Kentucky.

Tonight I'm Renee Shaw.

We thank you so much for joining us this evening.

Tonight, an examination of the well-being of Kentucky kids.

A recent annual report card on child well-being shows, strides and some challenges for Kentucky kids.

The 2026 Kids Count data book ranks the Bluegrass State 36th overall.

The 50 state report by the Annie E Casey Foundation takes a deep dive in how children are faring nationwide in areas like education, health, economic stability and other factors.

A separate report, though an Education Recovery Scorecard from researchers at Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth, puts Kentucky in the top performing states for education recovery after Covid.

Area learning losses.

So here to discuss this kind of mixed bag of results are state lawmakers and child advocates.

We have two guests in our Lexington studio.

Doctor Terry Brooks, the outgoing executive director of the Kentucky Youth Advocates and incoming executive vice president and ambassador for Sunrise Children's Services, and Christy Putnam, senior policy advisor in the Kentucky House speaker's office in our Louisville studio.

We're glad to be joined by State Representative Samara Heavrin, a Republican from Litchfield and co-chair of the Interim Joint Committee on Families and Children and State Representative Tina Bojanowski, a Democrat from Louisville and member of the Interim Joint Committees on Education and Families and Children.

And of course, we want to hear from you tonight.

You can send us your questions and comments by X, formerly known as Twitter at Pub Affairs KET.

Send an email to KY TONIGHT at ket.org or use the web form at ket.org/ky tonight, or you can simply give us a call at one (800) 494-7605.

Welcome to our guests, both here in Lexington and in Louisville.

We thank you all for being here on this summer night.

Not too bad.

So thank you for being here.

Let's just jump right in.

And I really want to start with Representative Samara Heavrin and Louisville, because right now the interim session, as we call it, where lawmakers are hearing a lot about the issues that they could be tackling.

When you resume the Kentucky General Assembly in January, this is a good time to get a lot of background information and to know about the issues a little bit more in depth and some more dimension of issues that you're constantly dealing with and may not have found resolution to in the last legislative session.

What are you really honing in on these next few months during this interim period?

>> Thanks, Renee.

Thanks for having me tonight.

I'm so glad to be here with my friend Tina and our friends in Lexington as well.

We started the interim Joint Committee on Families and Children last week, and we had an awesome committee hearing talking about autism from the from the very beginning, when kids are first diagnosed to what Kentucky families face is now.

And we have a lot of work to do.

But what I'm looking at this session during the interim session is to start looking at when kids get removed from home, really the child welfare continuum.

And so when kids get removed from their homes all the way up to adoption, what are those conversations we need to be having from the from friends of the courts, from the family court system.

And there's a lot of room for opportunity and just really focused on child welfare in the foster care system.

Renee.

We all since 2024, we filed bills to help child welfare, but we've got so much work to do.

And I look forward to continuing on that.

>> Yeah, thank you for that.

And there is a little bit of a delay.

So if you hear a little bit of pronounced silence, that's just because we have a little technical delay.

Representative Bozinovski, I want to come to you and ask you the same.

You serve both on the education committees and you serve on the families and children.

And we know that if you did a Venn diagram, there'd be a lot of issues where there's some intersectionality there, right?

What are you hoping can be discussed during this interim session?

>> So.

Well, so we started out the session with we've had one education meeting and we had a long discussion about workforce Pell grants.

And so those are the ability now to use a Pell Grant to pay for a certification that isn't just community college hours or college hours.

We also had a long discussion about our work in early literacy, which has just been amazing.

We have actually you mentioned the Harvard study.

You know, there were only seven states that have shown improvement and growth in their student literacy, and Kentucky was one of them.

And I believe we ranked fifth.

So a lot of work on literacy.

I think we need to as far as over the interim, I think we need to have some conversations in regular session 25, we had House Bill 240, and that was the kindergarten first grade retention bill.

And I'm hearing kind of through the grapevine that some districts really absorbed it very, you know, had a lot of input in it.

And a lot of children may have benefited and some districts aren't moving or aren't having quite so many kids retained who maybe need to be.

And so I think in the interim, we need to have some discussions about how the language was written and how we need to tighten it up so that what the intent is and the intent is that a child goes into second grade ready for second grade, and they're not behind, behind, behind each year that the intent is what is actually happening.

Also over the interim in this crosses between education and the families and children is, is the issues that we have for children with autism.

And that rate has been growing so quickly.

My son was diagnosed with autism in 1998, and at that time we had maybe 1 in 500 children, and today it's 1 in 31.

So just imagine in a school building like the one I work in, it would either be one child in the whole building or where we are now is pretty much one child in each classroom.

And so, you know, I could talk about this subject for an hour all by itself, but I've a lot of thoughts on areas that I think we need to address regarding children with autism.

>> And I think even Tina, we heard in family and children last week, we heard how important it was for what happens when families have to.

They can no longer care for their child.

That's right.

You know, they have to be sent to Kansas because they just can't be.

They can't give them the the services they need.

And so I think that's an even bigger conversation we've got to continue to work on.

>> Yeah.

And it's my understanding through talking to parents that sometimes the agencies are the, the facilities that can offer residential care for children with very involved autism who are no longer safe in their home or their family members.

