Texas lawmakers passed bills imposing more accountability on foster care contractors as the state moves toward privatized management through regional rollouts.
DALLAS — As Texas lawmakers prepare to return to Austin for the Texas Legislature’s special session, child welfare stakeholders are celebrating a number of laws passed during the regular session that will go into effect later this year and one that’s already in effect.
Lawmakers passed multiple bills that directly impact community-based care, which is the state’s current plan to privatize foster care management through independent contractors through a region-by-region rollout. Currently, all but two of the state’s 16 defined regions, or catchment areas, are either fully under the private system or are preparing to enter full privatized case management.
The laws passed during the 89th Legislature require more accountability and transparency from the private contractors than what was previously required. New legislation creates more flexibility for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) or an outside court to intervene if necessary.
The New Laws
SB 2034, which went into effect immediately after being signed into law in May, allows for a court to intervene and appoint a receiver for a foster care contractor, “or any of its parts, divisions, components, or companies” if the contractor is unable to perform to the standards of its contract following improvement measures.
“I see this as really a baseline for protection and kind of a catch-all just ensuring that if we enter the worst case scenario, there is a mechanism and a path to getting all of the information, funding, and data back, and appointing a court to oversee that process,” Sarah Crockett, director of public policy for Texas Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) said.
Texas CASA and its local offices assign volunteer advocates to work with each child who is brought into the state’s foster care system.
“After the initial transition, a lot of our CASA programs have a had a very positive experience with community-based care and feel like they’re seeing really tangible improvements, and then I would say some parts of our state and our network have kind of seen some ongoing challenges and seeing things looking very similar to what things looked like under the state system.,” Crockett, who also volunteers as an advocate, said. “We’re sort of waiting for the promise of a new and better system that hopefully is still kind of a work in progress.”
SB 1398 creates a system of required reporting to help ensure that every viable option is explored to place children who have been removed from their homes before taking them into state care, whether they live in a region that is in community-based care or in traditional state-run foster care. The bill also requires DFPS to publish data based on performance measures, quality improvement plans and timelines for corrective action steps that exist for community-based care contractors to its website to create more transparency and accountability for the private groups. Additionally, when the law goes into effect on Sept. 1, it will require the creation of advisory committees for each contractor that are made up of community stakeholders.
HB 4129 requires DFPS to implement formal measures for ensuring the private foster care contractors are delivering high quality service, and HB 1598 gives DFPS the ability to take over case management for any or even all cases from a contractor if the department deems it necessary and gives the department the ability to give case management authority for any or all cases to another contractor. Both laws go into effect on Sept. 1.
“It became clear that if something were to go wrong, the state doesn’t actually have a lot of mechanisms to intervene or to take over or to transfer that contract,” Crockett said. “It’s going to allow the state to have better oversight and have more mechanisms for accountability, and at the end of the day that benefits the children and families that experiencing foster care in Texas.”
Also going into effect on Sept. 1 is SB 2032, which requires either DFPS or a private foster care contractor to give a six-month notice if they plan to terminate the contract. Previously, a contractor only had to give 60 days’ notice and DFPS could notify a contractor that it intended to terminate a contract 30 days before termination. Crockett said this extension will give DFPS more time to prepare if a termination is necessary.
North Texas Impact
While community-based care has expanded, in some stage, to a majority of the state, DFPS transitioned the largest number of children to the system last March when EMPOWER took over foster care case management for nine North Texas counties, including Dallas and Collin Counties.
The transition to privatized case management in the eastern part of the DFW Metroplex has been riddled with concerns about staff turnover, community awareness and placement capacity for children. Meanwhile, in the western portion of the area, Our Community Our Kids (OCOK) has been the contractor responsible for foster care management for Tarrant County and surrounding counties for more than a decade and added more counties last year.
EMPOWER’s transition was orchestrated much faster than the process in the Tarrant County area, and leadership admitted the organization suffered from not being able to recruit as many experienced staff from DFPS as they had expected.
“I think even they would acknowledge it’s been one of the rougher transitions to community-based care, for sure,” Crockett said.
It’s noteworthy that a majority of the lawmakers who authored and/or sponsored the legislation addressing community-based care represent areas that are under EMPOWER.
EMPOWER has denied and ignored interview requests to get an update on its status or to address concerns from community stakeholders since appointing a new vice president last summer but released this statement through its hired public relations firm in response to questions about the new legislation:
“At EMPOWER, we are dedicated to ensuring the safety and well-being of children in foster care. We support efforts made to strengthen the protections and resources for each child in the Dallas area and surrounding counties and provide the best services possible to the children and families in our care so that every child can grow up in a safe, supportive environment.”
Crockett said she believes the new laws give the state more authority, oversight and protection as it navigates a process that is understandably complicated.
“The legislature, I think, is still really supportive of community-based care and wants it to be successful,” Crockett said.“…I think it’s going to make community-based care stronger.”