Senate panel OKs far-ranging privatization of Texas CPS workers duties

[TexasTowelie]

AUSTIN — A Senate panel has endorsed a sweeping child welfare privatization measure that in future years could outsource most of what Child Protective Services does beyond initial investigations of child-maltreatment reports.

Under the bill, Texas would embrace a new "community-based care" method for procuring beds and therapies for abused and neglected kids.

It differs in at least two key respects from the "foster care redesign" approach that has produced some good initial results after more than two years of effort in Tarrant and six nearby counties:

Employees of a private, nonprofit entity would take over the job duties of CPS "conservatorship caseworkers." Currently, the CPS employees work with foster children and their birth families and report on their progress to judges.

The nonprofit picked to run community-based care in a region also would do what CPS "kinship care" workers do — track children who've been removed from their homes and placed with relatives or family friends, not in foster care.

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/child-protective-services/2017/02/22/senate-panel-okays-far-ranging-privatization-texas-cps-workers-duties