# Kentucky’s ‘blizzard of opportunities and obligations’ to its children **Published:** 2026-07-10T09:50:00.000Z **Source:** [Kentucky Lantern](https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/07/10/kentuckys-blizzard-of-opportunities-and-obligations-to-its-children/) **Republished from:** [Kentucky Lantern](https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/07/10/kentuckys-blizzard-of-opportunities-and-obligations-to-its-children/) (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) **Canonical:** https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/07/10/kentuckys-blizzard-of-opportunities-and-obligations-to-its-children/ By Sarah Ladd, [Kentucky Lantern](https://kentuckylantern.com) · July 10, 2026 Ask Terry Brooks how Kentucky’s children are really doing and the answer depends on what data one wants to explore. The longtime child advocate can remember a time when [Kids Count](https://www.aecf.org/resources/2026-kids-count-data-book?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22678288986&gbraid=0AAAAAD3xzvEd5BmeJrgqF5Sh4BSkK0FUz&gclid=Cj0KCQjw9ZLSBhCcARIsAEhGKgPaCkP2RfKKPq-wBBNmxGHy1quUg7ITMOdf3GI7JEV15rvG0UqXjIEaAu7cEALw_wcB) rankings of all the states in the country placed Kentucky [in the 40s](https://assets.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/AECF-2010KIDSCOUNTDataBook-2010.pdf) — scraping the bottom of the pack. Now, the commonwealth [is in the 30s](https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/06/08/report-child-poverty-is-down-in-kentucky-but-education-and-health-lag/). “Do I wish they were in the 20s or the teens? Absolutely,” said Brooks, who recently left his post as executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocate after more than two decades with the organization. “By quantitative data that doesn’t have anything to do with stories and anecdotes and tragedies…Kentucky’s kids, relatively speaking, are significantly better than they were two decades ago.” The longtime schoolteacher and advocate isn’t disappearing into retirement. He will now work as executive vice president and ambassador of [Sunrise Children’s Services,](https://www.sunrise.org/) a Christian nonprofit that operates therapeutic residential programs, a psychiatric residential treatment center, foster care and adoption services and other related services. [](https://kentuckylantern.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Shannon-Moody_KYA-scaled-e1745701111911.jpg)Shannon Moody Shannon Moody became the new executive director of KYA, effective July 1. She said she is “deeply committed to building on the foundation of effective education and mobilization around issues impacting Kentucky kids” and “I look forward to expanding KYA’s impact, deepening relationships, and advancing meaningful, lasting change.” For Brooks, his professional shift is a marriage of his 21 years of advocacy with KYA and his years as a teacher. “On one hand I want to be trying to organize a summer football clinic, and on the other hand I want to be in Frankfort talking about big swings when it comes to child welfare,” Brooks said. “So, that merger of those two passions that I think have kind of exemplified a 50-year career.” To mark this shift in his advocacy, Brooks, 76, recently spoke at length with the Lantern about the future of child advocacy in a state that has, despite its progress in some areas, one of the nation’s worst rates of abuse [and neglect](https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/02/23/report-ky-children-are-dying-in-drug-overdoses-that-are-preventable/). Elected officials, Brooks said, need to commit to more bipartisanship and less national trend-chasing going forward if they are to make a lasting difference for the commonwealth’s children. ## Children sacrificed to political theater Brooks can easily remember key moments when the right and left put aside ideological differences in the name of children’s welfare. In 2018, for example, Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. David Meade, R-Stanford, and former Rep. Joni Jenkins, D-Shively, worked together on [an omnibus child welfare bill](https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/18rs/hb1.html), managing to set aside the “collateral noise” of any other disagreements. [Spike in child sex abuse spurs new guidance for Kentucky investigators](https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/04/22/spike-in-child-sex-abuse-spurs-new-guidance-for-kentucky-investigators/) “I mean, you can’t get more urban or liberal than Joni, or more rural and conservative than David, and they came together on an omnibus child welfare bill that was really powerful and changed really a number of lenses through which child welfare was seen,” Brooks said. “I worry a lot that I don’t see that type of statesmanship based upon a singular issue as much anymore.” There are many lawmakers working on children’s issues, from [childcare](https://kentuckylantern.com/2024/02/12/republican-senator-will-ask-kentucky-lawmakers-to-put-300-million-into-strengthening-child-care/) reform to [vaping prevention](https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/01/28/another-year-another-attempt-to-push-kys-juul-settlement-dollars-to-prevention-cessation/) and the [criminalization of sexual extortion](https://kentuckylantern.com/2025/02/05/kentucky-urged-to-increase-criminal-penalties-education-to-protect-kids-from-sextortion/). And Gov. Andy Beshear has made a [push for pre-K](https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/05/07/kentucky-governor-to-launch-pre-k-pilot-programs-in-two-counties/) a cornerstone of his administration’s work. But are lawmakers and the governor focused enough on child welfare? “If collaboration is a prerequisite for fundamental improvement for kids, the answer is easy: No,” Brooks said. “You know the governor is going to build a case against the General Assembly. The General Assembly is going to build a case against the governor.” Brooks believes nationwide partisanship and “political narratives” have bled into policymaking. “Kids have become the sacrifice for political rhetoric, and that political rhetoric I don’t perceive as being generated by Frankfort, but it’s being inherited by Frankfort from national conversations,” Brooks said. “That is an increasing threat, because ideology is put before kids’ issues.” ## Waiting for action [](https://kentuckylantern.