Keys for Networking, Inc., KS

Address: 2348 SW Topeka Blvd.
Topeka,, KS 66611 Phone: (785) 233-8732 Website: http://www.keys.org/

Keys for Networking is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization based in Topeka, Kansas serving Kansas parents and youth who have emotional, behavioral and/or educational disabilities that impact their capacity to attend neighborhood schools and/or thrive in the family and community.

What do We Do?
Keys serves and empowers parent clients  to assist with children and adolescents who have behavioral, education, emotional, mental health, physical health, and substance abuse problems.

Healthwave and Medicaid:
Children's Health Insurance Program Re-authorization Act
Keys staff helps eligible youth who are leaving state custody apply for and retain Kansas HealthWave insurance. Keys assists parents with all aspects of the application process including completing forms, securing documents, submitting paperwork, and assuring access to community health/mental health services post state custody. Keys incorporates Targeted Parent Assistance (TPA) and the PARENTS system to increase parent levels of involvement.

Kids for Keeps:
For parents and caregivers who want to connect with their family and strengthen family bonds. Participants will learn new techniques to keep their children and youth safe, at home, in school, and in community-based services. Kids for Keeps helps parents develop the skills needed to build healthy youth who are ready to live independently. The course uses demonstrated techniques that help parents raise children who have:
Self-Esteem – ability to values themselves
Self-Determination – ability to think and act for themselves
Social Competence – ability to interact with others in positive ways

Kids for Keeps offers evidence-based methods to manage behavior and step-by-step guidance from parenthood survivors, including:
Practice exercises based on real problems presented by real Kansas parents.
Strategic planning to prepare youth for real life with real life skills
Connection to the Keys’ statewide network of families with kids who have similar needs.
Online, 24/7 access to basic information regarding behavior management, understanding the impact of trauma on development, and helping youth who have had trauma in their life.
Weekly telephone discussions with other parents to discuss the course content and best parenting practices
Weekly telephone discussions with other parents to discuss the course content and best parenting practices
Access to the Keys for Networking state and national resources designed to help parents raise their children at home and in their neighborhood schools.
One—to-one assistance with:
Managing youth behaviors
Transitioning youth home from out-of-home placements
Securing and integrating education, mental health, primary care, and substance abuse services.

Targeted Parent Assistance (TPA):
An outcome-oriented, goal-driven process for providing parent-to-parent support. We developed the TPA model with support from Dr. Kim Kendziora and Dr. David Osher from the American Institutes for Research (AIR). In the TPA model, targets for promoting deeper levels of parent engagement guide the work of staff to provide support to parents.
The TPA targets form a parent engagement continuum that describes increasing levels of parent engagement,
identifies interventions and supports appropriate to each level of parent engagement,
deepens engagement by offering connections to other families and information about larger issues in multiple formats and lay language,
structures opportunities to promote increasing levels of parent voice and choice,
differentiates services provided to parents engaged at various levels, and
tracks effectiveness of interventions and supports according to three factors that enable movement on the continuum:
parent participation in meetings and functions,
parent assessment of the usefulness of program supports, and
child progress in education

Please visit our website or Contact us for more information: