SUPPORT
Our Expertise
Goals
Among board members, we have nearly 100 combined years of expertise in the FASD world.
We have felt your frustration
your despair
your search for answers
the need for positive change
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Kansas FASD Support Network, Inc wants to support you on your journey. We are better together!
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Please remember, we are not medical professionals.
The Kansas FASD Support Network, Inc has many goals to support you. Among those include:
Improving Diagnostic Resources in Kansas
Having a regular Kansas Support Group
Raising awareness of FASD
Supporting birthmothers
Educating Medical Professionals
Establishing options for adults with FASD
Education for Department of Corrections
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FASD Support Group
Kansas Resources
The Kansas FASD Support Network, Inc hosts multiple support groups. Sometimes topics are presented, other times we just listen and share. Not all our friends "get" our daily struggles, but we cherish the ones who do! We welcome you at one of these support groups:
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In-Person Group for eastern Kansas - the 4th Monday of each month; location varies, typically 7PM
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Virtual Group - the 1st Thursday of each month typically at 8PM; Zoom link available to anyone who asks
Other times and locations are also available from contacts across the nation. Please refer to this listing: FASD support group options
We hear over and over that Kansas needs diagnostic centers and professionals who understand FASD.
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For this reason, the Kansas City FASD Resources Guide began. Someday we hope there are more FASD aware professionals across the state. This resource is broken into areas of speciality, and also contains links to a wide range of tools, websites, books, podcasts all focused on FASD.
Please let us know if you have additional resources to add.
The Board of Directors
Kathryn “Kat” Meinhardt
President
Kat is a licensed social worker (LBSW), foster/adoptive mom, TBRI® Educator/Practitioner, and trained TiPS-MAPP/Deciding Together and NTDC leader. She has been in and around various aspects of foster care for about 18 years including work as a former investigative social worker for then SRS (DCF).
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When Kathryn became a foster parent in 2012, she had a very primitive and basic understanding of FAS and decided she did not want to parent children on the spectrum at that time. Today, she talks about God being who He is allowed her to take placement of two brothers that had ADHD…whom she quickly knew there was some other struggle. Within six months, both were diagnosed with full FAS with characteristics in the severe categories. Through that, she became a local “expert” by necessity and has given numerous trainings across Kansas and Missouri in numerous settings including child welfare agencies, schools, churches, and community groups.
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Kathryn loves and enjoys helping families come to a place of hope and healing and is always willing to share her knowledge. She understands many aspects of parenting biological, foster, and adopted children and the trauma and healing needed for the entire family. She currently resides on a small homestead in the Topeka area with her husband. They currently share life with ten children and a menagerie of farm animals.
Jonathan Stahl
Vice President
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Jonathan is a foster/adoptive/bio parent, trauma trainer, and Special Education teacher. He has been fostering teenagers for 8 years, training foster parents for 4 years, and has been working in special education for over a decade.
Jonathan has seen many teens come through his home with FASD and is passionate about working with judges, lawyers, and law enforcement on reform. He has also taught and case managed many students with FASD and is passionate about educational reform as well.
Jonathan desires to work with communities to help ensure comprehensive changes to help support children and families as they navigate everything that comes along with FASD.
Julia Rivera
Secretary
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Julia Rivera, Esq. (Col, retired, USAFR) is a founding member of the North Texas FASD Network. She is the adoptive mother of an adult with FASD. Col Rivera completed careers as an attorney both in and out of the military. She represented neglected children, young offenders, abusive parents and Federal Agencies in litigation. Her decorations include the Legion of Merit, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, and being named the Outstanding Reserve Judge Advocate. Prior to pursuing law, she was a social worker providing adoptive, foster and child protective services. She is a graduate of Washburn University School of Law and Kansas State University (cum laude).
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Stacy Crow
Member-at-Large
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Stacy is a mom to several children: thirteen biological, eight adopted, and two fosters. She has been married to her husband, Derek, for thirty-seven years and through their journey of parenting, decided that they would adopt after seven of their children had married and moved out of the home. In May 2014, they brought home a sibling group of five children ages ten to fifteen. It wasn’t until the month before finalizing their adoption, that the children’s worker brought them some paperwork. The paperwork was for one of the children to be evaluated for FAS. This began the search into FAS and the effects on children. All five of the children are on the spectrum with a couple of the children needing lifelong care.
