State leaders Order Child Protective Services Overhaul

 by Marissa Evans, The Texas Tribune
 October 12, 2016

Gov. Greg Abbott and other state leaders ordered the Department of Family and Protective Services Wednesday to ramp up efforts to protect endangered foster children and curb the backlog of ones waiting for homes.

Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Joe Straus released a joint letter to department Commissioner Hank Whitman directing him to immediately develop a plan to hire and train more special investigators to take up the backlog of at-risk kids who have not had a face-to-face interaction with Child Protective Services. The lawmakers are also calling on the agency to create a hiring and training schedule to get more caseworkers out into the field and to continue working closely with community organizations. The lawmakers also called recent news of children sleeping in hotels and CPS offices “unacceptable.”

The letter comes just eight days after DFPS publicly released numbers showing nearly a thousand at-risk children under CPS care were not checked on once over the course of six months. That report also found that caseworkers did not see 1,800 children within 24-hours of hearing reports of alleged abuse or mistreatment.

“We also will not tolerate inferior residential foster care operations,” the state leaders wrote in the letter. “The state’s residential providers must be held to the highest standards while caring for our most vulnerable or no longer operate in our system.”

While Abbott and other state leaders are calling on the agency to move forward on a plan regardless of budget concerns, it’s unclear how soon the department will step up its efforts with a looming $40 million budget shortfall and already overworked caseworkers.

State leaders also directed Whitman to “reinforce the culture of accountability” by making sure staffers “rise to the challenge” ahead. The lawmakers gave a nod to the department’s financial constraints but stressed “we have a responsibility to find and protect these vulnerable Texans as soon as possible.”

Whitman said in an emailed statement that he appreciates lawmakers’ “acknowledgement of the many difficult issues we face” but added that “protecting children is our highest priority.”  
“We have to do better,” Whitman said. “All of our energies are focused on making this right and putting the safety and welfare of children first, no matter what.”

Read more of the Tribune’s related coverage:

The state’s child welfare agency faces a $40 million budget shortfall, a critical shortage of good homes for foster children and overwhelming caseloads for staff, agency leaders told state lawmakers at a hearing in April.

In a wide-ranging interview, Hank Whitman, the new commissioner overseeing the Department of Family and Protective Services, explained how he thinks he can turn around a child welfare agency in crisis.

This article was originally published by the Texas Tribune.