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Thursday, March 18, 2010

Child Protective Services

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Photograph of child in a dark shadow

Texas Child Protective Services investigates reports of abuse and neglect of children, and steps in to remove kids from dangerous homes. The agency provides services to children and families in their homes, places kids in foster care, and provides services to help kids in foster care transition into adulthood.

In Fiscal Year 2008, CPS opened about 165,000 abuse and neglect investigations and took 31,000 kids into foster care. The average caseworker had 21.9 cases -- down from 25.3 in Fiscal Year 2007. And 213 Texas kids died as a result of abuse and neglect -- nearly 80 percent of them younger than 3.

CPS ' $400 million foster care system has struggled to reform itself in recent years. These improvements in staffing and investigations followed a string of seemingly avoidable deaths. But they also led the agency to take more children into custody -- and the number of foster home placements didn't grow accordingly. CPS caseworkers, stretched for resources, resorted to turning some agency offices into night-time dormitories. 

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