Last year, more than 200 Texas children died with nearly half having open Child Protective Service case files.
On Monday, a group of Texas senators are going to start working on the agency leaders say is in the middle of a crisis. The meeting is to go over funding for CPS that is in desperate need of hiring caseworkers to keep up with the demand.
News broke in 2016 that CPS responded too late or not at all to hundreds of reports of abuse every day. Almost 50 children enter the state’s foster care system every day. Last year, more than 1,000 children aged out of the system without finding a home.
“The most important action we can take to protect our children is resolving our caseworker retention issue — and that has been the primary focus of the Senate. Our work is far from over and rest assured CPS will remain under a microscope as these funds are expended,” said Lt. Governor Dan Patrick in a joint statement with top Senators who will watch over the implementation of the money and reforms.
In October, Department of Public Safety troopers were sent in to help with the CPS backlog. KXAN found that in the first two weeks, more than 100 DPS agents spent more than 800 hours of overtime responding to calls. Eight children were removed from possible deadly situations.
(Information from KXAN.com)
