A Texas legislator, who authored the bills passed two years ago to reform the foster care system in the state, says that not enough progress has been made. Those bills authorized increased spending to hire more investigators for child abuse cases.
She has now introduced additional legislation to extend foster care rules and regulations. Last year, almost 35,000 children went through the state’s foster care organization and there are 20,000 or so children in the system at any given time. Her bills would improve the care that these children receive.
Her legislation, if passed, would mandate that more inspections be made of foster care homes. It also would require that more background work be done before a child is placed in a home. It has become obvious that in the present system, children are placed in homes in an almost haphazard style.
The proposed bill would require that full investigations be made when any serious incident happens in a foster home. This proposal comes after revelations of children being placed in homes where their safety was in grave jeopardy. The legislation also authorizes the hiring of more safety and risk factor professionals to assess proposed foster care facilities.
There has been a public outcry over the scandalous revelations of severe abuse occurring in state licensed foster homes. These disclosures have stirred up public opinion. What a deplorable situation it is for a child, who has been abused or neglected seriously enough to be removed from their own home, to then be even more seriously abused in a home provided by the state to take care of them.
I applaud the proposed legislation and I hope it passes. Yes, it is a good idea to have better oversight over licensing. And, of course it is an excellent thing to provide better investigation of child abuse whether it happens in the child’s home or in a foster home.
The real problem is that there are not enough qualified people willing to take foster children into their care. Most of these kids will bring very serious problems with them. It is extremely hard work with little reward. No matter how many investigators or analysts are hired, someone still has to be willing to do the day-to-day work with the children. That problem has not yet been addressed.