For decades, Kansas’ foster care system has struggled to meet the needs of Black children and families — not for lack of compassion, but because the system was never built with them in mind.
Black children remain drastically overrepresented in foster care, while Black foster homes remain in critically short supply. The result is a cycle of traumatic placements, uprooted children, and cultural disconnect that harms emotional development and long-term outcomes.
In that gap — where systemic flaws collide with cultural need — Restoration Family Services (RFS) has emerged as a force for change.
Founded by twin sisters Dr. Sharilyn Ray and Marilyn Shaw, RFS is widely believed to be the first and only Black-owned foster care agency ever licensed in Kansas, a milestone that came after two decades with no new providers added to the system. Their agency, rooted in cultural understanding, professional expertise, and lived experience, is reshaping how foster care is delivered — and how families of color are treated within it.
“We didn’t start this to create another agency,” Ray said. “We started this because we saw a missing voice — families who needed to see themselves represented in the system meant to serve them.”
A System Stacked Against Black Children
In Kansas, Black children make up only 6-7% of the child population but often represent three to four times that in foster care. Studies consistently show that Black children:
- are more likely to be removed from home,
- stay in care longer,
- move placements more frequently, and
- are often placed far outside their home communities.
Kansas’ shortage of Black foster homes leads to children being sent to rural, overwhelmingly White areas where they are culturally isolated. Something as simple as hair care can become a challenge. Something as deep as racial identity can become destabilized.
Research shows that Black children placed with Black foster parents experience more stability, stronger identity development, and fewer placement breakdowns.
That’s where RFS steps in.
Born Out of Calling — And Confrontation
Dr. Ray holds a BSW, MSW, and Doctorate in Social Work. Her sister Marilyn, a retired military professional with a business degree and MSW, manages RFS’s operations. Both have lived experience: Sharilyn has adopted relatives and fostered children, and Marilyn and her husband took in a relative’s child to prevent them from entering state custody.
Their approach isn’t theoretical — it’s personal.
When they first applied to become a foster care provider in 2017, Kansas had not approved a new subcontracted agency in 20 years. Large Case Management Providers (CMPs), small group of subcontracting provider agencies, were handling all of the foster care placements, and less than effectively.
Seeing the shortcomings Ray reached out and eventually was able to become the first Black-owned and operated foster care provider in the state. Now, she’s one of about 20 providers in the state who help the CMPs by recruiting and building a group of foster care homes that are available and accept placements.
They’ve built a strong group of foster families that consists of a mix of new families eager to foster and some former foster care families and families who were with other agencies but discouraged by a system that didn’t always understand them.
Ray recalls parents being talked down to, misunderstood, or judged harshly for cultural norms unfamiliar to White caseworkers.
“It wasn’t just bureaucratic,” Marilyn said, there was bias.
Hiring Lived Experience — Not Just Degrees
Unlike traditional agencies that staff offices with brand-new social work graduates, RFS intentionally hires people with lived experience:
- former foster youth
- former foster parents
- kinship caregivers
- culturally competent social workers
“We don’t want people who just learned foster care in a textbook,” Shaw said. “We want people who lived it and want to serve.”
That philosophy is why families trust RFS — and why their placements succeed.
Serving the Children Others Turn Away
Because CMP agencies typically place children in their own network first, RFS often receives harder-to-place youth — teens, large sibling groups, and children with behavioral needs shaped by trauma.
“We accept the cases everyone else passes on,” Shaw said. “And our families step up.”
RFS trains foster parents to work with birth families, not against them. One foster parent took a birth mother to church, helped her clean her home, and supported her postpartum recovery. After reunification, the foster mother continued to babysit so the mother could keep her job.
Years later, that mother is thriving — and studying to become a social worker.
“That’s what restoration looks like,” Ray said. “Not replacing families — restoring them.”
The Disproportionality Crisis in Context
Black children in Kansas enter foster care for reasons often tied to poverty, lack of support, or misunderstanding of cultural practices — not necessarily higher rates of abuse.
National studies confirm that:
Black families are more likely to be reported and investigated, even when the underlying concerns are the same as White families.
In Kansas, where African-American families make up a small percentage of the population, their overrepresentation is among the worst in the region.
“Representation matters not just for comfort, but for connection,” Ray said. “When children see foster parents who understand their culture, it helps them heal faster.”
The Urgent Need for More Black Foster Families
Kansas’s persistent shortage of Black foster families remains one of the greatest barriers to stability for Black children in need.
Here’s what it takes to qualify as a foster parent. Potential foster families must complete a 30-hour preservice training program, a full home assessment, and comprehensive background checks — and families must show they have enough income to support their own household needs.
Ray says many people who become excellent foster parents already have children and feel that adding another child won’t be an inconvenience, while others are adults who cannot have children. However, she says most of all, foster families should have the desire and ability to support children through some of the most difficult times in their lives.
As a way to attract more Black foster families, Ray suggests churches identify one family willing to foster, and wrap support around them — through respite care, financial help, mentoring, meals, transportation, or simply showing love to the children they welcome into their home.
“If every church supported one foster family,” Ray said, “we could change the entire system for our kids.”
Restoration in Motion
From stepping in to support overwhelmed birth families to pushing back against policies that perpetuate bias, RFS shows what compassion-centered, culturally grounded child welfare truly means.
Their vision is simple:
More Black foster homes, fewer disrupted lives, and a system where every child is seen and understood.
As Ray put it:
“When you see people through God’s eyes — through their lenses — restoration isn’t just possible, it’s promised.”