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.
Topic: Foster Care
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.
Foster Care: Texas in crisis
This month marks 11 years into a federal lawsuit against the state of Texas, where the state’s foster care system has shown repeatedly that they are engaging in practices that place the children in its care at an unreasonable risk of harm.
During the past year, the number of children without placement, often referred to as CWOP, has been a significant focus of the lawsuit proceedings due to the 378% increase of children that were sleeping in CPS offices or other unregulated settings. While placement shortage is often cited as the cause for CWOP, there are deeper root causes such as inadequate behavioral and medical health supports for children, which was a highlighted recommendation of the expert panels’ presentation of many short and long-term strategies to Judge Jack in January. The state was given 90 days to plan actions for better mental health access for children in CPS custody and the deadline is quickly approaching.
The Department of Family and Protective Services and the Health and Human Services Commission (responsible for monitoring and regulation of facilities) have since responded with their progress and plan. They have mostly agreed to pursue the 23 expert panels’ recommendations that are intended to foster better coordination and accountability between DFPS and HHSC; expand access to and resources for children, families, and family-like settings; and improve practice to align with the guiding principles and practice model. As we approach the next legislative session, TexProtects has proposed many of these recommendations and promoted strategies that align including:
- supporting relative caregivers through additional monetary and legal supports;
- reducing the reliance on CPS to be the mental health system of default with its current lack of appropriate services; and
- better cross-agency collaboration and stronger vision and mission statements that work towards a more efficient system that provides better quality care to our children.
DFPS and HHSC agreed to pursue the following:
- Better coordination and accountability between DFPS and HHSC:
- Both DFPS and HHSC are moving forward with an interagency team. They will be hiring for a high-level leadership role by 2/28/22 and are making plans to have their first meeting. This team will be responsible for establishing target measures to reduce the number of children without placement. Additionally, there is concern with the number of children without placement who were subsequently placed out of state. This team has been charged with looking at this data, and DFPS has already started conducting an analysis. DFPS will also be sharing disaggregated data on race and ethnicity with this team to understand disparities for children of color and youth who identify as LGBTQ. While a timeline has not been established for completion for these analyses, the team will be made aware that it is a priority.
- DFPS will be hiring clinical coordinators by 3/30/22 to ensure all children without placement have someone coordinating their services and holding trauma-informed staffings. These coordinators will stay on a child’s case for at least 90 days after transitioning to a more permanent setting.
- DFPS has committed to hiring Community Liaisons in the four regions who have the most children without placement by 3/30/22 in order to build out capacity.
- DFPS has already hired a consultant to gain technical assistance to increase capacity of the DFPS leadership team. They will have their first meeting by 3/15/22.
- Expand access to and resources for children and families:
- In order to ensure providers who are ready to be licensed as a Qualified Treatment Program (QRTP) through the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) are able to do so quickly, DFPS and HHSC have been working together on the rate model development in support of a QRTP pilot program. Open enrollment will be posted within the first quarter of 2022.
- DFPS is planning to meet with the provider workgroup individuals with lived experience to begin developing procedures to recruit and contract for targeted placement options for children at risk of being without placement by 6/1/22.
- Expand access to and resources for family-like settings:
- DFPS will be holding a meeting with providers to come up with a plan to increase the availability of treatment foster care homes by 3/30/22.
- HHSC is moving forward with increasing access to the Yes Waiver, which provides wraparound services to prevent placement disruption, for children without placement. They intend to do this within 90 days.
- DFPS and HHSC are pursuing a workgroup to bring together DFPS, HHSC, and the court monitors to rebuild and mend the relationship to address this crisis and expand capacity. They plan to keep one or more of the neutral panel experts on this workgroup.
- Improve practice to align with the guiding principles and practice model:
- DFPS has already identified a consultant to work with to reinvigorate the use of family group conferencing and plan to have their first meeting by 3/30/22.
- DFPS will have a plan prior to the end of 2022 that will show how they intend to expand engagement and collaborative efforts with individuals with lived experience.
