U.S. judge: State must adopt 100 foster care fixes
Judge criticizes officials; Paxton calls on appeals court to overturn order.
The Texas foster care system remains broken and continues to place children at risk, a federal judge ruled Friday, adding that state officials have shown a “troubling unwillingness” to fix problems the court had identified in a similar 2015 order.
Overruling numerous objections raised by lawyers for Texas, U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack of Corpus Christi ordered Texas officials to adopt almost 100 changes, including reduced workloads for caseworkers, a ban on children sleeping in state offices and steps to better monitor, and reduce, sexual abuse.
The judge also appointed two state-paid but independent mon- itors to chart the state’s progress “on each policy outlined in this order” in reports to be filed every six months. Even after the monitors certify that Texas is in full compliance with her order, Jack said she will retain oversight of the case for three additional years.
The monitors and extra oversight are required because of the “disconnect” between the written policies and actual practices of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which oversees the foster care system, Jack wrote.
“The state of Texas has failed to rectify longstanding problems with its foster care system despite decades of awareness and extensive reports and recommendations by internal and external authorities,” the judge concluded.
Within hours of the ruling, Texas Attorney General Ken Pax-
ton asked a federal appeals court to overturn the order, calling it “incomplete and impractical.”
“The Legislature approved and Gov. Abbott signed landmark legislation last year to fund improvements in Texas’ foster care system. Unfunded and unrealistic mandates ordered by an unelected federal judge are misguided,” Paxton said.
In her 116-page order, Jack noted that many of the steps taken by the Legislature were admirable.
“However, policies not practiced are of no value,” she wrote, chiding the state for ignoring 20 years of studies that detailed foster care problems.
Changes ordered
In Friday’s ruling, Jack adopted measures recommended last year by special monitors appointed to oversee her 2015 order, including:
Caseworkers must immediately begin meeting foster children monthly, as required, without the foster family or caregiver present.
“The record revealed that even cursory visits seldom occurred every month, and that a child’s case file might contain documentation of visits that never occurred,” Jack said.
“Furthermore, former foster children testified at trial that they were unable
State officials have until March to require that no unrelated children more than three years apart in age can be placed in the same room in a foster care setting.
to report abuse to a caseworker because the abuser — often the caregiver — was present during caseworker visits.”
Foster care workloads must immediately be cut to no more than 14 to 17 children per caseworker. “The record contains numerous instances of (foster) children not having contact with their caseworker for months” due to high caseloads, Jack wrote.
Officials can no longer allow foster children to sleep overnight in state offices due to lack of available placements. The number of children spending the night in offices last year varied from a high of 84 in May to a low of 17 in August, Jack noted.
Texas must immediately create a 24-hour hotline allowing foster children to report abuse and neglect. Each foster home must have a landline telephone, with the hotline number attached, available to foster children.
Investigations of abuse and neglect must be conducted by caseworkers who focus exclusively on mistreatment investigations. By May, those investigators can handle no more than 14 abuse cases at one time.
By the end of March, abuse investigations must begin within 24 hours in cases where death or serious harm is possible — including a face-to-face meeting with the child.
Caregivers must be notified if a foster child has been accused of committing sexual abuse. Caregivers also must report allegations of childon-child sexual abuse in their home within 24 hours.
State officials have until March to require that no unrelated children more than three years apart in age can be placed in the same room in a foster care setting.
State officials have 30 days to create a plan to address missing medical and mental health records for foster children. By June, state officials will have to ensure that every child has access to “comprehensive and continuous medical care.”
A plan must be formed within four months to create an integrated computer system containing complete records for each foster child, including medical and mental health history, education and court records. Poor record-keeping has contributed to sexual and physical abuse, undiagnosed developmental disorders and other problems, Jack said.
Electronic case files must include child photographs that are no more than a year old. Jack pointed to a runaway foster child who has never been located after caseworkers, provided with an arrest mugshot of the girl, could not identify her because nobody in the Child Protective Services unit had ever met her.
Right path?
Brandon Logan with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, said the ruling undermined last year’s legislative efforts that had “set Texas on the right path.”
“The federal court order issued today reverses the progress that Texas has made for foster children and subjects the state to endless monitoring based on the whims of the court,” Logan said.
But Madeline McClure, chief executive of TexProtects-Champions for Safe Children, said it was time to stop litigating and start implementing the judge’s order.
“Texas’ foster children are in immediate need and immediate danger and can no longer wait through further court battles,” McClure said.