FRANKFORT, Ky. — They drove in from Owensboro, Louisville, Lexington and Elizabethtown. They filled a conference room at the Sawyier Public Library in Frankfort. And they waited for the people who could actually change things to show up. Most didn’t.
Kentucky families raising children with profound autism gathered recently to demand answers from state officials about a crisis playing out quietly in homes across the commonwealth — children so severely impaired they require residential care that doesn’t exist in Kentucky, leaving parents to send them hundreds of miles away or, in some cases, surrender custody to the state just to access help.
Top officials from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, the Department for Medicaid Services and the Governor’s office were invited. So were members of the General Assembly. Louisville State Rep. Sarah Stalker was among the few lawmakers who came…