Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/author/jdemers/)
Jasmine Demers is a corps member with Report For America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. She covers youth and social services. Demers worked previously for the Arizona Daily Star. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Arizona School of Journalism, where she was editor-in-chief of the student-run Daily Wildcat.
Kentucky has made some progress. But advocates say state lawmakers could be doing more to help young people – and that they’ve made matters worse in some cases with laws that could harm young people’s mental health, especially youth from marginalized backgrounds.
The department lacks clear guidelines for serving arrest warrants in public settings, according to a KyCIR review.
A conservative dark money group is influencing public welfare laws in Kentucky, and advocates say it could have a detrimental impact on access to benefits for the state’s most vulnerable residents.
Despite years of urging by child welfare experts, and even though Kentucky has some of the highest rates of child maltreatment and opioid abuse in the nation, family recovery courts are still not widely available throughout the state
With no system in place to track youth who age out of foster care and a slew of obstacles exacerbated by the pandemic, local advocates are concerned that many vulnerable youth will continue to be left without crucial relief.
The proposed bills cover a range of youth-related issues, including abortion, mental health for LGBTQ minors, corporal punishment and child abuse.
Most Ky. children who die or nearly die from abuse or neglect are under 3. They’re disproportionately Black. And more than 70% were part of a family that had been assessed or investigated by the state.
Western Kentucky residents impacted by the tornadoes can apply now for federal disaster assistance. But the process for obtaining relief from FEMA isn’t automatic — or available to everyone for every loss.
More than 20% of Kentucky children are growing up in poverty, but Black and Latinx children are worse off in the state’s most urban counties.
More Louisville youths died by suicide this year than any year since 2014. And people of color are over-represented among these deaths.