The staffing changes are designed to make it so that regular caseworkers aren’t expected to work overtime rotations to care for the children without placement.
The result was unsafe conditions rife with violence, abuse and neglect. Prior court hearings have revealed that they have lived in unlicensed facilities and were supervised in as many as six shifts a day by a rotation of already overworked DFPS caseworkers instead of trained medical professionals. Those children, known as children without placement, can be as young as 10 but are often teens with complex trauma and behavioral needs.
Stephanie Muth, commissioner of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, told a federal district judge in Corpus Christi on Monday that her agency has trained about 30 experienced caseworkers to focus full-time on caring for children who have been removed from their homes but for whom the state has no licensed facility to place them.
( TEXAS TRIBUNE ) - Texas child welfare officials are reassigning staff to focus on monitoring the unlicensed motels and rental homes that house some of the most vulnerable children in the foster-care system - a move officials said Monday is the latest attempt to comply with a years-old court order to keep those children safer.
