AUSTIN — Nothing much has changed since 2017, when Texas split foster care responsibilities between the Department of Family Protective Services and the Health and Human Services Commission with the hope of revamping a broken system riddled with lawsuits and high turnover.
That was the conclusion drawn this week by John Stephens, CEO of The Stephens Group, a child welfare consulting company.
“You're behind the curve,” Stephens said before lawmakers. “I know the commissioner -- I've talked to her -- has a good idea to move forward on prevention, but for some reason, it just gets stuck somewhere. In terms of the implementation, it takes too long, and what happens is these children are impacted.”
Stephens was one of several speakers who went before the Texas Senate Special Committee on Child Protective Services on Monday. While CPS has made headlines in recent months after a Bastrop facility was accused of sex trafficking residents and the agency began investigating families with transgender youth, the meeting was more focused on issues that have plagued the agency for decades and how it can improve its speed of services.
Committee Chair Lois Kolkhorst described the state’s child welfare program as “languishing.” Now, lawmakers are looking to reduce several layers of bureaucratic tape that have made operating the agency difficult and frustratingly slow — particularly through its current plan of establishing community-based care.
Community-based care is a new way to expand services beyond traditional foster care by giving communities the flexibility to draw on local strengths and resources to find innovative ways to meet the unique and individual needs of children and their families, according to DFPS.
Stephens said he has advocated for such an approach for years, pointing to Florida and other states that have this practice and mindset. But Florida jumped into implementation statewide, while Texas is taking a multistep, region-by-region approach that Stephens and lawmakers said could take another decade before completion.
Kolkhorst said she has no idea why it was decided to phase in the change, but it has made the whole process complicated.
“Whatever you do, make sure you remember – and I know you will – those kids that are languishing in your system,” Stephens said.
Stephens and other speakers recommended that Texas focus on building community relations and letting go of control at the state level so that local communities and the private sector can work together. That would make for a stronger system, they said.
Stephens also emphasized the need for further flexibility, as current requests for application through DFPS don’t allow local entities to build a specialized system of care.
“You have to really make sure you trust the community,” Stephens said. “Let the local community, nonprofits and boards, let them tell you what's best for their children.”
Lawmakers also heard comments on the agency’s high turnover.
Jennifer Jones, executive director of the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, said a report by her office found that DFPS is facing a “crisis culture” that is distracting the agency from properly and effectively managing all of its critical functions.
Because the agency and lawmakers constantly respond to crises and criticism through new policies or new initiatives, it hinders caseworkers' ability to help children, she said. Jones said employees spend much of their day — about 74%, according to The Stephens Group — on paperwork and administrative duties rather than with children and families.
“DFPS really needed to get back to the basics and focus on managing the agency and its operations,” Jones said. “In particular, better managing its staff, listening to them, but also holding them accountable and streamlining its operations.”
Stephens said that Texas’ child welfare departments face the highest turnover in all the states with which he contracts.
While he pointed to the pandemic as a factor, he suggested that a culture of fear is one reason many leave the profession. Many employees said they believed they would be terminated if they made a decision the supervisor did not like, Stephens said.
He also said the state needs to invest in better case tracking and data collection so it can identify problems earlier and reward based on performance.
Lastly, Stephens asked lawmakers and agency leaders to be cognizant of who they select for community-based care programs, urging them to consider children ahead of costs.
“There's enough money in the system; you've got to be able to make sure it's used the right way,” Stephens said.
