The Latest Breaking News from DFPS

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.

Advocates say better accounting of deaf and hard-of-hearing children in the state’s care and better access to translators are needed.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services’ investigations division has seen record-high staff turnover, with 4 in 10 investigators leaving their jobs in 2022.

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.

Lawmakers were assured that outsourcing management of foster care services would fix the state’s troubled child welfare agency. But the rollout of the new model, set to be completed by 2029, has been complicated by setbacks.

The state legislature passed a law to limit anonymous reports to its child abuse hotline.

The legislation came after The Refuge, a Bastrop foster care facility, hired a caretaker without knowing she had a history of sexual misconduct with children at a state juvenile facility. Coworkers also concealed evidence of the abuse, which further put the foster girls at harm.

House Bill 63 is an attempt to reduce the amount of vindictive or false child abuse reports made to the state, but child advocates say it will deter valid reports, too.

The action came after The Refuge, a Bastrop foster care facility, hired a caretaker without knowing her history of misconduct.

"These things are just so inexcusable," a judge said. "It's hard to understand."

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.”