Topeka ? A Douglas County judge raised concern this week about unconfirmed reports that Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration is considering policy changes that would prohibit unmarried couples from becoming foster parents.

But officials at the Kansas Department of Children and Families said no such change has yet been proposed, although the agency is conducting a comprehensive review of all the state’s foster care policies.

Judge Peggy Kittel, who handles Child in Need of Care, or CINC, cases in Douglas County, voiced her concerns in a letter Wednesday to the regional director of DCF in Overland Park.

“In the last several weeks, I have heard rumors that DCF is planning to change the criteria (or already has) for persons who seek to become foster parents for children in DCF custody,” Kittel wrote. “Specifically, I have heard that only married couples will be approved to foster children who are in DCF custody.”

Such rumors began circulating among foster care advocates around January, when Brownback issued an executive reorganization order, shifting the job of licensing foster parents to DCF from the Department of Health and Environment. That order took effect July 1.

Since then, DCF spokeswoman Theresa Freed said, the agency has begun a comprehensive review of all policies and regulations regarding foster care, but she said it is still too early to know what kind of policy changes will result from that review.

“I couldn’t say it’s being contemplated,” Freed said of the rumored changes for foster care licensing. “The review process has only just begun. No policy changes have been passed or acted on.”

In her letter, Kittel noted that a growing number of children are being placed in state custody in Kansas at a time when the state already suffers from a shortage of foster homes.

“I have great concern that the implementation of any new policy of a marriage requirement such as the one rumored will further reduce the number of homes available at a time when the number of children in out of home placement is increasing,” she wrote.

According to DCF statistics, 6,507 children were in the state’s foster care system in April of this year, a record high for the state. That included 131 children in Douglas County, also a record high.

Those numbers fell slightly in May, to 6,492 statewide and 128 in Douglas County.

On average, about half of all children in the foster care system in Kansas are placed in family-based foster homes. About one-third of them are placed with other relatives, and about 5 percent are placed in group homes.

Gina Meier-Hummel, executive director of The Shelter Inc. in Lawrence, a local agency that matches children with foster homes and operates a group home, said she has also heard rumors of a possible change in licensure policy, but she has heard nothing official from DCF.

“I think we need to carefully evaluate anything that would limit the number of qualified foster homes that are available,” Meier-Hummel said.

Rep. Jim Ward, of Wichita, the ranking Democrat on the House Health and Human Services Committee, said he is concerned about DCF’s ability to manage the foster care system already, and he fears any policy changes that would reduce the availability of foster homes.

“You’ve got 6,500 kids in foster care. You’re at record levels and you’re still failing the job. Kids are dying,” Ward said, referring to recent news reports about Kansas children who have died while in the custody of the state’s foster care system.

Ward said he and Rep. Ed Trimmer, D-Winfield, plan next week to ask the Legislative Post Audit Committee to conduct an audit of DCF to determine whether it’s following its own policies and guidelines for ensuring the safety of children in its custody.

Since taking office in 2011, Brownback has been outspoken about his belief that children fare better when they are raised in households with a mother and father who are married. He has also advocated policies that encourage marriage, saying among other things that doing so would strengthen families and reduce childhood poverty rates.

But Ward said he thinks Brownback’s emphasis on nuclear families is misplaced.

“The concept that family is an important component to the strength of communities and states and countries is absolutely, universally agreed to,” Ward said. “What the problem is, when you narrowly define the family to look like Ward and June Cleaver of the 1950s, it rejects what we know to be true of American families in the 21st century. Instead of trying to stigmatize everything that doesn’t look like the stereotype of the ’50s, we should be trying to embrace and empower all kinds of families.”

On July 7, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, Brownback issued an executive order that some have suggested could open the door to discrimination against unmarried or same-sex couples who provide foster care and other social services for the state.

The “Preservation and Protection of Religious Freedom” order specifically says that the state, “shall not take any discriminatory action against a religious organization, including those providing social services, wholly or partially on the basis that such organization declines or will decline to solemnize any marriage or to provide services, accommodations, facilities, goods, or privileges for a purpose related to the solemnization, formation, celebration or recognition of any marriage, based upon or consistent with a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction.”