Aren't parents often are not.

Their children are not accepted into the programs.

I talked to a mom who had 349 agencies that she's tried across the nation, and they won't accept her child.

But then sometimes in order to get the services, the parents are asked to give up basically custody and put them in dependency.

So if you're a parent, when my son was little, I wouldn't have wanted, no matter what.

His need is to not be his legal parent.

And so there are some very concerning issues for our kids with autism.

>> Yeah.

You've really gotten us, both of you on a really good start on this conversation.

Hopefully we can drill down a little bit more onto that discussion about autism and about having to go to Kansas to get care, which I know a lot of people are curious about.

But I do want to back us up to that study that involved Harvard and Dartmouth, where and Stanford, where it showed that Kentucky ranks eighth out of 38 states nationally in math recovery and five out of 35 states in reading growth between 2022 and 2025.

And that places the Commonwealth at those top performing states in the nation of recovering from those Covid era losses, from the disrupted learning.

I want to ask Christy Putnam, when you hear that kind of ground being made up, are you encouraged by that?

And then the next question is how do you sustain even build on that momentum?

>> Absolutely.

Encouraged by that.

You know, I think any time you can show such significant gains in education, you know, what you want to focus on is maintaining that.

So what has Kentucky been doing?

What policies, what procedures, what what's working with parents involved in school and their children's education?

So I'm very encouraged by that.

You know, ten years ago when I was in the cabinet for Health and Family Services, Kentucky was at the bottom of a lot of things, and we have made a lot of progress.

I think there's a reason to be hopeful across the board in child well-being in the state of Kentucky, not saying that the work is done.

We're still in the bottom 10 to 15 rankings of for a lot of indicators like child obesity and child poverty.

But in the education gains, I think it's significant that Kentucky is one of the top.

There's been a lot of focus on passing the right education policy, making sure that teachers have what they needed in the classroom.

So I'm very encouraged by the progress that's been made.

>> And Doctor Brooks, as someone who spent part of his career in the classroom and certainly 20 something years as a child advocate for the leading child advocacy organization, how encouraged by you from the educational gains.

And then we'll drill down to the other areas.

>> Sure.

Absolutely.

You first of all, Renee, I think it's so important given the narratives that are out there.

I want to take just a second and say how appreciative I am of reps.

Bujnowski and Heavrin and Christie, each of them, in their own way, really does deliver for kids.

And I think sometimes it's easy to think of Frankfort as that place that doesn't get anything done.

These three folks help things get done for kids.

So as that you intimated as an old broken down principal.

>> Now, I didn't say all of that.

>> You know, when I think about that, there's absolutely lots of reasons to be optimistic.

I think one of the things that I hope reenters the conversation is that pedagogy, curriculum methodologies, all those are really important.

But I think one of the things that I'd like to see reinserted, and I, at the moment, I think the most articulate voice for this is Commissioner Fletcher.

He does a great job of talking about this.

That is the role of non-cognitive factors in student achievement.

>> What do you mean by that?

Define that for us.

>> 200,000 kids woke up in poverty today in Kentucky.

That has a dramatic impact on health outcomes and academic achievement.

So we can't talk about reading scores without talking about economic well-being.

When we think about kids in Health, I don't care how interesting the lesson is.

If I've got a toothache that's not treated, I'm not going to learn about multiplication.

If we think about schools and the number of young people we have living in kinship families, we have a lot of grandkids.

And my wife and I collectively spent a lot of years in school.

Yet the most frightening question I get is from our grandson saying, can you help me with my math?

Schools have to think about what does that mean?

That we have young people living with grandparents?

And that's probably a crisis.

So absolutely, we need to be talking about curriculum, helping teachers with their methods and pedagogy.

Got to talk about discipline.

We have to talk about funding, but we also have to talk about those factors that that are so important to kids.

Because kids don't grow up in silos, they don't live their lives at home and then come to school as students.

So what I hope happens, whether it's in juvenile justice or child welfare or education, is that we begin increasingly talking about the whole child and all of those needs.

And I'm convinced that could be the secret sauce if we really want to move kids ahead in terms of reading, writing and arithmetic.

>> So we recall that Doctor Steven Pruitt, when he was education commissioner, I think part of his platform was addressing the whole child.

And Representative Bujnowski, I want to come to you for give our audience a working definition of what whole child means.

I think Doctor Brooks just really laid it out for us.

But is there anything you would add to that?

And when you think about these educational gains and where they were made, you know, Anderson County, Perry County, Marion, Ohio, Corbin Independent and Pike are outperforming their peers in reading and math.

And then other districts like Paducah Independent, Harlan County, Franklin County, Clay County and Davis County are demonstrating very strong subject specific growth.

So sometimes we think in terms of everything as rural versus urban, but this is a really interesting mix of counties that are perhaps punching above their weight of what is normally expected of counties like that.

Can you give us some insight there?

>> Well, so I'll start because I'm also a special education teacher in addition to being a state rep.

And what we believe in in our program is that children won't learn anything unless their basic needs are being met.

If they're hungry, if they're tired, if they're they have needs, if they didn't sleep the night before, if there are issues at home.

So those basic needs are so imperative.