DFPS and HHSC only raised issues with the implementation and the timeline on a few of the expert panel’s recommendations:
- To access trauma-informed services and supports to placements, including kinship caregivers, DFPS and HHSC plan to designate a pool of funds in each region. They plan to do this within existing resources but have indicated they would need legislative authorization. If granted, the funding would be available in September 2023.
- While the expert panel would like to see increased access to HHSC’s Residential Treatment Center (RTC) Project that is intended to keep parents from relinquishing their rights to DFPS just because they can’t access mental health services, HHSC said there would be challenges to expansion. However, they are looking into options to overcome those challenges.
- To expand family-like settings and access to resources, HHSC has agreed to take the lead to expand the Turning Point Program that offers services to prevent placement disruptions. They have indicated this will take some time to expand and bring providers online through STAR Health, but they will have a plan in place by 3/1/22. They are looking into what areas need this the most and what it would cost.
- The expert panel recommended looking into efforts to establish “in lieu of” services, such as which existing partial hospitalization programs have the most potential for expansion and how to expand access to mobile crisis through Medicaid. HHSC has indicated they would need additional resources and have already made the request to CMS, which is pending approval. They plan to include what they learn as part of their mental health plan in 90 days.
- The expert panel would like to see an accelerated rate modernization project to ensure foster care providers are reimbursed adequately. The state expressed concern with expediting the rate modernization project because it is already on an accelerated timeline, but they are committed to completing this efficiently and effectively.
You can become a foster parent in Texas! We put together the 6 ways you can become a foster parent and answered your most frequently asked questions. View them here.
Frontline For Children | JANUARY 2022
We pulled together this month’s most noteworthy child welfare research articles for you. Read them all here and take action today!
1. Equitable Supports for Basic Needs of Grandfamilies
“There are 2.6 million children in the U.S. who are living with extended family, inside or outside the child welfare system because their parents cannot care for them. These families are often called “kinship families” or “grandfamilies.” Strong evidence shows children in grandfamilies thrive, especially when they get the support they need. Yet, grandfamilies across the country are not equitably supported.” – Read more from a new report by Generations United.
TexProtects Takeaway: The annual State of Grandfamilies report by Generations United offers a wealth of information on the benefits of kinship care, the needs of kinship families, and available services and policies for these families. While there are known benefits to keeping children within their own families, this report finds that “for every 1 child being raised by kin in foster care, 18 children are being raised by kin outside of foster care.” One way to combat this inequity is to create parity among grandfamilies and promote financial equity by ensuring these families have access to income support, tangible goods/services, and physical and mental health resources. TexProtects has advocated to better support relative caregivers at every stage of the child welfare process and will continue to push for policy changes during the interim leading up to the Texas 88th Legislative Session.
“True primary [child abuse] prevention, which proactively supports the formation and stability of healthy and thriving families, remains an area of much-needed investment.” – New report from the APHSA on Unlocking the Prevention Services in the FFPSA.
TexProtects Takeaway: This new report by the American Public Human Services Association, Unlocking the “Prevention Services” in the Family First Prevention Services Act, offers a series of recommendations on making the FFPSA roll-out effective, efficient, and transformational for the child welfare system. Currently, almost four years since the law was implemented, only 17 states have approved Prevention Plans and have started drawing down federal funding for prevention services (Texas is not included). This report offers recommendations such as amending the prevention services clearinghouse requirements to ensure those with lived experience are informing the services and extending the temporary enhanced federal matching of prevention services through 2023 instead of ending with the public health emergency. In the 87th Texas legislative session, policymakers took steps to implement the FFPSA. HB 3041, by Representative Frank and Senator Kolkhorst, was passed and requires DFPS to create FFPSA pilot prevention programs in two areas of the state focused on children at imminent risk of being removed from their home and placed into conservatorship of the department. Families who participate in these pilot programs will be monitored, and parameters will be in place to ensure that CPS is not involved any longer than necessary. While the location of the pilots and the evidence-based prevention programs have not yet been announced, we are excited about this important step in the implementation of FFPSA in Texas.
