Local nonprofit might expand foster care role

Leaders of the Texas House and Senate, along with Gov. Greg Abbott, have taken strong positions that favor remaking the Texas foster care and Child Protective Services model along the lines of a system pioneered in Fort Worth.

That’s good news. The trail blazed by Fort Worth’s ACH Child and Family Services under a multiyear state Foster Care Redesign contract has shown sharply improved results in expanding the number of foster care providers, keeping foster children close to their homes and keeping siblings together.

Those things help produce better outcomes for foster kids and their families.

But the legislative session is still young, and there are many decisions yet to be made about how to improve Texas foster care, which a federal judge ruled a little over a year ago was so bad as to be harmful rather than helpful for many children.

The biggest decision, of course, is funding. Preliminary House and Senate budgets each would devote $3.2 billion to Child Protective Services, an increase of $260.1 million over the current two-year budget.

But this is a session short on dollars, so nobody knows until the final budget is approved what it will say.

Complicating that are discussions among lawmakers about how much responsibility to hand over to contractors like ACH under future Foster Care Redesign efforts.

There’s top-level agreement on expanding Foster Care Redesign beyond the seven-county Fort Worth region and contracting with providers like ACH in other parts of the state.

Under its contract, which expires at the end of August, ACH provides a foster care network, but Child Protective Services performs case management services — working with families and relatives, compiling needed information about kids, and, importantly, presenting information at court hearings on whether families should be reunited.

Discussions now include whether providers like ACH, being the closest to the children under care, shouldn’t take on more of the case-management responsibilities — and if so, how much the state will pay for that.

These are vital decisions for vulnerable Texas children. Fort Worth’s ACH is leading the way.

This story was originally published January 30, 2017 at 6:08 PM with the headline "Local nonprofit might expand foster care role."