And if they're emotionally regulated, I mean, there's a lot of discussions.

It's a major issue in education today of student behavior.

And I don't think that that behavior is just related to school.

It's oftentimes related to a trauma that may have happened or be happening, you know, outside of school.

So we've got to have those basic needs.

But then, you know, we also have to be teaching reading and math and writing in, in the best way.

And I think that our state since the 2022 Reed to succeed state has shifted the way that we've taught reading in a very monumental way.

And not only, you know, I did the letters program.

The letters program is a two year professional development to help teachers better understand how to teach reading, which is wonderful.

But we also have a requirement that the Department of Education select curricula.

And I was so fortunate last week to join more than 1500 teachers from across the state for the read statistic reads to succeed Summer conference and the keynote speaker there, he brought up an issue that has been corrected by needing to have our curricula decided, but I hadn't even really thought of it.

And it's this having students in their reading groups read only what is supposedly on their level, which means that so many of our kids will not get exposed to grade level reading experiences.

So we're making big changes in the state of Kentucky, and the fact that it's maybe showing up in the Harvard study, I can tell you 100% was showing up in the enthusiasm of the educators across the state at the conference where I was last week.

>> And can you help us understand if if more and more teachers have have embraced the science of literacy, the science of reading, or is or is that slow to come online?

Or does it depend on where you are?

>> Well, I, I think that in that the superintendent, because it used to be that every building the the.

Oh, I've forgotten the.

The the what's it called?

The building.

>> Council, SVM.

>> Yes.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

Yes.

There we go.

The SVM in every building used to be able to select the curriculum.

And so with that happening, it was much harder to change how students, especially in Jefferson County, because we have so many schools we're learning to read.

Now, the superintendent and the chief academic officer select a curriculum that embeds science of reading within the curriculum, because those are the curricula that are on the approved list.

So I think teachers, you know, as time goes by, they're kind of they're still a little bit hesitant about like we had the no.

Three cueing Bill.

And there are still teachers who aren't, you know, three cueing is a way of teaching reading where you teach them, you know, do you look at the picture or the first letter of the word and try to figure out what it is?

And it's an emphasis on more on whole language as opposed to what are the letters and phonics based teaching reading?

And so there are still teachers who are hesitant to, to abandon some of the things that have worked for them in the past.

However, every teacher is supposed to teach the curriculum that the superintendent selects, and those are by requirement of our legislation and selected by the Department of Education going to build in science of reading.

So, you know, we're making a big shift in this state.

And within the eight years that I've been in this General Assembly, it's a very big change.

And I think that we are going to see.

I think we are going to see children finish up stronger through their education path.

I don't know how much of that.

And what what concerns me is I don't know how much of that will actually show up in test scores, because the tests are designed to distinguish between kids, not necessarily to show that you are competent at grade level.

So that could be a whole show.

But I, I think we're really making good progress as far as what we need to do to ensure that our children are literate when they graduate from high school.

>> Well, one of the things you mentioned earlier, and perhaps it was representative Heavrin to about emotional regulation.

And we know that during Covid, we heard that the cohort of kids who were at home, Miss Putnam, who were entering kindergarten right at the peak, or the changes where Covid was its most kind of strident.

They really had some socialization issues, right?

Because they had not been in that atmosphere.

And and when you think about the number of grandparents who are primary caregivers of, of their grandchildren, I think it's close to 100,000.

I mean, we rank, I think, number one in the nation for grandparents who are caring for their grandchildren.

So put all of that in a, in a, in a perspective for us about the challenges that that educators face in the classroom.

>> Absolutely.

And I'm not sure many people know that I started my career as a classroom teacher, and that bridged me quickly to human services and the intersection.

Representative Bozinovski touched on it at the beginning, but the intersection of those two areas and child well-being and education was really emphasized during Covid.

The ability for kids to be socialized and normalized, not just when they're entering kindergarten, but we had critical transitions that kids missed all throughout.

You know, I had a daughter who was entering her freshman year in college, and it was a completely different experience than what she was expecting.

So, you know, I think that the behavior challenges the substance use that happened when people were home and people were hopeless and people didn't know what was going to happen, turned into substance use issues, turned into parents with problems.

And so we've ended up with a significant number of of grandparents raising children, aunts and uncles.

The good thing is Kentucky does rank the highest for placement with relatives.

And, you know, I think our state does an excellent job of, of seeking out the kinship care, making sure that there's a connected person with that child.

But the issues that have have been exacerbated, the behavioral health issues that we're seeing, not just in our schools, but we're seeing kids enter juvenile justice at much higher rates.

We're seeing kids enter the foster care system.

Exactly the point that that was made earlier.

Parents, they just don't know what to do with these, with their children.

And the behaviors are so out of control that sometimes the last resort and the resort, the the option that's offered is put your child in custody because we have the services that can help your child with their behavioral issues and their regulation.

>> That seems like a pretty stark option there.

Drastic option, doctor Brooks, about.

>> Yeah, one of the things when you think about where kids in crisis are, Renee, whether it's child welfare or juvenile justice, if you think about that continuum of care and link how kids do to the health care system, we have lots of immediate care and emergency rooms for kids, so to speak.

