Texas again ripped over foster care
AUSTIN — A federal judge will hold Texas officials in contempt of court for the second time in 10 months — and they likely will face tens of thousands of dollars in fines — as foster care children continue to die under their watch.
In a two-day hearing that ended Friday, U.S. District Judge Janis Jack gave scathing feedback about the state of the foster care system, which she ruled unconstitutional in 2015. In November, she held the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which oversees the foster care system and Child Protective Services, in contempt of court for not making changes she ordered. The state was fined $150,000 a day for three days.
Jack called some of the most recent deaths avoidable. Eleven foster children in the state’s permanent care have died between July 31, 2019, and April 30.
“I’m not understanding the state’s reluctance, and actually refusal, to abide by these orders,” Jack said during the hearing.
Among the most recent deaths that have been reported to Jack by her appointed monitors was a 14year-old girl at Prairie Harbor residential treatment center, about an hour west of Houston. Referred to only as K.C., the girl, who was overweight, had complained about leg pain in the weeks leading up to her death, but her complaints weren’t taken seriously, according to court documents.
She collapsed and died in the middle of the night Feb. 9, and staff waited 37 minutes to call 911. Her death was caused by a blood clot in her leg that had traveled to her lungs.
During the hearing, officials said the center had received 145 citations and was on probation five days before the girl died and that the state’s licensing and regulation department under the Texas Health and Human Services Commission had given the center special permission to staff below the minimum staff-to-children ratio.
“These children’s deaths were completely preventable. As we have learned more about them, it’s become clear that there were systemic breakdowns and failures over and over, both at a high level in licensing and monitoring these placements,” said Paul Yetter, a Houstonbased attorney. He is representing foster children suing the state for reforms.
Another death, in Fort Worth on April 12, involved a 3-year-old who was found unconscious by his foster parents, bleeding from his ear, according to court documents. Abuse from inside the foster home — the foster parents were friends of relatives — had been reported multiple times before the death, but the child was never removed.
One of the reports led to a pediatrician expressing concerns that the child’s injuries at the time was intentionally dealt. About a month before the boy died, a report said the foster parent’s domestic partner “beats (the children) really bad.”
The child blamed one of his injuries — a bump in the middle of her forehead — to a fall.
Three days before he died, a caseworker received a picture of the child with an eye swollen shut. Police are still investigating the death.
Another death occurred April 26, when a 14-yearold hanged herself in the bathroom of an emergency shelter where she had been placed, more than a month after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital.
The teenager was supposed to be monitored at all times inside the shelter, which is in Lometa, about an hour west of Killeen, but staff didn’t discover her in the bathroom for 30 minutes.
“In investigating the deaths, the investigations are sloppy and incomplete, and these children — they are at risk every day because the system is not focused on ensuring their safety. It is focused on bureaucratic objectives that allow bad facilities to stay open and innocent children to stay hurt, and these deaths are the tip of the iceberg,” Yetter said.
Also discussed during the hearing was the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on foster care children. There has been a 20 percent positivity rate among foster care children, compared with 12 percent among the rest of the state’s children, as of Aug. 28.
Attorney General Ken Paxton had said in a July 24 court filing that state officials were “taking good faith efforts to conform its behavior and meet the compliance obligations set forth in a court order,” including adding positions to conduct more timely investigations and plans for more training for investigators.
Paxton said the findings of noncompliance were based on limited data and were an unfair analysis.
Among the foster care changes the courts have asked for include ensuring that allegations of abuse are investigated in a timely manner, more immediate documentation of child sex abuse and more stringent revocation of licenses for poor performing foster care facilities. The state has not revoked the license of such a facility in the five years prior to Sept. 30.
Officials did not offer any further explanation for the deaths or increased COVID-19 rates during the hearing, Yetter said.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services declined to comment.
Jack plans to hold the state, the department and the agency that oversees licensing and regulation of foster care facilities in contempt of court. She will determine corrective actions and likely determine a fine for noncompliance at a later date.
“The tragedy here is the state’s attitude is so wasteful. It’s wasteful of children’s lives, and it’s wasteful of the state’s resources,” Yetter said. “And if the court repeatedly has to hold the state in contempt for them to take this seriously, we will ask for that.”