Reforming Texas' Child Welfare System

Texas Public Radio Conversation
"5 things to watch in the child welfare fight this session"

Following the 2015 declaration of its unconstitutionality and years of headlines highlighting children abused or mishandled by the state's child welfare system, Texas' legislature has begun its current session with the intention of reforming the Department of Family and Protective Services.

As with many child welfare systems, Texas' system is understaffed, underfunded and overwhelmed. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has suggested that faith-based organizations within the state could be called upon to begin offering foster services. Even with the investment of faith-based organizations, current rates of reimbursement to shelters and group homes are insufficient to incentivize these organizations to offer anything more than the bare minimum of services. A director of a shelter that serves 400 Texas children each year shared that because the shelter chooses to go above and beyond in offering wraparound services to the children who come through the door, reimbursement from the state only covers 60 percent of the cost of services provided to each child. The remainder is covered by private donations, a luxury that smaller providers do not have. And as a state legislator pointed out, the involvement of faith-based organizations does nothing to engage the communities that are also negatively impacted by a troubled child welfare system.

Senate Bill 11, currently being debated, has earned particular media attention and has been made a priority of the Texas Lieutenant Governor, in particular because it would transition case management from a centralized process to a more individualized one that will assign more accountability and capacity building to individual case workers and providers. This lack of direct control over cases and clients has so contributed to caseworker turnover that the department's commissioner even dropped a degree requirement for caseworkers to encourage more hiring but did so without necessarily putting in any safeguards.

I don't know much about the child welfare system as a whole or how these systems and departments vary from state to state, but as just a social work trainee I am more empowered than fully-licensed social workers in Texas to make decisions regarding the clients on my caseload. Texas' caseworkers are so underpaid that the state has gone so far as to authorize $12,000 raises for many of the department's staff. It seems to me a cruel joke that these caseworkers are not only underpaid but also so undervalued that people with only high school diplomas are being hired to do the same work and individual case decisions are left to a centralized process over which they have no control. There should be greater reward, whether intrinsic or tangible in playing a role, whether as caseworker, foster parent or provider, in a system that seeks to make sure that all children, the most vulnerable population in any state, are adequately fed, clothed and educated. Texas' Department of Family and Protective Services seems to offer only no-win situations to all involved. While I imagine that all child welfare systems have flaws, it comes as no surprise to me that Texas'  was found unconstitutional.