We've got some intermediate areas, but kids in trouble, kids in crisis, like the child welfare equivalent of an intensive care unit.

And I think that's so important that our legislators keep thinking about that.

In fact, that whole notion of what has happened with kids emotional well-being, there's an important predicate that I don't think gets enough credit.

In 2019, Senator Wise and the very noble late Bam Carney from the House passed a bicameral resiliency bill that kind of got lost with the pandemic.

I'd love to see a 2.0 version of that get looked at, because what Representative Carney and Senator Wise knew was that there are certain levers, certain supports, that young people need for their behavioral, emotional and mental health.

Again, very common sense, very research based, very practical.

So that's an area where I think that both the House and Senate calling on those historic commitments from the late Representative Carney and Senator Wise could reboot.

We need that more now than we did in 2019.

I think the other thing that I want to make sure we we at least allude to is Kristy mentioned, and I could not agree more.

The number of grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles and godparents who are stepping up if they make that commitment, we as a state have to support them.

I know Representative Heavrin is a champion on kinship.

My premise is that as a state, we owe those caregivers, supports, respite care, adequate economic supports, and they are not getting them today.

You actually get far more supports being a foster parent than you do a kinship caregiver.

That is a broken system.

We need to honor family as a first stop.

So that's the other thing that folks embrace the concept of kinship care.

We applaud those grandmas and grandpas.

We got to do more than applaud.

We've got to support.

>> Yeah.

Representative Heavrin, I want to come to you for a response about that.

And this disparity between kinship care, the support, financial support and other supports and those who are foster parents talk about that.

And if there will be possibly some legislation or ideas, policy ideas that could address that disparity.

>> Yeah.

You know, Terry hits the nail on the head.

Renee, this has been such an issue for the last several years.

And one thing I really want to commend my friend Norma Hatfield, she is the kinship caregiver to her grandchildren, and she's been a phenomenal advocate to them.

She's in Hardin County, and we continue to work with her to try to get this right.

In the state of Kentucky and the budget we funded more.

We we gave more dollars to kinship care.

And so we're looking to see how the executive branch plays that out.

Now, we have been working with the federal government on this as well, trying to figure out what we can do to help families.

You know, one of the biggest issues, Renee, is when you get that knock on the door at 2 a.m.

and they say, hey, you know, you can be a foster care parent or you can be a kinship care parent to that grandma.

You know, sometimes foster care has a negative connotation.

And my world, it doesn't.

And Tina's world it doesn't.

But, you know, some people, they're like, oh, well, we don't need the government's help not recognizing the expenses it takes to raise a child in 2026.

And so what we're trying to do first is being able to switch, you know, right now when Dcbs comes to you and says, okay, kinship care, foster care, then you have to stick with that.

And it's not really fair for families who are having to make a decision in the early morning to figure out, well, what resources do we need?

And I think families should be able to switch from that.

That is something that we passed.

Senator Julie Raque Adams actually passed that to be able to have flexibility, but then just offering, you know, what can we do to pull down those title $40 and better help Kentucky families?

It's there.

And I think that Kristi could probably share a little more information.

But I think that's one of the most important things is, you know, when we know that kids do better when they're with family members.

And so why aren't we making better strides to do that?

And a lot of that lands on the executive branch right now.

And seeing, you know, I'm going to say the ball's in their court.

You know, we really feel like what we did, what we could in the budget and through policy.

And so we're trying to to continue to be a partner on that and figure out what we do.

Because at the end of the day, we want to help kinship care families, and we want to help grandparents and aunts and uncles that are stepping up to serve these kids because they're going to have a better outcome at the end of the day.

>> So really quickly before I have Doctor Brooks weigh in there just so that the viewer at home understands.

So the legislature allotted money to, I guess, the Department of Community Based Services, which would cover fictive kinship care, foster care, and then the.

And then the executive branch can decide on how to disseminate those dollars.

Or are they specific line items for each of those things that the General Assembly allocated?

>> It was line item.

>> Okay, Doctor Brooks.

>> So it was line item in the budget.

So the executive branch should.

Oh, sorry, we've got a lag there.

So there is a. It's a it was a line item in the budget including some policy language with that.

And so we're looking you know, it it I don't know that it had an emergency clause on it.

So it should start you know we should start seeing some movement hopefully July 1st.

>> Okay.

So we'll keep our eyes on that doctor.

>> One of the things that I find so encouraging, Renee, and absolutely, we're counting on the House and Senate to stand up for kinship families as well as the Beshear administration.

But every aspect of kinship care is not going to be solved in Frankfort and nationally.

One of the phenomenon that we see is an increasing role of faith communities to support kinship care.

There are churches, for instance, that have the magic of the ever present frozen casserole.

If a grandma is just jammed, she can go to church and there is a frozen lasagna waiting for her.

There are churches that are offering tutoring sessions a couple times a week.

Bring your grandson or granddaughter in.

We're going to have a retired teacher, a student teacher, a community member.

But we need you to stay so you'll learn how to help your grandkid.

Imagine that adult Sunday school class.

Who says there's a kinship family down the street?

We're going to provide a respite afternoon for that grandma.

So as important as reps.