3. Texas Department of Family and Protective Services – Disproportionality Report
TexProtects Takeaway: DFPS has taken steps to reduce disproportionalities and disparities in the Texas Child Welfare system, beginning with a 2005 mandate by the Texas Legislature to examine and address racial disproportionality in the state child welfare system and, if found, develop a plan to reduce disparities. The analysis indicated disproportionality existed with African American and Native American children in Texas disproportionately overrepresented in the child welfare system.
Recognizing the importance of cross-system collaboration to address this issue, the state created the HHS Center for the Elimination of Disproportionality and Disparities, later named the Office of Minority Health, Statistics, and Engagement. Within DFPS specifically, they hired a disproportionality manager for CPS, regional specialists, and a state-level disproportionality specialist. In recent years most of these positions were repurposed to various state agencies, and in 2018, the Office of Minority Health, Statistics, and Engagement were defunded and closed in August 2018. Currently, according to the newly released DFPS Disproportionality Report for FY 2020, “all efforts to eliminate disproportionality and disparities in the Texas child welfare system are managed by the CPS state disproportionality manager,” the lone position that remains from the initial efforts, but it has been vacant since May 31, 2021.
While we are disappointed in the defunding of the Office of Minority Health, Statistics, and Engagement, we are grateful for the continued efforts on the part of DFPS to reduce disparities and are excited for the latest announcement of the new disproportionality manager.
The recently released DFPS Disproportionality Report for FY 2020 highlights these continued efforts by DFPS, but unfortunately, the data suggests we have not made large strides in addressing disparities and disproportionalities in the Texas child welfare system. A few important takeaways from the report:
- African American children are overrepresented in at least one stage (if not multiple) of CPS involvement in each of the 11 DFPS State Regions.
- The racial and ethnic demographics of children removed has been consistent across FY16 to FY20, showing a higher proportion of African American children and a lower proportion of Asian children are entering, in, and exiting foster/kinship care.
- African American children are reported, investigated, and removed at a higher rate than children of Anglo, Asian, or Hispanic origin.
- African American children are most likely to be sent to investigations versus alternative response.
- Hispanic children are overrepresented in poverty yet are not overrepresented in child welfare at the state level – Hispanic families make up the largest percentage of children in poverty, yet they are reported and investigated by CPS at a slightly lower rate than their proportion in the Texas child population.
We agree with and support DFPS’ plans for future analysis and recommendations contained in this report. Specifically, we are encouraged by the recommendation for DFPS to “collect better data on income due to the disproportionate number of families of color living in poverty and track these trends.” While we know that living in poverty can be a risk factor for neglect, poverty itself does not equal child neglect. We must work together across systems to ensure families have access to community-level prevention services and support when they need them the most.
*Data and takeaways from the DFPS Disproportionality Report FY 2020.
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Children’s advocacy group discusses Texas foster care crisis
The Texas foster care system has too many problems to detail in just a short TV interview. But for a taste of how bad it is, Good Day talks to Kerrie Judice with the children’s advocacy group TexProtects. She said there are too many foster kids and not enough foster homes, which leaves children sleeping in hotels and CPS offices, as well as places that are called dangerous.
Frontline For Children | December 2021
We pulled together this month’s most noteworthy child welfare research articles for you. Read them all here and take action today!
A new report released by the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation found that childcare issues in our state result in a loss of $9.39 billion on Texas’s economy annually!
TexProtects Takeaway: A new report released by the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation found that childcare issues in Texas result in an estimated annual loss of $9.39 billion annually to the Texas economy! For more data points on Texas and to read about the implications of barriers to accessing child care, check out the full report. As more families move to Texas for job opportunities and Texans increasingly go back to work, access to high-quality child care will be a necessity.
2. Foster Youth and College Graduation Rates
A recent Chapin Hall study of CA foster youth found that rates of college enrollment and degree attainment among youth who have aged out are increasing. Go here to find out how Tx is supporting foster youth as they prepare to enter adulthood.
TexProtects Takeaway: A recent Chapin Hall study of California foster youth found that a majority of youth were enrolled in college and almost 10% had attained a 2- or 4-year college degree by age 23. These rates of enrollment and degree attainment are generally higher than previous studies of transition-aged youth, and “maybe a result, at least in part, of the investments made in the past two decades in California aimed at increasing college access and persistence for foster youth (for example, extended foster care, ETVs, campus-based support programs, community college tuition fee waivers).” Texas has also made recent strides in supporting older foster youth and ensuring they are prepared to enter into adulthood.
