No connection between Myers’ departure and reports of discrimination against gay couples in adoption system, spokesperson says
by Jim McLean, KHI News Service
The man who oversees the state’s foster care program is retiring, a spokesperson for the Kansas Department for Children and Families confirmed Friday.
Michael Myers, a former Topeka construction executive who has worked in several positions in the child welfare agency under Gov. Sam Brownback, will retire at the end of December.
DCF Secretary Phyllis Gilmore named Myers director of prevention and protection services in December 2014. He replaced Brian Dempsey, who abruptly left the agency along with Kathe Decker, former deputy director for family services.
Myers is not a high-profile official, but some critics of the agency say he is among those responsible for what they believe has been a concerted effort to prevent same-sex couples in Kansas from adopting children.
Various DCF officials have denied the agency is working to discourage adoptions by gay couples. But several same-sex couples, some state legislators and a district court judge in Johnson County have said they believe there is a pattern of discrimination. The judge, Kathleen Sloan, removed a 2-year-old boy from state custody in 2012 after finding that DCF had “worked hard” to build a case against the lesbian woman who was attempting to adopt him.
As the director of DCF’s Kansas City regional office, Myers was involved in the Johnson County case and among those singled out in Sloan’s decision.
“The court cannot reach any other conclusion other than KVC and DCF went out of their way to find any reason to remove (redacted name of the child) from the only home that he had ever known because they did not want this child to be adopted by the only parent he had ever known — a person who also happens to be gay,” Sloan wrote.
Theresa Freed, a spokesperson for DCF, said there is no connection between Myers’ retirement and the emerging controversy about the agency’s adoption policies.
“Before all these stories started coming out, he had made that decision,” Freed said.
In the fall of 2013, Myers was named interim director of DCF’s Wichita regional office after Diane Bidwell resigned. The state was looking into charges that Bidwell was steering children at risk of entering the foster care system toward FaithBuilders, a faith-based group that some parents said was undercutting their efforts to be reunited with their children.
Myers announced his retirement Thursday in an internal email.
“It is with Joy and a little sadness that I am announcing my retirement from DCF at the end of the month,” Myers wrote. “After over four years of working at DCF I feel it is time for a new challenge.”
No one has yet been named to replace Myers, Freed said.
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