Bogdanovsky and Heavrin and their colleagues in the Senate are, and they are absolutely vital to kinship care.

The other thing that I hope happens is that community, folks, business, community, faith, community, civic clubs, they step up and think about what role we could play to help that grandma and that grandpa and that little boy and little girl go to a more prosperous, self-sufficient future.

>> Miss Putnam.

Yes.

>> So, yes.

And Terry and I have talked at length about about this prospect, as have the representatives, and I. So the idea that we have community partners, that we have civil society churches who are are ready and willing to step in, is more an idea about strengthening families and communities.

And I think, I hope what what you will see coming out of both the interim and the next session are some additional ways and flexibilities where government is not the only answer.

Government really should be further, much further down on the list.

And we really should be looking at how do we strengthen the grandparents, aunts and uncles, those who raise their hands to say, we're going to help take care of this child because we have a connection with this child?

And so what Representative Heavrin referenced in the budget language was that not just was there a line item for supporting kinship care, but there was also policy language that talks about provisional approval of a relative as a foster home, a different type of approval.

You know, something that's very encouraging to me is we're seeing so much movement out of the administration for Children and families.

Assistant Secretary Alex Adams and his team are doing a phenomenal job with a home for every child.

And what a home for every child does at the national level is it does remove some of the barriers it they're doing a significant deregulation of of all these pages upon pages of, of bureaucratic barriers that are just in place because they've been there for so many years, they just get added to.

So I'm very encouraged by the legislature's willingness to move in a direction that that removes some of these barriers and provides support for kinship caregivers through provisional approval and through some administrative changes.

So I agree with Representative Heavrin.

You know, the ball is in the court of the executive branch.

And, you know, I'm very hopeful that this is an option for them that they will be able to pursue.

>> Sometimes when viewers and listeners hear relaxing regulations, that translates to them that imperiling a child or endangering a child, can you just make a disconnection there between regulation and child safety?

>> Absolutely.

Child safety is imperative.

The things that are not deregulated in the process of provisional approval are the the health and safety checks that have to be done.

We have to do background checks.

We have to make sure that the home environment is safe.

And you know that there are not things that are harmful for children to get into in that environment, but the bureaucratic things are things like, you cannot be approved as a foster home until somebody comes in and inspects your refrigerator.

I mean, there are just there are just some things that are put in place, well intentioned over the years.

And what is it that we can remove while preserving the health and safety of that child and making sure that their needs are being met?

>> And that's a tough balance.

We absolutely want every kid to be safe.

That's certainly what I hear Christie talking about.

By the same token, what price is being paid when placement is delayed, when that young person is sleeping in an office or a state park because they have not had time to look at your refrigerator, there's a balance.

And again, speed of placement and guaranteed quality don't have to be mutually exclusive.

And I totally agree with what Christie is talking about in terms of that direction.

>> And just to remind our viewers that your reference to out of home placement and kids staying in state office buildings, that's not just anecdotal.

We know that the state auditor, Alison Ball, did an examination.

I think that result of which came out in March of 9th of March.

And she found that over a 22 month period, there were 304 children that were placed in what's called nontraditional placement settings, like cabinet for health and family services, office buildings, state parks, or other unlicensed settings.

But sometimes you do the best you can with what you have.

Right, Miss Putnam?

I mean, were those the best available options at the time just to make sure those children weren't on the street?

>> Absolutely.

Something that I have said previously is when you're working in child welfare and in human services, but specifically child welfare, you are so often faced with making the best, worst decision in front of you.

And, you know, I think, you know, one of the last things that that I would want to do is, is be critical of anybody who is in that role because there's no, there's no way to for people to actually understand all of the different complexities that go into making a decision for a child that you have taken into your custody.

That being said, you know, one of the things that we see frequently is we see a pendulum swing in our country, and sometimes the pendulum swings to, we've got to leave kids in their families at all costs.

And then other times it swings back to the we've got to remove kids because they're unsafe at the first sign of, of.

There's an issue in the home and finding somewhere in the middle where we can both assess kids and make sure that they're in the right place, whether that's their home environment with appropriate safety in place or whether that's in a, an out-of-home care situation with a relative or with a foster home, you often don't have enough time to make that decision.

You have to make a decision to put that child in a place where they're safe for the night.

Again, one of its the best, worst decision that you can possibly make.

But that being said, you know, I think it's important for us to remember too, that we are constantly questioning we, the general public.

I'm going to put my general public hat on.

Legislators, media, general public are constantly questioning the actions of the workers who are on the front line having to make these decisions instead of trying to understand perhaps why was that the best decision at the moment, and how do we keep that from happening?

How do we provide more resources, meaning not necessarily funding, but supports and community environments that are more conducive to helping assess a child in a more meaningful way?

>> And I think the the key, Renee, is if we know this phenomenon is happening in totally agree with with Christie that what tough jobs social workers have.

So this is not about them.

What what I hope happens is creative folks like Representative Heavrin Bogdanovsky and their colleagues take what's happening and think about what do we do about it as close as Tennessee.

Tennessee has essentially solved the issue of temporary █placements.

built regional assessment centers for kids with high acuity that are dangerous to themselves and others.