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Out of necessity, Stacy has educated herself through FAS trainings, written and video resources, and other parents who have traveled this road before her to understand what is needed to help her children.
Stacy became a TIPS-MAPP instructor to train other families to adopt and foster. She went to Washington DC in June 2016 as a super advocate for the federal Family First Prevention Service Act. Stacy enjoys helping families succeed, which is what has driven her to be a part of Kansas FASD Network and represent the Western part of Kansas.
Kammi Bean
Treasurer
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Kammi is the mother of 4 - only one of whom is neurotypical. Kammi’s FASD journey began when she and her husband thrilled to adopt their oldest, now a high school graduate. Kammi and her extended family learned from personal experience just how difficult it is to support a child with an invisible disability. She became an invested advocate, often educating the professionals.
Additionally, Kammi and her family were foster parents for nearly 10 years during which time two brothers came to their home. Kammi knew right away, even without a formal diagnosis, that both boys were also on the spectrum. In spite of knowing the toll of raising a child with a FASD, the Beans also adopted these brothers into a forever home. And Kammi’s uphill battle started all over. The Beans already knew what the road looked like, but this time the scenery was uniquely different since no two cases of a FASD are exactly alike!
Kammi also serves in her Church weekly, is active in the kids’ schools as a volunteer, and is an educational advocate.
Holly Bane
Member-at-Large
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Holly Bane is a single foster and adoptive mother from Harper, KS proudly representing South Central Kansas. She is a graduate of Kansas State University, and currently works with a new program in her community supporting Veterans transitioning out of homelessness. Holly has been a Foster Parent since 2009, adopting her three children from Foster Care in 2015. During this past decade plus she has cared for many children in her home through fostering, respite, emergency and temporary care. During this journey she has encountered many challenges, many of them extreme. She recognized that FASD has been a huge factor not only in the three children she adopted, but also in the over 40 placements, and many other children who have crossed her path.
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She is a very passionate person who takes advocating for those in need very seriously, and was very willing to come on board to represent her area of KS with the KS FASD Network. She wants to change laws to help diagnose, motivate and educate those who work with our kids and families struggling with the harsh realities of FASD. As a single parent, she understands the importance of supporting others on this journey and letting them know that they are not alone. She acknowledges that only by the grace and love of the Lord, has she endured all she has, and that it takes a network of people working together and supporting each other to make change happen!
Advisory Board
Our advisory board members have extensive backgrounds, but a brief bio for each is listed below:
Dr. Wes Jones, Ph. D.
Dr. Jones received his Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Kansas State University and was employed by the Mental Health Center of East Central Kansas for 35 years. At the center he served as the Clinical Director and Training Director. He maintains a private practice through the Flint Hills Counseling & Consulting Center. Teaching experiences includes undergraduate, graduate Clinical Psychology and Marriage and Family therapy course work, and various conferences and workshops on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, disaster mental health, and traumatic stress.
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Dr. Jones served as the team leader/psychologist for the Flint Hill Community Health Center’s Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Diagnostic Clinic. The multidisciplinary diagnostic team was trained at the University of Washington, Seattle in 2001. Dr. Jones assisted in the establishment of the clinic that served the state of Kansas as the only FAS/FASD diagnostic specialty clinic. The clinic has provided diagnostic evaluations and treatment recommendations at no cost to clients/families since development in 2001.
Andrea Thorne
APTA Certified Pediatric Vestibular Physical Therapist | ITPT
Mrs. Thorne received her Master’s Degree from Washington University in 2001. She is certified in pediatric vestibular therapy through the APTA. She studied under clinically certified vestibular therapists for several years while working with adults. She has been instrumental in the development of the pediatric vestibular therapy program at Children’s Mercy Hospital. Mrs. Thorne is the physical therapy support for the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic and Comprehensive Concussion Clinic at Children’s Mercy Hospital.
Under her guidance, there are over 20 therapists that have been trained to address vestibular issues for the hospital. She is the founder of the Vestibular Therapy Special Interest Group for Kansas City area vestibular therapists that meet quarterly. She was the recipient of the Clinical Excellence Award for Allied Health in 2016 and Shining Star award in 2021. In 2017, the APTA accepted and published her Pediatric Fact Sheet on Concussion. She continues to practice clinically at Children’s Mercy Hospital and serves as an adjunct professor at Rockhurst University.