From a Jack to a Queen?
Texas Judge Slams DFPS....
“The beatings will continue until morale improves.” That’s the message Captain senior federal district Judge Janis “Calico” Jack sent to the “crew” at the Texas Department of Family Protective Services last week. Jack has oversight of the agency due to a class action lawsuit filed in 2011 that resulted in a 2018 order requiring the state to “fix” a foster care system that serves upwards of 30,000 children. In a 427-page contempt order, she excoriated the agency for failing to live up to her expectations and fined the agency $100,000 per day. That order has been temporarily halted by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Over the course of her oversight, Judge Jack has railed at the agency for failing to protect children and has held it in contempt numerous times. The chair of the state legislative committee that oversees child welfare, though, argues that Jack “continues to call up anecdotes . . . as opposed to looking at whether the system is improving or not.” Plaintiffs’ attorneys have urged the Court to place the agency under federal receivership.
It seems to be that the Court’s requirements place Texas in a lose-lose situation, and one could argue that Jack’s own orders have added to the crisis. One of the requirements of the Court’s order was that Texas exercise stricter regulation of its group home facilities, many of which care for children who have complex behavioral needs. Texas responded, and as a result many facilities closed because they couldn’t handle the severe needs of the youth in their care. A placement crisis, resulted, with the expected outcome — many children with difficult mental health and behavioral challenges ended up in unlicensed placements and hotels. Jack deemed that situation unacceptable as well. In the midst of the crisis, many DFPS staff quit out of frustration. Between 2021 and 2023, Texas spent over $250 million on hotels and similar facilities for “children without placement.”
While the Houston Chronicle expresses support for Jack’s hardline stance, it’s hard to see how this litigation is accomplishing anything. In her contempt order, for example, Jack decries the treatment of a number of youth without placement who were staying in hotels and other unlicensed facilities. A closer examination of those individual cases would reveal children with severe mental and behavioral health issues and youth who have engaged in violent behaviors. No child welfare system is designed to care for significant numbers of such children and youth. Instead of beating the child protection agency for having “even one child” in an unlicensed placement, perhaps Judge Jack should consider what role the failure of other systems such as juvenile justice and mental health have played in this situation. Perhaps she should consider why there are insufficient treatment facilities and intensive services for these youth and what could be done to change the incentives to provide such services. Perhaps she should consider that when a Court steps in and micromanages an agency’s processes as Judge Jack has done, it may get compliance but it won’t get improved outcomes.
Then again, if I were running DFPS, I’d be tempted to tell Judge Jack that if she can do a better job, she’s welcome to try.
In other news:
Here’s an important new study reported in the New York Times: “Among 58,551 parents who had a child referred to welfare services, more than half had a psychiatric or substance use diagnosis, compared to 33 percent of the comparison group.” There’s opportunities here to leverage Medicaid to treat these parents and avoid removal of the children.
The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement has issued a new “final rule” regarding handling of cases involving unaccompanied minors.
There was a child death in West Virginia, and the child welfare agency’s commissioner claims they can’t release information about any prior involvement the child’s family may have had with the CPS system. Someone apparently told the Governor that while they’d love to change the law, their “hands are tied” by federal law. That’s completely incorrect, and I hope someone will send them a copy of CAPTA — specifically 42 USC 5106a (b)(2)(B)(x), which requires the State to release records regarding a “case of child abuse or neglect which has resulted in a child fatality or near fatality.”
Big developments in Kansas! A newly independent Office of the Child Advocate.
As a number of state legislatures are finishing their work for the year, here’s a roundup of interesting developments:
Indiana passed a law requiring its child protective services agency to prioritize child safety and expanding the situations of abuse in which termination of parental rights is warranted.
A proposal for a separate child welfare agency in Maine died in the legislature.
Missouri is considering a law that would authorize some privatization of child protective services work.
In Minnesota, litigation has been filed claiming racial discrimination in foster care and child welfare.
Connecticut is seeing a need for more intensive mental health treatment for children in care.
Senators Grassley and Ossoff have successfully gotten a bill through the Senate that would improve coordination between agencies to fight sex trafficking of foster youth. The bill reflects recommendations of Sen. Ossoff’s report on foster care, with which Richard Wexler is not impressed.
Will race-sensitive child welfare practices in New York City have the unintended consequence of endangering more black and minority children?
The New York Post thinks so.
Finally, here’s an interesting Boston Globe piece on a program that seeks to resolve dependency allegations before they end up in juvenile court.
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