One of the things that Auditor Ball reported was a stunning number of young people under the age of four who did not represent a threat for anybody, but it was their first time out of home and we didn't know what to do with them.

Tennessee has built essentially stabilization centers.

Think of it as a triage to do a quick assessment.

Make sure there are bathed and have food and safe, and then let's get them placed.

So when you look at other states, other states have had this problem.

This is not unique to Kentucky, but they've begun to solve it.

So it's not enough to talk about it as a problem.

It's an obligation and an opportunity for our leaders in Frankfort to think about how to come together and come up with a palpable practical solutions.

And I don't know how this can happen.

I'll defer to our legislative colleagues.

I, for one, am very impatient, thinking that we have to wait till July 1st, 2028 to say to those kids, good luck, kid.

Just hang in.

A new budget will be coming with a new governor.

So I don't know if there's wiggle room, but boy, I hope that our General Assembly and the Beshear administration hear a call that we shouldn't have any kids in that situation.

>> Representative Heavrin and co-chair, I mean, your co-chair of the joint committee, but your chairwoman of the House Families and Children Committee, when you I'm sure you've evaluated what Tennessee is doing and these regional assessment centers, do you think that's a valid idea worth pursuing?

And have you even talked to colleagues in Tennessee about that idea and how they got it going and the success that they're having?

>> You know, I haven't yet.

One thing as Terri was talking, I was thinking about Tennessee is also we actually have our first set.

Our first house in Kentucky is Isaiah 117.

I'm hoping I have the numbers correct.

They came and testified last year during the interim Joint Committee, and it's when it's a community, they build houses in a judicial center, judicial district, and then they allow for that house, for foster care kids to come while they're in that waiting period.

And people from the faith community, people from, you know, neighbors and friends, they're background checked, they're very protected, and they're safe individuals.

I'll say, come and help the kids as they come into the home.

And so I am aware of that, that Tennessee has been doing.

I have to learn a little more about what Doctor Brooks was talking about.

But I think one thing what I've continued, you know, I said, we're talking about the child welfare continuum.

And, you know, it's really a big picture conversation.

And that's the importance of us talking about it during the session, because we've got to figure out what we can do from the very beginning when the child is removed from the home all the way to the adoption, you know, are we talking about through that?

We're talking about friends of the court, termination of parental rights.

What are the grandparents rights?

What are foster parents rights?

What about adoption and adoption disruption?

What about foster care review boards, the child fatality and near fatality review review panel.

You know, there's so much to it.

And you know, we've really worked hard.

You know, I think one of the biggest things that happened in 2024 to me was Baby Maya from Ohio County.

You know, there were a lot of ways that we could have done better as a state.

And what does that look like?

And that's when I started a working group outside of the Kentucky General Assembly.

Of course, there were representatives and senators involved, but also bringing in the law enforcement community, the hospitals, county attorneys, the AOC, and saying, hey, we've we've got to do better for kids.

What does that look like?

And we've passed some really good legislation on, you know, when two people call, say, a doctor calls and a teacher calls, those are two professional reporting sources.

Those cases get automatically investigated.

And I think that's really important because we were hearing that big concern that teachers would call and call, and there was no investigation when they knew the child was in harm.

What we also did this past session, and that was Senator Carroll and Representative Nick Wilson, my vice chair in the House.

They added ingestion to the definition of abuse and neglect.

And, you know, sitting on the child fatality and near fatality panel.

Renee, what that means is we are a panel that looks at every child who dies under the age of 18 and seeing what we could have done better.

Are there policies that we can learn from this?

Was this on purpose?

Was it was on accident?

And we learned from that report that the number one, the death was neglect.

The number two was overdose and ingestion.

And so we are we are learning information and taking that and putting it into law in hopes that we can start preventing that and that parents are held accountable.

I was at my my best friend's kiddos, they play tennis and I was at tennis camp last week watching them because I think it's important for us if we're going to talk about community, we got to support our own community.

And they were talking about how people just aren't held accountable anymore.

And I think that's, you know, especially with parents that aren't being good to their kids, we've got to hold them accountable to what they're doing.

And of course, the number three reason that kids had fatality or near fatality expenses, experiences were physical abuse.

And so from those we look at that, you know, with baby Maya, there was no contact made.

And so making sure that if you're a child under four, because I don't know if you know this, but children from 0 to 4 years old is 68% of the cases are the most vulnerable kids, which makes sense as aren't always on them.

They might not be in schools, they might not be in child care.

And so I think that we we try to learn from experiences, but we also have to remember child welfare is not a one size fits all topic.

It's something we really have to think about because we're affecting lives of people.

And sometimes we forget that in government.

>> Yeah.

Representative Bogdanovski, if you'll follow up on that, when you think about I mean, you have education experience as well and all of this, you know, if you're if you're in an abusive situation or you're exposed to the trauma of domestic violence or substance abuse because your caregivers are doing that, I mean, that really impedes your ability to, to listen and to learn and to concentrate when you're in a school environment.

And we know that there has been legislation that even addresses disruptive students, right?

And so you think, oh, well, do you do you punish the kids because they come from environments that are less than healthy and they just act out because they don't know any different?

