Child Welfare Services
The Legislature's decision to move Texas child welfare toward community-based, family-centered service delivery was sound. Strengthening that approach is key.
House Committee on Human Services
Texas’ current approach to family stabilization and reunification is the product of policy direction set by the Legislature over more than a decade. The 82nd Legislature initiated "foster care redesign" in 2011 through Senate Bill 218 (Nelson | Dukes), directing DFPS to move toward community-based, regionally accountable service delivery, now known as Community-Based Care (CBC) and modeled after programs in states such as Florida. Florida had already pioneered this approach nationally, mandating the outsourcing of child welfare case management to community-based lead agencies beginning in 1996 and completing that statewide transition by the end of 2005. By 2018, the National Conference of State Legislatures noted Texas's redesign of child welfare case management matched the national trend of states contracting out case management, and it described Texas's community-based care system as similar to Florida's own privatized model, but with additional state protections and oversight.
In 2017, the Texas Legislature built on this foundation and formalized CBC in its current form with the passage of SB 11 (Schwertner | Frank). This bill expanded the foster care redesign required by SB 218 by gradually shifting each of the catchment regions of the state to contract with Single Source Continuum Contractors (SSCCs), qualifying nonprofit or government entities, to assume the statutory duties of the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS). The legislation’s bill analysis argued the change would address current concerns with high DFPS caseworker turnover and insufficient local decision-making authority to find appropriate placements for children in state care. In regions where CBC has been implemented, the SSCC is responsible for foster placement, kinship support, and related services within that region.
Read the full testimony in the link above.
