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Kan. jail uses grant to shelter children

The grant funding is used to house children who are victims of sex trafficking or in protective custody

Corrine Boyer
Hays Post

GARDEN CITY, Kan. — All of Western Kansas has just one shelter for children who are in protective custody or are victims of sex trafficking. The new shelter isn’t taking kids yet, because it’s waiting on its license, but local officials say those 14 beds are needed.

The Southwest Kansas Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Finney County retrofitted jail cells into shelter spaces, using $500,000 in state grant funding, after a 2017 law kept more kids out of detention centers.

“The side effect of it was it made our juvenile detention centers not have as many kids ’cause it made it very difficult to get into juvenile detention,” said Katrina Pollet, the executive director for the Finney County Department of Corrections.

Full story: Western Kan. jail becomes refuge for teens in crisis

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