CPS wants to bolster staff

Family and Protective Services chief vows to add 550 investigators, caseworkers to reduce risk to children.

The state’s child welfare agency chief vows to add 550 investigators and caseworkers as well as 279 support staff to the tune of $53 million within the next year to address bloated child abuse caseloads at Child Protective Services.

Hank Whitman, commissioner of the Department of Family and Protective Service — the agency that runs CPS — laid out his plan Thursday in a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Speaker of the House Joe Straus, R-San Antonio. Last week, the state’s top leaders rebuked the agency for failing to make timely visits to children believed to be in immediate danger of abuse or neglect.

“Texas children remain at risk. This is unacceptable,” Whitman said in his letter, adding that “one of the most pressing challenges” was the 10 percent increase in CPS investigations since 2014.

Whitman’s $53 million plan to beef up CPS staff comes in advance

of a state Senate Finance Committee hearing on CPS on Wednesday. The Legis- lature could approve additional spending when lawmakers reconvene in January.

Skipping home visits or failing to visit children who had been reported abused in a timely manner has been a persistent problem for CPS officials, and lapses have led to firings and criticism in several high-profile child deaths.

Three CPS workers were fired after the 2014 death of 2-year-old Colton Turner in Austin, when state officials found the workers didn’t properly investigate allegations the boy had been abused and didn’t visit him as scheduled. Similar lapses

occurred prior to the beating death of 4-year-old Leiliana Wright of Grand Prairie earlier this year, leading to the firings of two CPS workers.

Neglected cases

In mid-September, CPS reported that more than 14,000 kids across the state, one-third of those with open CPS cases, had not been seen by child-abuse investigators between 24 and 72 hours after a report of abuse, the state-mandated time frame in which caseworkers must see children who are reported abused. Of those, nearly 2,000 were considered urgent cases, meaning the children could have been in immediate danger. In Travis County, 42 percent of about 2,900 children hadn’t been seen by the deadline.

Whitman said that, to address the problem, the agency wants to add 200 investigative caseworkers across the state and to target staff resources specifi- cally in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and in Harris and Travis counties.

CPS also wants to add 250 caseworkers who assist families and children who are removed from homes, as well as 100 more special investi- gators. Special investigators have law enforcement back- grounds and locate children whose families have moved or are actively avoiding CPS.