Texas Court Monitor Of Child Welfare Settlement Finds Ongoing Deficiencies

On June 15, 2020, the first court monitor’s report in the Texas child welfare settlement found ongoing deficiencies in the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) maltreatment investigations and data systems. The monitors said the state’s child protection system is “disjointed,” and is inefficiently and unsafely divided between two state agencies where harm to children is overlooked, ignored, or forgotten at critical times.

Between August 1, 2019 and January 31, 2020, the DFPS child maltreatment hotline received 372,897 calls, and during this period,18% of calls (65,786) were abandoned by the caller. About one-fifth . . .