The latest Child Protective Services news from The Texas Tribune.
Child Protective Services officials got an earful on Wednesday at a Senate hearing on improving the caseworker retention rates in rural communities. And they got a minor scolding from Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville. Full Story
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Experts speculate that a key factor in the increase in reports of child abuse and neglect is the struggling economy. The number of reported cases of abuse has grown 6 percent in Texas since 2008, before the recession. Full Story
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In this episode of Weekend Insider, Claire Cardona explains the rise in the state's need for foster care, and Brandi Grissom introduces us to a family accused of murder. Full Story
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Anne Heiligenstein, the commissioner of the Department of Family and Protective Services, is retiring from the agency after three years. Full Story
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More than 2,000 people listed in a statewide database of people who mistreat children are caught in a backlog of cases waiting for appeals, many with their careers and families hanging in the balance. Full Story
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Attorney General Greg Abbott and former first lady Laura Bush are leading an effort to recruit more court-appointed special advocates for foster kids. With 42,000 children in the system, Gretch Sanders of KUT News reports on the growing need for so-called CASA volunteers. Full Story
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“Dear future son,” the North Texas father wrote in a prospective adoption letter. “I am a single dad who adopted a middle school boy in 2008. Now we are looking for one more kid so he will have a brother.” Instead, the father got shocking news: He would not be allowed to adopt again because his son is on a state registry of people who abuse children. Full Story
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The budget draft filed last week provided the first glimpse at the kind of deep cuts that state agencies could see in the next biennium. As Matt Largey of KUT News reports, advocates are particularly worried about what the final budget could hold for the agency that protects children from abuse and neglect. Full Story
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The Texas judicial system can do a better job handling the cases of kids in long-term foster care, according to a study released today by Texas Appleseed. Full Story
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The state has shut down Daystar Residential Inc. in Manvel, the facility where The Texas Tribune and the Houston Chronicle revealed that staff had forced young girls with disabilities to fight each other. Full Story
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When foster kids bounce from placement to placement, they leave their belongings with state child welfare workers — where advocates say they often get misplaced, given to the wrong child or even stolen. Full Story
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Warren Jeffs has made it to Texas. The embattled leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — the polygamous Mormon breakaway sect whose Eldorado ranch was raided by child welfare officials in 2008 — will stand trial in San Angelo for allegedly sexually assaulting a child. Full Story
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The same Houston-area residential treatment center where staffers forced disabled girls to fight each other — prompting child welfare officials to halt admissions and hire a safety monitor — is now under fire for the asphyxiation of a 16-year-old boy who died Friday after a restraint was applied by a staffer in a closet. Full Story
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A new report details an undercover investigation of federally funded child care subsidy programs by the GAO in five states, including Texas. The GAO determined that the Texas program was vulnerable to fraud. Full Story
The commissioner of the state's Department of Family and Protective Services talked to the Tribune about the planned redesign of Texas' foster care system — one she hopes will keep kids close to home and connected to their siblings and reduce their time in state custody. Full Story
A teenage girl in foster care who collapsed at a Houston-area residential treatment center about a month ago has died. Full Story
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