Child advocates say recent tragedies in foster care, including the death of Christian Nieto, alarm them about what's coming next: full privatization of the system entrusted with more than 30,000 Texas children each year.
On Tuesday, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee will review how much progress state protective services agencies have made under last year's legislative overhaul. Chairwoman Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, has said she expects "lots of questions" about continuing problems, such as high caseworker turnover at Child Protective Services.
Texas already outsources four-fifths of the foster care system to private companies – both nonprofit and for-profit. Under a bill lawmakers passed last year, the private firms will recruit and train all foster parents and arrange all adoptions in Texas by 2011.
The state also plans to farm out the management of therapy for abused children, now handled by CPS caseworkers.
Under the plan, the state is supposed to select a private company in each region to be an "independent administrator" responsible for monitoring placement agencies and other service providers.
Currently, the state relies mostly on foster-care contractors to tell it when rules are violated.
"DFPS expects contractors to follow our rules and contract provisions," said Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the state Department of Family and Protective Services.
But Mr. Crimmins said there are other ways of watching contractors.
"While self-reporting is important, we get many reports from other sources, such as schools, caseworkers, and parents, and they are investigated," he said.
He said the department's move to revoke the license of Mesa Family Services, which placed Christian in foster care, "sends that message."
Mr. Crimmins said the Legislature last year gave the department money to conduct random inspections of foster homes, and about 1,300 have been conducted since February. The pace is intensifying, he said, and that "will improve oversight and increase the safety of children."
Mr. Crimmins said the department has revoked four other agencies' licenses in the past two years.
Susan Etheridge, who runs a Collin County nonprofit that tries to help abused children, said more privatization is just asking for trouble.
"The more layers of different agencies that you add, the more likely it is that the [CPS] caseworker isn't going to know what's happening with that agency," she said. "I'd be afraid about that."
In a recent one-month period, Texas recorded two tragedies involving privately run foster placement companies. In addition to Christian's death in Corsicana, there was the gruesome case of Andrew Burd on Oct. 3. The 4-year-old died of sodium poisoning after, officials allege, a Corpus Christi foster mother made him drink a mixture of water and Cajun seasoning as punishment.
The state says about 200 foster children are abused per year. An average of three children die annually from abuse or neglect at the hands of a foster caregiver.
Church-affiliated child-placing agencies, such as Buckner Baptist and Lutheran Social Services of the South, say they want tougher enforcement by the state, though the Lutheran agency and others strongly support the push for full privatization.
"We want the bad actors out of the system more than anybody because it hurts all of us," said Kurt Senske, chief executive officer of Lutheran Social Services, the state's No. 1 provider of foster-care services with about 1,500 foster children.
"If DFPS would focus on licensing and regulation, and ensuring that child-placing agencies were doing what they were asked to do, this [fully privatized] system could work," he said.
F. Scott McCown, an advocate for children and the poor, said he doubts the privatized system will have enough oversight, and that Christian's death should not go unheeded.
"Here we've got a case of the fox in the henhouse, and a tragedy resulting," Mr. McCown said. "And the current legislative plan? Give the entire henhouse over to the foxes, with outsourcing."
E-mail rtgarrett@dallasnews.com
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