Kristen Nicole Powell, who helped develop the proposed SOUL Family program, appears at a Jan. 24, 2024, legislative hearing to support the program. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — As a child in the foster care system, Kristen Nicole Powell’s “coping skill” was running away.
Powell recalled the trauma of her childhood during a legislative hearing in which she asked lawmakers to support a new program she helped design to support vulnerable foster kids.
When she was 13, Powell met a girl while staying at the Wichita Children’s Home who offered to help if she ever ran away again.
“Shortly after meeting up with her, I was trafficked,” Powell said. “When I was later found by the police, I was interrogated, incarcerated and placed into foster care. Things only got worse for me from there, and my long journey to age 18 began.”
Powell said the proposed new SOUL Family program would have helped. The program was developed by the Department for Children and Families with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and input from former foster kids and advocacy groups.