in favor of abortion rights, she called herself the black sheep of a family where her father was very religious and conservative, including vehement stances against abortion.

“It was definitely something in the back of my mind, that religious guilt and knowing they would judge me over this,” she said.

Termination allowed her to go on to have a living child