I mean, what is the balancing act of helping correct a child who has just been exposed to so much they can emotionally regulate, and also holding the parent accountable for the behavior that's contributing to that.

>> Right?

I mean, the hardest thing is we can't change what's happening at home, but what we can do.

And, and I've had extensive training in trauma informed education.

And so you might look at a child's behavior.

I mean, every behavior is an attempt to communicate.

But that behavior may have been triggered by something that has absolutely nothing to do with what's happening in the classroom.

So if you limit your analysis, okay, so the child is screaming after another child's corrected.

Well, it has nothing to do with what might have happened here.

It might be what happened at home.

Or, you know, there are situations where a teacher might wear a certain Cologne or hairspray that triggers a memory of something that happened outside of school and the child's having a meltdown.

So you want to look at a child's behavior through the lens.

And especially if you if you, you know, communicate with the family and maybe have some understanding of what kind of experiences may have happened.

But through that lens of this might be a trauma trigger.

So then as a teacher, you're not saying, okay, it's less of a judgment about the child and more of an understanding of what may have created that situation and that behavior.

And then that leads you, you know, I can be much more calm if I know a child has been exposed to domestic violence and that they have a reaction when another child appears to be in trouble.

So there's screaming, you know, they're not screaming, but the child might be screaming and the teacher might just be calming them down.

And this other child is having a total meltdown over here.

You know, I, I can look at that child and I can think, okay, so through a trauma lens, here's why he's reacting.

Here's what he needs.

He doesn't need me to correct him or to fuss at him.

He needs a space to de-escalate until we can communicate a little bit about what was happening, how it wasn't even a situation involving him.

And then, you know, have some conversations after after the child's de-escalated.

But having that trauma lens is so essential.

I did want to I think one thing we haven't talked about yet this evening is cell phones and the impact of social media on our youth.

And we did in 2025 in House Bill 208, we had a cell phone ban in schools.

And the feedback.

I just read an article today that had some discussions about, you know, consequences for children having their phones out.

But the the principal at Fern Creek, when they did it a year before, she said that the number of books that were checked out of the library increased exponentially.

I actually did an observation at a high school in Louisville before the cell phone ban, and the number of kids who were doing like a hands on it was one of the academies where they learned to take care of patients.

And all these kids had their headphones on, and they were listening to something on their cell phones.

And I was like, this is absolutely ridiculous.

And so I think that the educators across the state are very appreciative of the cell phone ban.

I would be very interested, as we go through the interim, to hear from some some buildings, some districts, you know, at at how that operationalized.

Did they have pouches?

Did they have to put their phones away?

You know, how are the the biggest pushback was from parents who want to be able to contact their children at all times.

But, you know, one district, and I don't recall the name, but one district already won a lawsuit with the social media company about the damage that that this social media and apps that the kids are in are having for our youth.

So this, this is a really big part of, you know, that change from 2013 as we got the iPhones and the increase we've, we've discussed before on the show, you know, the anxiety that children have that's built from a world that's full of likes.

You know, how many likes did I get from my post?

And, and the way that cell phones in our schools, you know, some buildings or some districts have decided that kids can have it between classes, but how much of that cell phone kind of bullying happens where all the kids get together and have chats in Jefferson County, it's from morning to Bell to Bell.

They're not supposed to have their cell phones.

So I would like to really understand how that, you know, maybe some consequence of it that we might need to address.

But I think overall, as an educator, it was a fantastic legislation.

>> Yeah.

I'm glad you brought that up.

Representative Borowski, I know Doctor Brooks, you really want to chime in here because.

I remember the resistance that we heard during the testimony.

>> I just had to laugh because I conducted a really extensive research project that is I interviewed Renner, Kendall and Carson Brooks, three.

>> Grandchildren.

>> Public school children.

This time last year.

All three of them believed that life on earth had ended, that Armageddon had come because their cell phones would not be accompanying them in school.

All of them.

And I say that about the three, but we've heard this anecdotally.

It's a game changer for discipline, for atmosphere at their respective high schools.

Teachers are so cool.

It's not punitive.

It's like, hey, put it away, keep it away.

And what they.

>> Do, they don't collect them.

Maybe.

Well, I've often wondered, like, I.

>> Think in some cases very Tina can weigh in.

I think it varies significantly from school to school.

But as you may guess, cell phone use during school generally was not about academic matters.

It was about who was doing this and saying that.

So they talked about just such a change in atmosphere, less disruption.

So shout out to the General Assembly for really setting a stage to make schools calmer, more focused places.

A big win for teachers and a big win for kids.

>> And it's not like it hadn't happened before us Gen Xers.

You know, you can take your princess phone.

Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.

So yeah, Miss Putnam, how do how do you view that?

I mean, some people may think, well, that's such a small action, but look at the compounding consequences in the positive direction that it's having.

With book checkout increasing and kids seemingly more engaged in their learning, that's a real win win, right.

>> And more engaged in each other.

Right.

And I think that's, that's the most important connection we can have.

And I, you know, I believe that the, the connectivity, you know, we're always connected to these.

I'm guilty a lot of the time, but the, the need for children to be able to connect to each other and to build those human connections before they learn anything else, before their brains are wired a different way.

Jonathan Haidt wrote The Anxious Generation.

