For deaf children in Texas foster care, limited accessibility compounds trauma
Advocates say better accounting of deaf and hard-of-hearing children in the state’s care and better access to translators are needed. Full Story
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![A sign for the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services building in Austin on Nov. 14, 2019.]()
Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune -
Texas names new head of child abuse investigations after high turnover and heavy criticism
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services’ investigations division has seen record-high staff turnover, with 4 in 10 investigators leaving their jobs in 2022. Full Story
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![The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) Council met and listened to testimony in Austin on March 10, 2023.]()
Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune -
Texas child welfare agency fails vulnerable teens when they turn 18, whistleblower says
A Child Protective Services disability specialist says Texas’ foster care system isn’t preparing teens with cognitive disabilities and mental health challenges for adult life. Full Story
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![Heart Galleries — portraits of adoptable children — on display at the Child Protective Services office at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services in Austin on Nov. 14, 2019.]()
Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune -
New Texas laws favor parents in child abuse investigations as legislators try to limit number of kids in foster care
Legislators also passed bills that will provide foster kids entering the troubled system with duffel bags or backpacks and those aging out of the system with help setting up bank accounts. Full Story
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![The sun sets behind the Texas Capitol in Austin on May 12, 2023.]()
Credit: Evan L'Roy/The Texas Tribune -
Judge admonishes Texas foster care officials, saying they don’t properly monitor facilities housing kids
A U.S. district judge has long presided over a court case that found Texas’ foster care system unconstitutionally harms kids. Tuesday’s hearing was the first appearance by the state’s new team of defense attorneys. Full Story
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![The United States District Court in Corpus Christi, Texas on April 11, 2023. This courthouse is home to the Corpus Christi Division of the Southern District of Texas.]()
Credit: Blaine Young for The Texas Tribune -
Across Texas, a slow and sputtered rollout of foster care privatization
Lawmakers were assured that outsourcing management of foster care services would fix the state’s troubled child welfare agency. But the rollout of the new model, set to be completed by 2029, has been complicated by setbacks. Full Story
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![State Rep. James Frank R-Wichita Falls, answers a question from Rep. Armando Walle D-Houston regarding SB 11 on May 18, 2017]()
Credit: Marjorie Kamys Cotera for The Texas Tribune -
After abuse accusations at The Refuge, Texas will create new reporting and screening requirements for foster care workers
The legislation came after The Refuge, a Bastrop foster care facility, hired a caretaker without knowing she had a history of sexual misconduct with children at a state juvenile facility. Coworkers also concealed evidence of the abuse, which further put the foster girls at harm. Full Story
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![The Refuge in Bastrop on Apr. 12, 2022]()
Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune -
Texas bill barring anonymous reporting of child abuse heads to Gov. Greg Abbott
House Bill 63 is an attempt to reduce the amount of vindictive or false child abuse reports made to the state, but child advocates say it will deter valid reports, too. Full Story
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![A caseworker's badge hangs off her neck as she prepares to assist on a case for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) in June 2018.]()
Credit: Pu Ying Huang for The Texas Tribune -
Texas House approves bill to improve background checks on child-welfare workers
The action came after The Refuge, a Bastrop foster care facility, hired a caretaker without knowing her history of misconduct. Full Story
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![The Refuge in Bastrop on Apr. 12, 2022]()
Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune -
Federal judge says Texas’ use of psychotropic drugs puts foster kids at serious risk
Residential facilities did not refill medications in a timely manner, failed to follow psychiatric orders and, in several instances, violated state guidelines, court monitors documented after site inspections. The lawyer representing the foster kids said it could be “the tip of the iceberg.” Full Story
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![Heart Galleries, portraits of adoptable children, on display at the Child Protective Services office at Texas Department of Family and Protective Services in Austin on Nov. 14, 2019.]()
Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune -
Texas Senate votes to close employment loophole after Refuge foster care scandal
The upper chamber unanimously passed Senate Bill 182 after The Texas Tribune reported that a state-licensed foster care facility hired a caretaker whom the Texas Juvenile Justice Department previously fired for having inappropriate relationships with children. Full Story
