Decades of abuse, neglect and death have resulted in a Federal Judge ordering Texas to fix its broken Foster Care program. Judge Janis Graham Jack says the system is turning out kids more broken than when they went in and earlier this month ordered the state to overhaul a program that houses 12,000 children.
Impossible workloads for the Department of Family and Protective Services case workers have resulted in high turnover rates, lackluster investigations, and kids being shuttled around often and unsafely.
DFPS for its part offered the following statement:
"We are disappointed with the ruling, and will be filing an appeal, because great progress has been achieved improving our foster care system. Texas performs comparably with other states in this area, and has steadily improved. The children in our care come to us after suffering horrific abuse and neglect, and we use all available state resources to protect and nurture them. We will continue our daily work to find permanent homes for all of our foster children."
Many of these issues have been highlighted before on The Source.
Guest:
- Christina Wilson Remlin, senior staff attorney at Children's Rights Inc., a national watchdog organization advocating on behalf of abused and neglected children in the U.S. They launched the case against the state of Texas and are currently suing several other states for similar reasons.