And, you know, that was when I spent some time in Arkansas.

When I was there, Governor Sanders had him come in and really, you know, led the way with some of these changes.

And so did Kentucky.

As far as ruling out cell phones in school, we have we are resource rich, but connection poor.

And what I mean by that is we have all of these things at our fingertips, but we're still so disconnected.

And removing that technology and being able to spend that time and being able to have their brains develop normally and not have these rapid fire games and lights and sounds and everything coming, that really disrupts the brain function.

And to representative point it, it dysregulates a lot of kids to the point that they are really struggling behaviorally and academically and socially across the board in school.

So I'm very encouraged.

I, you know, we survived without it.

Yes.

You know, my corded phone couldn't leave the wall.

So but, you know, I would encourage more school districts and more states to really take a hard look at, can we get these out of our classrooms and have our kids have really quality time together?

>> Well, and we have done a program for our Education Matters series about artificial intelligence, AI in the classroom.

Right.

And we're not going to try to get that in in five minutes, but we know that that is a whole nother issue to deal with in our expanding digital landscape of how you deal with that kind of technology and good and bad ways.

Representative Heavrin, I want to come to you in about 4.5 minutes.

We have remaining to just kind of talk us through, as you and you've mentioned this at the outset, about the kind of issues that you would be taking on autism.

And I'm also questioning about dealing with the mental health issues of children.

We know that that's increased exponentially since the advent of Covid.

And we representative Bozinovski kind of alluded to that earlier.

And trauma informed care.

There seems to be some concerns about trauma informed care in schools and whether or not that should be continued, or just a discussion about the validity of that.

Where are those discussions now, particularly in that mental health space for our young people?

>> You know, I think they're still being had and they're being had in a lot of different ways because no one knows the fix to it.

And I think what you all alluded to is social media.

You know, social media is such a fake world and kids don't recognize that that is a fake world.

And, you know, I think that that that is a reality.

And so then you take that to mental health.

Like I think Covid exacerbated all of our mental health and maybe issues, you know, trying to figure that out.

And it's going to be a continuous conversation because it's a generational conversation.

You know, probably some of the older generations are like, rub some mud on it, get over it, you're going to be fine.

Whereas I think my generation and, and coming up, you know, my generation after, they're more of like, well, let's, let's talk it out.

Let's, let's talk about therapy.

Let's figure out really what, what the need is.

And I think that the middle ground there is, it's the community part.

And, you know, trying to figure out, you know, I think it was Mother Theresa that says, if you want to see change in the world, start at your own kitchen table.

And I think that's something, you know, we've got to we've lost empathy is as a state sometimes and even as humanity and, you know, being able to empathize with people and recognize we all have different life experiences and how do we help kids get through that?

You know, if we expect them to, to be good citizens when they grow up and they start voting and they become a community member, what does that look like?

And I think I really, I kind of want to pivot, Renee.

And I want to bring up a conversation I want to have is about a six schools, which there are schools that house at risk students from DJ, J. Department of Juvenile Justice and DCBS and you know, I have a group through Kentucky Youth Advocates come to visit me once a year.

It's a very emotional day and it's foster care.

Kids are called true up and they come and tell me policy issues that need to be changed.

And one of those is with six schools.

And I think this is a great intersection to the conversation of education and foster care and child welfare we've been having, because what we found out through these kids is that the standards are not equal.

You know, you could be an eighth grader and you're learning at a 10th grade level because that's, you know, that's what's being taught right then.

And so how can we create a level playing field for students?

Because if we expect them to go, you know, to college or trade school or be a good human after high school, what does that look like?

And so are we already giving them a place that they don't have an equal playing field because they, they don't have the opportunity, and they don't have parents that are going to step up or grandparents maybe if they're at a facility that says, hey, this my kid deserves better.

And so it's upon us to step up and say, these kids deserve better.

And I always say, you know, I don't have kids of my own yet, but the foster care kids are mine.

And so I'm going to continuously advocate for them and see what we can do better.

And so I do.

That's, that's one thing, you know, along with mental health, that's a conversation we have a lot.

But I also want to figure out about these, the alternative education and making sure that we're helping set kids up for success in Kentucky to have a good life.

And so there's a lot that we can do with that.

But, you know, I think one thing we start with empathy and move on from there.

>> Yeah.

Well, thank you for that chair.

Heavrin.

I think that's a good way to kind of end our conversation, and we'll need to break down individually some of those components that you mentioned, because there's a lot there to really tease out.

Thank you all, doctor Brooks, Miss Putnam and Representative Renee and Bozinovski, we thank you for being here for this discussion.

And thank you for joining us at home this evening.

Make sure you join us each weeknight for Kentucky edition at 630 eastern, 530 central, where we inform, connect and inspire and connect you to the issues that really matter.

And of course, Bill, Bryant and a panel of Kentucky reporters will be here on Friday night for comment on Kentucky at 8:00 eastern seven central to dissect the news of the week.

Thanks so much for being with us.

I'm Renee Shaw, and until I see you again, have a great week ahead.

[MUSIC] >> Good, because you're very good.

Oh, no.

No, you really are.

That's art form.

>> Just lean in.

You know, you just learn to just lean in.