An estimated 1,200 youth in Texas age out of foster care each year. Much older youth who age out are not adequately prepared for adulthood and often face challenges with obtaining a driver’s license, maintaining employment, securing consistent housing, following through on education and maintaining healthcare coverage. As a result, they are more likely to experience homelessness and have untreated mental or physical health issues. The passing of HB 700, passed during the Texas 87th Regular Session, will help to remove barriers and provide supports that can best ensure these young adults have every opportunity to succeed. HB 700, championed by Reps Jarvis Johnson, James Frank, Ray Lopez and Senator Judith Zaffirini, ensures foster youth who complete Preparation for Adult Living classes are eligible to receive college credit, helping them to lock in their tuition and fee waiver for state colleges. Hopefully, this policy change will support more transition-aged youth in continuing their education.
Department of Family Protective Services Resource Page.
The passage of Build Back Better would mean increased access to preventive services for our youngest Texans, saving lives and dollars in downstream costs for the state. The Hunt Institute has created a helpful guide to understand the transformational policies included in BBB. Check it out!
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Four Recommendations to Start Transforming the CPS System
Guidance on how to measure outcomes for our child protection system and recommendations for improvement.
Frontline For Children | August + September 2021
We pulled together this month’s 8 most noteworthy child welfare research articles for you. Read them all here and take action today!
- 4 in 10 Latino and Black households with children lack confidence that they can make their next housing payment one year into COVID-19 (National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families)
According to the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families, one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, roughly 40 percent of Latino and Black households with children who rent or have a mortgage reported housing insecurity. Roughly half of low-income Latino and Black households with children, and one third of low-income White households with children, reported little or no confidence in their ability to make their next mortgage or rent payment.
TexProtects Takeaway: The COVID-19 pandemic continues to disproportionately effect communities of color. This new data reveals that 40% of Latino and Black households with children are facing housing insecurity vs. 15% of comparable white households. With the recent expiration of the federal moratorium on evictions, many families may now be facing homelessness elevating the risk of child maltreatment. In order to ensure these families and children have secure housing, we must advocate for the American Rescue Plan Act funding (over $40 billion in housing assistance) to be released to the communities that need it most.
2. School-Based Strategies for Addressing the Mental Health and Well-Being of Youth in the Wake of COVID-19* (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine)
According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, there are evidence-based strategies for schools to address the mental health and well-being challenges among youth that arose or were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. *This PDF is free but does require creating an account with a valid e-mail address for access.
TexProtects Takeaway: The COVID-19 pandemic has been especially challenging for youth. From the loss of loved ones to loneliness and social isolation, these past 18 months have brought about a unique set of challenges. This new resource identifies strategies to address youth mental health and well-being in the school setting. A few examples include school-wide, mental health screenings and school-based health centers with mental health providers.
3. System Transformation to Support Child & Family Well-Being: The Central Role of Economic & Concrete Supports (Chapin Hall at University of Chicago)
Researchers at the University of Chicago have recently released this overview of policy, programmatic, analytic, and engagement strategies for leveraging economic supports to promote child and family well-being and prevent maltreatment.
TexProtects Takeaway: We know that financial supports reduce child abuse and neglect by enabling families to better access resources and address their own basic needs. The Centers for Disease Control identifies strengthening economic supports to families as one of their strategies to prevent child abuse and neglect. This brief highlights a similar advocacy strategy often championed by TexProtects – that it is best to intervene with a family before a crisis. The recent Child Tax Credit implemented through the American Rescue Plan Act has the potential to dramatically reduce child poverty by giving families access to economic supports on a monthly basis. It would be beneficial for families and children if this tax credit was made permanent.
4. Contact with Child Protective Services is pervasive but unequally distributed by race and ethnicity in large US counties (Edwards, F., Wakefield, S., Healy, K., & Wildeman, C.)
