Foster Care in Texas

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Texas politics leave transgender foster youth isolated — during and after life in state care

Story by William Melhado, Video and photos by Greta Díaz González Vázquez April 23, 2024

Support once afforded LGBTQ+ foster kids has vanished and a culture of silence has blanketed the agency tasked with raising children growing up in the system. Full Story 

Latest coverage

• Watch: Trans man who aged out of Texas foster care says politicians are vilifying LGBTQ+ kids

  By Greta Díaz González Vázquez April 26, 2024

  As Kayden Asher tumbled through several foster placements, Texas leaders intensified their efforts to regulate the lives of LGBTQ+ people. Full Story 

• Appeals court blocks $100,000 daily fine for Texas’ troubled foster care program

  By Karen Brooks Harper Updated: April 16, 2024

  Jack’s order to fine Texas Health and Human Services on Monday was the third time the state has been found in contempt over foster care conditions since 2011. Full Story 

• Facing pressure from judge, Texas reassigns workers to care for foster kids in unlicensed homes

  By Karen Brooks Harper Jan. 22, 2024

  The move is designed to reduce some of the rotating overtime shifts expected of agency caseworkers at group homes and motels, which have been criticized as dangerous for the children who live there. Full Story 

• Judge considers holding state in contempt a third time over foster care conditions

  By Karen Brooks Harper Dec. 4, 2023

  U.S. District Judge Janis Jack on Monday considers whether state’s foster care agency has made progress caring for most vulnerable children or should be held in contempt for the third time in an ongoing 2011 lawsuit. Full Story 

• Sex trafficking, drugs and assault: Texas foster kids and caseworkers face chaos in rental houses and hotels

  By Karen Brooks Harper Nov. 6, 2023

  A report from Department of Family and Protective Services watchdogs paints a picture of a roughshod safety-net system that is unprepared to protect its youthful charges from predators and unable to keep them from endangering themselves. Full Story 

• One-third of Texas foster care caseworkers left their jobs last year as the agency continued putting kids in hotels

  By Sneha Dey Sept. 26, 2023

  The Department of Family and Protective Services has increasingly relied on housing foster kids in hotels when it can’t find them a home. In the 2022 fiscal year, after record staff turnover, more than 1 in 4 caseworkers had less than one year of experience. Full Story 

• New Texas laws favor parents in child abuse investigations as legislators try to limit number of kids in foster care

  By Sneha Dey June 29, 2023

  Legislators also passed bills that will provide foster kids entering the troubled system with duffel bags or backpacks and those aging out of the system with help setting up bank accounts. Full Story 

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• Judge admonishes Texas foster care officials, saying they don’t properly monitor facilities housing kids

  By Sneha Dey Updated: June 27, 2023

  A U.S. district judge has long presided over a court case that found Texas’ foster care system unconstitutionally harms kids. Tuesday’s hearing was the first appearance by the state’s new team of defense attorneys. Full Story 

• Federal judge says Texas’ use of psychotropic drugs puts foster kids at serious risk

  By Sneha Dey Updated: April 12, 2023

  Residential facilities did not refill medications in a timely manner, failed to follow psychiatric orders and, in several instances, violated state guidelines, court monitors documented after site inspections. The lawyer representing the foster kids said it could be “the tip of the iceberg.” Full Story 

• Texas Senate votes to close employment loophole after Refuge foster care scandal

  By Sneha Dey April 3, 2023

  The upper chamber unanimously passed Senate Bill 182 after The Texas Tribune reported that a state-licensed foster care facility hired a caretaker whom the Texas Juvenile Justice Department previously fired for having inappropriate relationships with children. Full Story 

• Texans who take custody of their relatives’ kids struggle to make ends meet — and to get more aid from the state

  By Sneha Dey March 30, 2023

  Relative caregivers, like grandparents who want to keep kids out of foster care, usually get half as much state assistance as strangers who take in children. Full Story 

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• In abrupt retirement letter, an investigations director decries Texas’ “untenable” child welfare agency

  By Sneha Dey Updated: March 23, 2023

  Sharon Fonvielle-Baughman said Texas Department of Family and Protective Services leadership has failed to support the special investigators division, a unit created in 2005 to handle the most high-risk cases. Full Story 

• Caseworkers hampered by ’90s-era foster care software that the state hasn’t replaced

  By Sneha Dey March 22, 2023

  Caseworkers and foster care providers often get incomplete and inaccurate information about foster kids in their care because of the state child welfare agency’s archaic technology system. Full Story 

• Texas lawmakers move to close foster care hiring loopholes and expand rights of parents facing investigations

  By Sneha Dey Updated: June 1, 2023

  Bills that would give relative caregivers more money have missed key deadlines to make it in front of the full House. Full Story 

• Lawyers representing children in federal foster care lawsuit rebuked for hiring lobbyists

  By Sneha Dey Feb. 16, 2023

  Texas lawmakers and a federal judge say attorneys in the case against the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services should not hire lobbyists using funds won in court. Full Story 

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• How a 12-year-old federal lawsuit turned a judge into Texas’ foster care czar

  By Sneha Dey Updated: April 3, 2023

  As Judge Janis Jack continues to threaten contempt-of-court fines in a federal lawsuit against the state’s foster care system, advocates say the case has moved the needle on reform — but it has come with a hefty price tag. Full Story 

• Federal judge again threatens contempt-of-court fines for Texas’ slow progress on foster care reforms

  By Sneha Dey Jan. 27, 2023

  The judge warned the state could be held in contempt of court for not following through with three mandates: youths not knowing their rights, not adequately responding to abuse allegations and still having too many children without placement. Full Story 

• Texas should place more foster kids with families rather than in residential treatment, report finds

  By Sneha Dey Oct. 20, 2022

  Residential treatment centers are meant to be a last resort for children in the state’s care, reserved for those with histories of severe trauma caused by neglect or abuse. Full Story 

• Bastrop County grand jury declines to indict caretaker at center of The Refuge abuse scandal

  By Sneha Dey Sept. 29, 2022

  The grand jury said it did not find sufficient evidence to indict Iesha Greene, who was reported to have sold and solicited nude photos of children at the Bastrop shelter. Full Story 

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• Texas’ child welfare agency told staffers to keep quiet about gender-affirming care investigations, documents show

  By Sneha Dey Aug. 30, 2022

  Texas Department of Family and Protective Services leaders instructed employees to avoid written communications about the cases and barred low-level employees from handling the investigations, according to internal agency communications. Full Story