THE CWOP CRISIS. . .
More Information, Links:
Recommendations for Improving Texas’ Safe Placement and Services for Children, Youth and Families A Report of the Expert Panel Appointed under the Collaboration Agreement of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Texas Health and Human Services Commission and the M.D. v. Abbott Plaintiffs
The Court Monitors’ Update Regarding Safety of Settings Housing Children Without Placement and Site Visits US District Court paper
THIRD REPORT OF THE MONITORS: REMEDIAL ORDERS US District Court paper
Years of inaction, privatization push, and appeals set the course
For decades, internal and external reports, studies, and reviews have documented the systemic failure of DFPS to meet the needs of children in the foster care system. Countless recommendations to address the systemic issues in the agency were answered with half-measure legislative proposals. A growing population with more complex needs pushed caseloads higher, stretching resources thinner despite additional positions funded by legislators. Instead of state leaders directly addressing the systemic issues, privatization of the foster care system was touted as the fix. Privatization fit neatly into the anti-government ideology of state leadership while also allowing Texas to escape accountability. Firing a contractor and blaming them for failing is easier than addressing decades-old systemic issues that have plagued the state’s child welfare system.
By 2010, Children’s Rights, an advocacy organization that had successfully sued numerous state and county child welfare systems to enact reforms, was exploring taking Texas to court on behalf of children in the foster care system. During the 2011 Legislative session, Children’s Rights filed their class action lawsuit in Federal court. Legislators passed Senate Bill 218 just weeks later, which set the privatized Foster Care Redesign model (now called Community Based Care) into motion. Unlikely earlier attempts to privatize that received intense legislative scrutiny, the possibility of Federal judicial oversight tamped down skepticism. Private contractors would come to be funded well beyond the “legacy” foster care system in non-privatized regions of Texas. This year’s long tunnel vision focus on privatization as the cure-all for the foster care system helped lead to the CWOP crisis.
While pushing privatization of the foster care system and propping up contractors, state leaders were simultaneously fighting the ongoing Federal lawsuit at every turn. From legal wrangling over the certification of foster children in the class-action lawsuit, to defending the flawed system in court and arguing foster children needed nothing more than meals and beds, to eventually appealing the Federal court’s ruling and remedial plans, state leaders spent 10 years trying to defeat the lawsuit and overturn the ruling. The lax oversight of Residential Treatment Centers (RTCs), which was detailed in the 2014 trial and 2015 ruling from Judge Jack, persisted all the while. Many of the foster children without placement would have been placed at RTCs.
In 2020, court appointed monitors and DFPS agreed upon a system of “Heightened Monitoring” to deal with foster care facilities with lengthy histories of abuse and neglect violations. As a result of this increased scrutiny, unsafe facilities began closing voluntarily or losing their licenses. Roughly 25% of capacity was lost as these facilities closed. The closure of these unsafe facilities and the resulting loss of capacity didn’t strike out of the blue, but state leaders and DFPS were completely unprepared to handle the consequences. Oklahoma, facing a nearly identical situation as Texas, took steps to build capacity after state leaders recognized that about 40% of their foster care capacity would be lost due to unsafe facilities being shut down. Had DFPS and elected leaders in Texas worked to expand capacity to compensate for the closure of unsafe facilities, the ongoing CWOP crisis could have been avoided.
How does Texas get out of this crisis?
TSEU members are calling on state leaders and DFPS to immediately start hiring and training DFPS staff specifically to provide care for children without placements in safe, licensed facilities. Children in care need stability and predictability, not a constantly rotating carousel of different staff every 4, 6, or 8 hours.
Legislators approved $90 million earlier this year to address the capacity crisis, with $20 million dedicated to expanding capacity for step-down or sub-acute care facilities for children released from psychiatric hospitals. DFPS staff and the children and families we serve can’t wait for this capacity to eventually expand. We need state leaders to take action immediately to address this crisis instead of hoping providers will step up sometime in the future
What’s next
In January, an expert panel will provide voluntary recommendations to DFPS to address the CWOP crisis. DFPS and Gov. Abbott would then have a month to decide whether to enact any of the voluntary recommendations or not. Today, Texas is failing DFPS staff, foster children, and every family and child we serve because of the strain CWOP is placing on the workforce. As more dedicated employees leave the agency, the stress on employees will only increase.
We need state leaders to act now! We need local officials, legislators, stakeholders, and community members to step up and demand Gov. Abbott and DFPS immediately start hiring and training staff to specifically care for children without placements in licensed facilities.