The 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.
Emily Ramshaw
Emily Ramshaw was the editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune from 2016 to 2020. During her tenure, the Tribune — billed “one of the nonprofit news sector’s runaway success stories” — won a Peabody Award, several national Murrow Awards and top honors from the Online News Association.
Before joining the Tribune in 2010 as one of its founding reporters, Ramshaw spent six years at The Dallas Morning News, where she broke national stories about sexual abuse inside Texas’ youth lock-ups, reported from inside a West Texas polygamist compound and uncovered “fight clubs” inside state institutions for the disabled. The Texas APME named Ramshaw its 2008 star reporter of the year. In 2016, she was named to the board of the Pulitzer Prizes.
A native of Washington, D.C., and the product of two journalist parents, Ramshaw graduated from Northwestern University in 2003 with dual degrees in journalism and American history.
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State Government
TribBlog: More Trouble In Foster Care
A teenage girl in foster care who collapsed at a Houston-area residential treatment center about a month ago has died.
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Health care
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Anne Heiligenstein 6Texas Tribune donors or members may be quoted or mentioned in our stories, or may be the subject of them. For a complete list of contributors, click here.
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State Government
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Anne Heiligenstein 5Texas Tribune donors or members may be quoted or mentioned in our stories, or may be the subject of them. For a complete list of contributors, click here.
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State Government
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Anne Heiligenstein 4Texas Tribune donors or members may be quoted or mentioned in our stories, or may be the subject of them. For a complete list of contributors, click here.
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State Government
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Anne Heiligenstein 3Texas Tribune donors or members may be quoted or mentioned in our stories, or may be the subject of them. For a complete list of contributors, click here.
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State Government
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Anne Heiligenstein 2Texas Tribune donors or members may be quoted or mentioned in our stories, or may be the subject of them. For a complete list of contributors, click here.
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State Government
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Anne Heiligenstein 1Texas Tribune donors or members may be quoted or mentioned in our stories, or may be the subject of them. For a complete list of contributors, click here.
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State Government
TribBlog: Protecting the Disabled
At least two elements of last session’s safety reforms at Texas’ institutions for the disabled — random drug testing and mandatory FBI fingerprinting of all potential employees — appear to be having a direct effect.
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Health care
Good Money After Bad?
In the wake of high-profile incidents of abuse, state health officials want to boost payments to Texas’ institutions for the disabled by $25,000 per patient per year. But the proposed Medicaid rate change has drawn the ire of Texas’ disability community, which wants to see the facilities shuttered rather than propped up.