KCSL Adoption Booklet

12 Decades of Adoption
inding safe and loving homes for
children in need has always been an
important part of what we do at the
Kansas Children’s Service League. The
belief that kids grow best in family homes has
stood the test of time and is now considered
best practice.
While the belief that
families are best for kids
has always been paramount,
our services have
changed over the years
to adjust to the culture
and demands of our
society. The receiving
homes of the early 1900s
are now resource families
or foster care homes. In
the 1940s, 50s and 60s,
the League specialized
in infant adoption and
finalized more than 200
adoptions in 1968. In
2012, we received over
2,000 inquiries from
people interested in
adopting one of the 396
foster children posted on
our website www.adoptkskids.org.
Of those
2,000 we were able to
match 112 with an adoptive
home.
Through the years we’ve also added new
thought to our forefathers’ belief. We know
that properly preparing foster and adoptive
parents for their role is important to their success,
and in turn that of the children in their
care. Family recruiters of yesteryear engaged
community leaders, the press and local churches
in search of good families
willing to open their homes
to children. Once found,
children were quickly
placed with limited preparation.
Today, while the
tactics to find families are
very similar, the process to
bring a child into a home is
much more rigorous. That
in part, reflects a change in
times, but more importantly
it recognizes the significance
of the decision to foster
or adopt a child. Best
illustrating our commitment
to readying families is the
Kansas adoption dissolution
rate of one percent,
far below other states who
average 10 to 15 percent.
That means that once our
kids are adopted, they stay
with their forever family.
ccording to our 1894 Annual
Report, 26 children were
“surrendered” in 1893 to Rev. O.S.
Morrow, who founded the Kansas
Children’s Home Society (KCHS) later
that same year.
In 1906, the Christian Service League
was founded and would later merge
with KCHS, so as to avoid duplication.
Combined they became the Kansas
Children’s Home and Service League in
1926.
Since that day in 1893, we have worked
tirelessly to find forever families for
children.
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