Austin News

Texas lacks an adequate number of foster homes to serve older youth, rural children and those with complex needs, according to Texans Care for Children.

But the children's policy organization sees positive signs, including two bills that have drawn almost unanimous bipartisan support in the Texas House and Senate and should pass before the end of next week's legislative session.

COVID-19 has caused extra pressure on a system already facing challenges, with reports of hundreds of children forced to sleep in state offices for multiple nights during the pandemic.

Katie Murphy | Texans Care for Children

But Katie Murphy, senior child welfare policy associate with Texans Care for Children, is concentrating on the bigger picture for the time being.

"We have little information about the availability of foster homes for trafficking survivors, pregnant and parenting youth, and other special populations," Murphy said in information provided to Austin News.

The 2018 federal Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) is crucial and driving a lot of policy thinking.

"The FFPSA restricted reimbursement for foster care facilities is serving large groups of children except for a few high-quality or highly specialized foster care placements," Murphy said.

Texans Care for Children recommended identifying gaps and developing capacity for children that the federal government will continue to provide services for under the FFPSA. All or part of this recommendation has been incorporated in several places.

"The most significant opportunity to keep kids safe with their families and out of foster care this session is through smart investment in implementation of the FFPSA," Murphy said.

Murphy notes that Texas received $33.9 million in federal funding to help implement the FFPSA, which also prioritizes prevention services to keep children out of foster care.

Two bills authored by Sen. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) — SB 1575 and SB 1896 — are considered top priorities for Texans Care for Children. SB 1896 passed the senate on April 27 with a unanimous vote. 

The former will help bring Texas into compliance with new requirements set out by the FFPSA for local courts and CPS, according to the group. SB 1575 focuses on assessment and oversight of foster kids placed by DFPS in a qualified residential treatment program and a study regarding residential treatment center placements.

"Complying with these new requirements will strengthen advocacy for children in foster care with behavioral challenges by requiring caseworkers, CASAs, guardians ad litem, attorneys ad litem, and judges to thoroughly evaluate children’s treatment needs and monitor whether the treatment a child is receiving effectively meets their needs," Murphy said.

SB 1896 aims to increase capacity, safety and quality of care and to better ensure the successful statewide expansion of Community-Based Care (CBC), she added.

It is hoped that this legislation will provide communities the flexibility to draw on local strengths and resources and find innovative ways to meet the individual needs of children and their families, according to Texans Care for Children.

A Texas Tech report previously commissioned by the Legislature found the implementation of CBC by the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) and Children's Protective Services has been "random, chaotic," overly centralized and "lacking an overall implementation strategy.” The report went on to note that implementation lacked appropriate transparency and accountability, noting that "CBC should be evaluated by an independent entity. Agencies should not evaluate themselves; also, to maintain maximum objectivity for accountability purposes, SSCC performance should also be judged by an independent organization unaffiliated with DFPS.

Kolkhorst’s SB 1896 seeks to rectify this lack of independent oversight by establishing an agency independent of but attached to DFPS called the “Office of Community Based Care Transition.” This agency would be tasked with, among other things, developing a plan for CBC implementation across different regions of the state, evaluating CBC providers, measuring performance, and reporting outcomes.

More than 200 children slept in state offices in March of this year, according to Austin's KXAN.

During February 2020, 34 children spent two or more nights sleeping in Department of Family and Protective Services. That number had increased to 237 by March, according to KXAN.

Our Community Our Kids‘ (OCOK) in Fort Worth, Texas, a division of ACH Child and Family Services, is in the process of expanding CBC into Region 3b and as a result has seen positive outcomes for its children in foster care. This includes an increase in foster home placement stability, new capacity for teens who need residential treatment, and a 36% increase in foster home capacity in rural areas. Region 3b comprises Erath, Hood, Johnson, Palo Pinto, Parker, Somervell and Tarrant counties.