The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) is charged with protecting children, the elderly, and adults with disabilities from abuse, neglect and mistreatment. The agency monitors care and conditions in private homes and in state facilities, investigates abuse and neglect, and licenses group homes and day-care centers.
DFPS, which has 6,800 employees in 250 offices across the ...
Providence Service Corporation of Texas, the lead contractor heading the state’s foster care redesign initiative, has voluntarily terminated its contract with the Department of Family and Protective Services.
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The oil boom has brought jobs and prosperity to Midland and Odessa, but it has also driven up housing prices, making it difficult for the Department of Family and Protective Services to hire caseworkers. The challenge comes at a time when the agency is under pressure to fill jobs after the deaths of two foster children.
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Following the drowning of two foster children in Lake Georgetown on Sunday, the Department of Family and Protective Services has placed a temporary hold on foster care placements by a state contractor that was responsible for overseeing the children’s care.
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On the heels of an expansion of Fort Bliss in recent years, El Paso is seeing an increase in the number of children who can't be placed in foster homes because there aren't enough English-speaking homes available. It's a unique problem that stems from the demographic disparity between the population in the city and on the base.
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Supporters of foster care redesign are hopeful that the program, which relies in part on partnerships with private contractors, will improve the quality of care for children. But after recent child deaths, some advocates are raising questions about the program's oversight.
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The Department of Family and Protective Services has ramped up its efforts to conduct predictive data analysis and reduce the high turnover of CPS caseworkers, the agency’s commissioner told a panel of senators on Thursday.
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Failures in the foster care system put children in Texas and across the nation at greater risk of falling into the sex trade, activists and lawmakers asserted Wednesday on Capitol Hill.
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UPDATED: The Texas Senate on Wednesday approved legislation that would require a foster child's guardian to give informed consent before that child could be put on psychotropic drugs. The Senate will now conference with the House on a final agreement.
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The Texas House unanimously approved legislation that would require medical check-ups for foster children prescribed psychotropic drugs every 90 days on Wednesday.
Full StoryAgency commissioners rarely get applause when they ask the Legislature for an additional $263 million. But that’s what happened on Thursday when John Specia asked to for money to redesign the Department of Family and Protective Services.
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Though reforms have improved the state’s health care system for foster children, child welfare advocates say, the rate of foster children prescribed psychotropic drugs remains high. This report includes graphs that provide a detailed look at pyschotropic drug prescriptions given to foster children in Texas.
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Texas' high court has ruled that state officials must personally notify parents when suing to deprive them of custody of their children.
Full StoryThe Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the national child advocacy group Children's Rights cannot file its class-action suit on behalf of all 12,000 youth in Texas' long-term foster care system.
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Child Protective Services officials got an earful on Wednesday at a Senate hearing on improving the caseworker retention and turnover rates in rural communities. And they got a minor scolding from Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, who assumed they would come armed with more data and possible solutions than they did.
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More than 16,000 children are in foster care in Texas. And when those children become adults, they’re often left to fend for themselves. But as Nathan Bernier of KUT News reports, the amount of help available to foster children in Travis County is on the rise.
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More children than ever are living in poverty in Texas, and experts speculate that the seemingly unending recession is a key factor in the increase in reports of child abuse and neglect statewide. The number of reported cases of abuse has grown 6 percent in Texas since 2008, and service providers are struggling to keep up with the need for help.
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Children in foster care are several times more likely to be prescribed psychotropic drugs, according to a new Government Accountability Office report on five states. As Matt Largey of KUT News reports, investigators found high rates of potentially risky practices in Texas.
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More than 2,000 people listed in a statewide database of people who mistreat children are caught in a backlog of cases waiting for appeals. The accused say they're effectively blacklisted, their lives put on hold. State officials say the backlog is a safety issue that could potentially endanger children.
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Responding to a Texas Tribune article about young adults who age out of foster care being denied their records, House lawmakers passed a bill today to require the prompt release of case files following a child's discharge from foster care.
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“Dear future son,” the North Texas father wrote in a prospective adoption letter filled with promises of family bike rides and summer road trips. “I am a single dad who adopted a middle school boy in 2008. Now we are looking for one more kid so he will have a brother.” But the father never got custody of a second child. Instead, he received a phone call from a child placement agency with shocking news: He couldn't adopt again because his son, who was sexually abused and beaten by his biological parents, is on a state registry of people who abuse children.
When foster kids bounce from placement to placement, they leave their belongings with state child welfare workers — where advocates say they often get misplaced, given to the wrong child or even stolen.
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Ramsey on the fourth University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll (with insights into the statewide races, issues, the budget, and Texans' view of the national scene), Hamilton and Thevenot in Galveston on the anniversary of Hurricane Ike, Ramshaw on secret hearings that separate children from their guardians, Hu on what former state Rep. Bill Zedler did for doctor-donors who were under investigation, Aguilar on the troubles around Mexico's bicentennial, Galbraith talks coal and wind with the head of the Sierra Club, E. Smith interviews state Rep. Debbie Riddle about tourism babies and godless liberals, Grissom on why complaints about city jails go unaddressed, Philpott on the debate that will apparently never happen and Stiles continues to put the major-party gubernatorial candidates on the map: The best of our best from September 13 to 17, 2010.
Full StoryThe commissioner of the state's Department of Family and Protective Services talked to the Tribune about the planned redesign of Texas' foster care system — one she hopes will keep kids close to home and connected to their siblings and reduce their time in state custody.
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Young adults who age out of Texas foster care often request their records to reconnect with estranged siblings, to track down biological families or to understand what they endured. But child welfare advocates complain the state routinely denies these requests, saying the records can't be found or will take months or even years to compile — assuming they respond at all. State officials admit they have a large backlog but insist they've beefed up staff and are putting new policies in place to address it.
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At a hearing today, the Department of Family and Protective Services will consider stricter caregiver-to-child ratios for child care centers — but improved care for Texas toddlers could also mean less income for child care providers and higher tuition for families.
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Grissom, Hamilton, and Philpott on the Texas Democratic Party's state convention, the two-step, the forecast, and the ticket; Galbraith on the political and environmental battle between state and federal environmental regulators, and on a new age of nukes in Texas; Burnson on signs of the times in San Antonio; Ramshaw on hackers breaking into the state's confidential cancer database; Aguilar's interview with Katherine Glass, the Libertarian Party's nominee for governor; Acosta on efforts to stop 'Murderabilia' items that sell because of the association with killers; Ramshaw and the Houston Chronicle's Terri Langford on the criminal arrest records of workers in state-funded foster care centers; Hu on accusations that state Sunset examiners missed problems with workers compensation regulators because they didn't ask the right questions of the right people; Ramsey and Stiles on the rush to rake in campaign cash, and on political races that could be won or lost because of voter attraction to Libertarian candidates; and Aguilar's fresh take on South Texas' reputation for corruption. The best of our best from June 28 to July 3, 2010.
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The commissioner of the agency that oversees Texas foster children told lawmakers she regrets not telling them about a 2008 “fight club” involving developmentally disabled girls. She said the agency is moving quickly to address abuse and neglect inside Daystar Residential Inc.
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