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![The Refuge in Bastrop on Apr. 12, 2022]()
Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune -
Texans who take custody of their relatives’ kids struggle to make ends meet — and to get more aid from the state
Relative caregivers, like grandparents who want to keep kids out of foster care, usually get half as much state assistance as strangers who take in children. Full Story
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![Beverly Morris says she was not aware that her six grandchildren were in foster care. When CPS called her, she decided to raise them herself but found that the foster care system pays grandparents much less than if she were an unrelated foster parent. Now a few years later, she is raising her six grandchildren at their home in Leander, Texas.]()
Credit: Ilana Panich-Linsman for The Texas Tribune -
In abrupt retirement letter, an investigations director decries Texas’ “untenable” child welfare agency
Sharon Fonvielle-Baughman said Texas Department of Family and Protective Services leadership has failed to support the special investigators division, a unit created in 2005 to handle the most high-risk cases. Full Story
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![Sharon Fonvielle-Baughman, director of special investigations at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, resigned on Thursday, March 23, 2023.]()
Credit: Social media -
Caseworkers hampered by ’90s-era foster care software that the state hasn’t replaced
Caseworkers and foster care providers often get incomplete and inaccurate information about foster kids in their care because of the state child welfare agency’s archaic technology system. Full Story
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![A Texas Department of Family and Protective Services employee’s desk at the agency's Austin office on Nov. 14, 2019.]()
Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune -
Texas AG Ken Paxton pushes court to reconsider injunction halting investigations into affirming care
In the state’s final brief to appeal a September injunction that halted the investigation into Texas parents of transgender children, Paxton argued that individual families must provide evidence of harm from the actions of the Department of Family and Protective Services. Full Story
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![Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during a press conference at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on April 26, 2022. Earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Texas v. Texas, the enforcement of the Trump-era “remain in Mexico” policy that required asylum seekers to stay in Mexico as they waited for hearings in U.S. immigration court. (Eric Lee for The Texas Tribune).]()
Credit: Eric Lee for The Texas Tribune -
Texas removed six Black children from their homes. Their adoptive parents drove them off a cliff.
After a murder-suicide in 2018, a reporter spent years investigating Texas’ troubled foster care system. Too often, it prioritized terminating parental rights over keeping birth families intact. Full Story
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![Clockwise: Devonte, Ciera, (group photo) and Jeremiah are seen in a CPS photo used for the Texas Adoption Resource Exchange (TERE)]()
Credit: Roxanna Asgarian/The Texas Tribune -
Texas lawmakers move to close foster care hiring loopholes and expand rights of parents facing investigations
Bills that would give relative caregivers more money have missed key deadlines to make it in front of the full House. Full Story
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![A sign for the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services building in Austin on Nov. 14, 2019.]()
Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune -
Texas foster kids struggle to access extended care once they turn 18
State and federal laws are supposed to protect foster youth until they turn 21. But Texas all too often erects unnecessarily burdensome hurdles. Full Story
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![Illustration of a person sitting on a bench at night.]()
Credit: Christine Ongjoco for The Imprint -
Lawyers representing children in federal foster care lawsuit rebuked for hiring lobbyists
Texas lawmakers and a federal judge say attorneys in the case against the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services should not hire lobbyists using funds won in court. Full Story
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![Heart Galleries, portraits of adoptable children, on display at the Child Protective Services office at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services in Austin on Nov. 14, 2019.]()
Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune -
Texas should tell parents their rights when it investigates child abuse claims, lawmaker proposes
Most reports of child abuse or neglect turn out to be unfounded. But while under investigation, parents with little understanding of their rights or the process often make decisions that could impact the fate of their families. Full Story
![Heart Galleries — portraits of adoptable children — on display at the Child Protective Services office at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services in Austin on Nov. 14, 2019.]()
Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune