The Orphan Train Movement: ‘Beginning of foster care in America’

The Orphan Train was a precursor to the modern foster care system. Descendants of orphan train riders meet at the National Orphan Train Complex in Concordia, Kan. in 2019. Story: https://www.kansascity.com/news/speci... Video by Shelly Yang "Throwaway Kids" is a special Kansas City Star investigation published in December 2019: A longtime advocate in Kansas City once told a reporter that foster care was “just a breeding ground for prison.” That comment stuck with us and eventually led to this project. The yearlong investigation began with prisons and branched out into a more comprehensive look at long-term outcomes for children who age out of the nation’s broken, overwhelmed foster care system.  Links to all the stories in the Throwaway Kids series: Part One of Six: ‘We are sending more foster kids to prison than college’ https://www.kansascity.com/news/speci... Part Two of Six: As U.S. spends billions on foster care, families are pulled apart and forgotten https://www.kansascity.com/news/speci... Part Three of Six: Frequent moves don’t just harm foster kids’ emotions — they hurt their brains https://www.kansascity.com/news/speci... Part Four of Six: Graduation rate of 35 percent? Many foster children ‘robbed of a good education’ https://www.kansascity.com/news/speci... Part Five of Six: Aging out: Thousands of foster youth graduate to the streets every year https://www.kansascity.com/news/speci... Part Six of Six: ‘The state that neglected me as a kid is thesame state that wants to kill me’ https://www.kansascity.com/news/speci... More from The Kansas City Star: Subscribe: http://bit.ly/2FDe1zT Twitter:   / kcstar   Facebook:   / kansascitystar   Website: https://www.kansascity.com/ Digital news subscription: http://bit.ly/2CDAZoD