As Kayden Asher tumbled through several foster placements, Texas leaders intensified their efforts to regulate the lives of LGBTQ+ people.
Foster Care in Texas
The troubled Texas child welfare system that cares for vulnerable kids has been under federal oversight for more than seven years. “Foster children often age out of care more damaged than when they entered,” U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack wrote in a damning 2015 ruling. Yet the Department of Family and Protective Services — the state agency at the helm of the system — is still stumbling. Our reporters cover how fixes ordered by lawmakers, federal authorities and agency leaders are helping or hurting.
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Foster Care in Texas
Texas politics leave transgender foster youth isolated — during and after life in state care
Support once afforded LGBTQ+ foster kids has vanished and a culture of silence has blanketed the agency tasked with raising children growing up in the system.
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Foster Care in Texas
Appeals court blocks $100,000 daily fine for Texas’ troubled foster care program
Jack’s order to fine Texas Health and Human Services on Monday was the third time the state has been found in contempt over foster care conditions since 2011.
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Foster Care in Texas
Facing pressure from judge, Texas reassigns workers to care for foster kids in unlicensed homes
The move is designed to reduce some of the rotating overtime shifts expected of agency caseworkers at group homes and motels, which have been criticized as dangerous for the children who live there.
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Foster Care in Texas
Judge considers holding state in contempt a third time over foster care conditions
U.S. District Judge Janis Jack on Monday considers whether state’s foster care agency has made progress caring for most vulnerable children or should be held in contempt for the third time in an ongoing 2011 lawsuit.
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Foster Care in Texas
Sex trafficking, drugs and assault: Texas foster kids and caseworkers face chaos in rental houses and hotels
A report from Department of Family and Protective Services watchdogs paints a picture of a roughshod safety-net system that is unprepared to protect its youthful charges from predators and unable to keep them from endangering themselves.
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Foster Care in Texas
One-third of Texas foster care caseworkers left their jobs last year as the agency continued putting kids in hotels
The Department of Family and Protective Services has increasingly relied on housing foster kids in hotels when it can’t find them a home. In the 2022 fiscal year, after record staff turnover, more than 1 in 4 caseworkers had less than one year of experience.
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Foster Care in Texas
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.
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Foster Care in Texas
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.
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Foster Care in Texas
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.