A new study provides county-level estimates of the prevalence of child abuse and neglect in Texas analyzing specifically by race and ethnicity and associated access to prevention and early intervention. A blog post from Duke University discusses the study results in further detail.
TexProtects Takeaway: This study examined CPS data at the county level, revealing the wide range of experiences families face when encountering the child welfare system. Across all counties examined, Black children had the highest risk of CPS investigation and higher rates of later-stage CPS contact (including foster care placements and termination of parental rights). Overall, this study revealed what we already know to be true of our current, often discriminatory child welfare system: risk of involvement in the CPS system is more common for children from historically and/or economically marginalized populations. We must confront these inequalities and continue to work to eliminate disparities at all levels of the child welfare system.
5. Effect of a Universal Postpartum Nurse Home Visiting Program on Child Maltreatment and Emergency Medical Care at 5 Years of Age (Goodman, W.B., Dodge, K., & Bai, Y.)
A recent study concluded that Family Connects, a universal newborn nurse home visiting program, resulted in a 33% decrease in reported cases to CPS and a 39% reduction in emergency medical care use through age 5.
TexProtects Takeaway: This new randomized control trial reveals exciting and promising outcomes for universal postpartum nurse home visiting programs, such as Family Connects. The Family Connects program is a universally offered nurse home visiting program offered to new caregivers. There are six counties in Texas currently operating Family Connects programs. These programs served more than 1,800 Texas families in 2020. To learn more about Family Connects and how TexProtects advocated to expand the program in the 87th legislative session, check out our newly released End of Session report.
6. GrandFacts State Fact Sheets (Casey Family Programs, American Bar Association, & Generations United)
These fact sheets provide data on public benefits, educational assistance, legal relationship options and state laws and Texas’s fact sheet can be found here.
TexProtects Takeaway: 266,337 grandparents are caring for their grandchildren in Texas. Children belong with their families, whenever safely possible. However, not all families have access to the necessary resources to care for additional children. This helpful fact sheet offers grand families a list of resources in Texas including parenting classes, counseling, and food/clothing assistance.
7. Evaluation of a statewide initiative to reduce expulsion of young children (Edge, N., Kyzer, A., Abney, A., Freshwater, A., Sutton, M., & Whitman, K.)
This program evaluation study describes 3 years of implementation of Arkansas’s BehaviorHelp (BH) system, a statewide expulsion prevention support system for early care and education (ECE). The study examined correlation of differences in characteristics including exposure to trauma for children by outcomes including expulsion.
TexProtects Takeaway: The state of Arkansas has launched a statewide effort to reduce suspension and expulsion of young children. Not surprisingly, this study identified children most at-risk for expulsion from school had a history of childhood trauma. We know a child’s reaction to trauma can greatly affect their ability to engage productively in the classroom. Trauma-informed training for all educators is essential to helping children with a history of trauma feel safe and secure in the school setting. Texas requires new teachers to receive trauma-informed care training as part of their orientation, however, a bill passed in the 87th legislative session removes the frequency requirements for trauma-informed care training of current teachers. Texas has a long way to go in ensuring children feel safe and secure in the classroom. A report by Texans Care for Children in 2019 revealed that although the legislature has banned out of school suspensions for pre-k through second graders, a high number of Texas’ youngest students continue to face in-school suspensions at disproportionate rates (highest among students in foster care, special education, and black students and boys).
8. Why aren’t kids a policy priority? The cultural mindsets and attitudes that keep kids off the public agenda (Frameworks Institute)
This report by Frameworks institute explores the cultural barriers to prioritizing children in policymaking, as well as the opportunity to develop a new narrative that is asset focused on child wellbeing instead of child need.
TexProtects Takeaway: When the public thinks about children and policy, they most often think about education and family settings. The public struggles to connect other policy areas (healthcare, housing, etc.) to children’s issues. The Prenatal to Three Collaborative (led in part by TexProtects) works to elevate all policy issues that affect our youngest children. Policies recently in the news such as Medicaid Expansion, the Child Tax Credit, and the federal moratorium on eviction, all have a profound impact on children of all ages and their safety and well-being. In order to help the public make this connection, advocates must be open to new ways of thinking and communicating to better serve our youngest Texans.
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