Learn how we can connect Texas families to resources through policy efforts in the 89th Legislative Session.
Topic: Child Abuse Prevention
What is the Difference between Formal and Informal Kinship?
When children are to be removed from their homes to ensure their immediate safety, grandparents, abuelas, aunts and uncles, cousins, and close family friends may step forward to care for the child.
Learn more about informal kinship here.
Virtual Series: Building Strong Families through Community Programming
Learn how we can support strong Texas families in the 89th Legislative Session.
Home Visiting Programs Build Strong Texas Families
Home visiting is a prevention strategy that brings trained staff to support expectant mothers and new families to promote positive parenting.
Learn more about how home visiting programs strengthen families.
The Texas Prevention Ecosystem
Families are often supported by multiple systems and it’s crucial to collaboratively these factors across multiple sectors of society, not just in silos, to effectively strengthen families.
Learn more about the Texas Prevention Ecosystem
TexProtects launches the Texas Prevention Network
Originally established in 2012 as the Texas Home Visiting Consortium, this collaborative network began by bringing together approximately 40 home visiting practitioners from across the state twice a year. Thanks to the generous support of Casey Family Programs, we conducted a survey in late 2023 that revealed a significant interest in expanding the impact and potential of this effort. The survey received 86 responses from providers representing 20 different home visiting programs, compared to the historical participation of 40 providers from 6 programs – proving how excited they were about the opportunity to expand our work together.
In response to this overwhelming enthusiasm, and thanks to the generous support of The Jerry and Emy Lou Baldridge Foundation, we have rebranded and relaunched the Consortium as the Texas Prevention Network. This new name reflects our commitment to inclusivity, encompassing both home visiting and other prevention programs that strengthen and support families.
What is the state of Texas children?
TexProtects’ annual State of the State presentation highlights data and trends shaping the child protection system in Texas. In 2022, the child protection system continued to face challenges that indicate a need for urgent action to support families and kinship support this 88th Legislative Session.
88th Texas Legislative Session Child Welfare Priorities
This 88th Texas legislative session, our team is working on five key areas of child welfare and protection. We are advocating for the funding, delivery, and availability of prevention programs, including kinship support, data transparency, and quality workforce retention. Click here to read in full detail our legislative priorities.
Opinion: A child abuse prevention program ends soon; our children will pay the price
The law that authorizes the bipartisan Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program will expire in September 2022. We cannot afford to lose these federal grants to states, territories and tribes that support evidence-based home visiting for families and children from the prenatal period through kindergarten.
The cost of losing this funding will be more children being abused and neglected, more families losing their children, and, in Texas’ already-over-burdened child welfare system, it would exponentially exacerbate the existing crisis.