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/IMG_7602-1-scaled-e1770734423237.jpeg)Terry Brooks (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd) Each year, the Annie E. Casey Foundation releases its [Kids Count Data Book](https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/06/08/report-child-poverty-is-down-in-kentucky-but-education-and-health-lag/), which looks at indicators of wellbeing including edu­ca­tion, health, economic success and com­mu­ni­ty and family measures. Each year, with slight variations, it’s clear Kentucky children in general lack well-rounded resources. Many aren’t proficient in reading and arithmetic, they live in poverty and many aren’t in school at all. “Every year when Kids Count data comes out, I always offer the thesis that the most important data point is childhood poverty,” Brooks said. About one in five children in Kentucky live in poverty. “That is just an absolute predictor of future trends,” Brooks said. “Multiple governors, as well as multiple General Assemblies — plural — seemingly can’t get their hands, their arms, around that issue, and that is an issue that invites action. It invites tax policy action; it invites regulatory action on things like predatory lending.” One of the most immediate avenues for action, he said, is in the kinship care arena. Families raising minor relatives have long needed help from the state as they provide foster care services that both keep children out of the foster care system and keep them with family. A [long-debated law from 2024](https://kentuckylantern.com/2024/06/26/flabbergasted-help-for-kinship-care-families-passed-unanimously-20m-price-tag-could-derail-it/) promised them that help, but the General Assembly and the governor’s office have long debated [who is responsible for funding it](https://kentuckylantern.com/briefs/ky-lawmakers-increase-money-for-kinship-care-in-final-budget/). By “improving the economic well-being of kinship families,” he said, the state could positively move the poverty needle. “Every year, there’s ideas on the table, and somehow it gets caught in the political game of playing chicken between the governor and the general assembly,” Brooks said. “So, childhood poverty, while it seems such a big issue, is actually very actionable, but I’m still waiting for there to be action.” ## A ‘blizzard of opportunities and obligations’ Looking to 2027, Brooks wants to see both party nominees for governor make children a priority in their platforms. [Kentucky children keep dying in ‘preventable’ drug overdoses](https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/02/23/report-ky-children-are-dying-in-drug-overdoses-that-are-preventable/) “I want both candidates for governor in 2027 to say that they will create a children’s cabinet,” he said. “We’ve been talking about that for a decade. More and more states are following that model because state government is finally learning that you can’t talk about child welfare without talking about education. You can’t talk about education without talking about health.” As the system stands now, he said, there are too many points of contact for children’s work to be maximally effective. He also wants to see a head-on plan to deal with the state’s “crisis in [juvenile justice](https://kentuckylantern.com/2023/02/15/lawmakers-want-to-bring-louisville-juveniles-home/)” and its ongoing issue with certain foster children [lodged in office buildings](https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/03/09/ky-should-address-foster-care-gap-that-puts-kids-in-unsafe-settings-auditor-says/) and other nontraditional placements, among other issues. The next set of gubernatorial candidates “can fight about a myriad of other issues, and I would suggest that’s part of democracy,” said Brooks. But they should decide, he said, that doing better for children is nonnegotiable for the state and an issue that transcends party. “Don’t feel like you can’t agree with the other person or you’ll be accused of copping out,” he said. “When you listen to both sides talk, they want the same thing, they just want their brand to win.” ## ‘A unified way’ forward [](https://kentuckylantern.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/IMG_0203-e1749221408886.jpeg)Terry Brooks speaks at the Kentucky Youth Advocates’ Children’s Advocacy Day in the Capitol Rotunda. March 5, 2025. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd) Brooks’ transition to an organization focused on the foster care sector comes at a time of great shifts. In 2025, Congress [cut Medicaid spending](https://www.kff.org/medicaid/putting-880-billion-in-potential-federal-medicaid-cuts-in-context-of-state-budgets-and-coverage/)over 10 years by $880 billion as part of the sweeping One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That same budget package made recent foster care youth, among others, [no longer exempt](https://kentuckylantern.com/2025/11/03/snap-work-reporting-requirements-are-expanding-what-kentuckians-should-know/) from work requirements to receive food benefits for themselves and their families through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Nearly half of the people who receive SNAP assistance in Kentucky are [under the age of 18](https://www.chfs.ky.gov/agencies/dcbs/dfs/nab/Pages/demographicsummary.aspx). From Brooks’ perspective, the child welfare system needs to be revamped, and leaders could start by looking to the healthcare system — even though it’s “[far from perfect](https://kentuckylantern.com/2023/06/21/kentucky-lost-hundreds-of-physicians-when-it-most-needed-them/),” he admitted — from preventive care through clinics, to the emergency room. “While imperfect, the health system has an articulated continuum of care. There’s holes in it, but there is an articulated continuum of care,” he said. “I think we need to re-recalibrate the child welfare continuum of care. On that front end is prevention and family restoration. The next step is [foster care and adoption](https://kentuckylantern.com/2023/12/22/home-not-just-for-the-holidays-meet-two-kentucky-families-who-open-their-hearts-to-foster-children/) and [kinship care](https://kentuckylantern.com/2025/10/27/every-penny-counts-for-kentucky-kinship-care-families-about-to-see-benefits-cut/).” The “equation falls apart,” he said, when it comes to transitioning kids from residential care to “self-sufficient citizenship.” Kentucky needs a “cohesive approach to kinship care” and more intermediate steps for kids exiting the foster care system. “I realize that’s a huge challenge and a big swing,” he said, “but I hope that we might begin to create a more unified way to treat kids.”   [GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. 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