The Broken US Foster Care System

HNewsWire-The foster care system is broken. Children go from house to house never knowing what home really means. They are taught that it’s best not to make friends because within a short period of time they’ll leave your life forever. Children have trust issues because of this broken system; they are torn from whatever family they have left; they are given the feeling that they are not important or wanted or loved. The foster care system is broken. Children spend years going from one foster home to another, being traded between social workers like a game of hot potato. The foster care system is broken, it was made in a different time and now needs to be modernized and fixed to today’s issues.

The overpopulation is the lack of personal attention received. Speaking on a strictly psychological basis, it is often the case that children in foster homes have gone through tragic ordeals and need more attention than a children with a relatively normal life would need; however often they receive less and do not have the “parental” figure that they need to rely on. There are stories of children running away and being brought back by the police only to realize the foster parents didn’t realize they were gone because they were too busy with all of the others they are responsible for. The original purpose of having foster parents was to give them this parental figure they could look up to, however, because of the surfeit of children this is not feasible or practical.

By Rep. Michelle Caldier 
April 18, 2017

Our foster care system is broken. I should know because I was in foster care as a child.

When I was nine years old, my mother married a man who turned out to be a monster. He gave me my first black eye in the fifth grade, which left my teachers with no choice but to call Child Protective Services. After conducting an investigation, I was removed from my home and put in foster care.

When I returned home after some time, my stepfather proceeded to sexually abuse me. He didn’t like when I pushed him away, so he hurt me. Over and over again.

I eventually got the courage to talk to my caseworker about what I had been experiencing, but she didn’t believe me, so the abuse continued. Instead of showing compassion and taking steps to intervene, she turned a blind eye to some of the worst abuses imaginable. Perhaps most appalling is that instead of being reprimanded, she received a promotion and is still working with children today.

I wish I could say the neglect I experienced was unique, but this has been happening to foster children for years..

Texas:

A federal judge has ruled Texas will continue to need oversight of how it cares for vulnerable children, even after sweeping legislative changes last year.

In a 116-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Janis Jack ruled on Friday afternoon that Texas leaders will remain under the watchful eye of appointed special masters for three years as they implement more policies for how abused and neglected children are protected. That direction is necessary, she said, because the state has failed to address the system’s problems “despite decades of awareness and extensive reports.”

“Years later, the system remains broken and [Department of Family and Protective Services] has demonstrated an unwillingness to take tangible steps to fix the broken system,” Jack wrote.

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Hours after the ruling, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, filed an appeal.

“The judge and the special masters acted outside of their legal authority and ordered a plan that is both incomplete and impractical,” Paxton said in a statement.

The ruling comes more than two years after Jack initially ruled that the state’s foster care system violated children’s civil rights. Texas Department of Family and Protective Services officials have been working with federal appointed special masters to evaluate how the state does with overseeing the child welfare system.

The ruling is a major blow to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and legislators who rallied to come up with numerous child welfare bills during the 2017 Legislative session. Abbott, Paxton, and state lawmakers have previously expressed dismay about federal interference — and were adamant that the state does not need oversight to overhaul the Department of Family and Protective Services.

“Texas has a solemn responsibility to care for children removed from their homes due to neglect and abuse of all kinds, and last year the Legislature approved landmark changes in the foster care system,” Paxton said, explaining why the state will fight the ruling. “When unelected judges improperly assume control of state institutions, Texas officials cannot make the policy they’ve been entrusted to make.”

That appeals process is likely to take at least a year, and in the meantime, the state must comply with the court’s orders.

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Paul Yetter, a Houston-based attorney and lead trial counsel for the foster youth, called the state’s appeal hasty and misguided.

“This case is all about the children, and the state is focused on politics,” Yetter said. “We have faith in the 5th Circuit that this careful ruling will be upheld.”

The ruling ordered the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services to make a top-down overhaul of the way it works with children and families, and then report on its progress to the federal court. Changes include giving caseworkers a limit of 14 to 17 caseloads; staggering the number of caseloads for new hires, and hiring more staff.

The department was also ordered to see top-priority children within 24 hours of when they were taken by Child Protective Services; mark in children’s records if the children have been sexually abused; write a policy on what constitutes child-on-child sexual abuse, and no longer have children sleep in CPS offices overnight. If any children do spend a night in an office, the agency will be required to log in for a monthly report to the special masters.

DFPS referred a request for comment to Paxton’s office.

Madeline McClure, CEO of the advocacy group TexProtects-Champions for Children, praised the ruling.

“The court has provided a roadmap for needed fixes — now it’s time to implement it,” she said in a statement Friday. “We must put the safety of our children first.”

State leaders and legislators have faced continued criticism for how they’ve handled the agency’s troubles. Headline after headline described a state child welfare system stretched thin, with children sleeping in state offices and, in some cases, dying on the state’s watch.

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In October 2016, Abbott, Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, pressured both the department and legislators to make long-awaited changes to how the state helps children recover from abuse and find better-living situations.

Legislators rallied with funding and bills. They gave the agency $150 million in emergency funds in December 2016 to offer higher salaries and hire more caseworkers. For the 2018-19 state budget, the Department of Family and Protective Services received $4 billion — up from $3.5 billion for the previous two-year cycle. That includes about $300 million to continue pay raises for caseworkers and another $88 million to more than 1,000 caseworkers over the next two years.

The department also has $95 million to boost payments to foster care families and other providers. The agency has touted that extra funding has boosted morale among workers and helped them see more children in a timely manner.

Abbott expressed confidence when he signed a series of child welfare bills in May that Jack would “look at what Texas has accomplished” with the legislation and improvements the department had made.

Jack wrote in her ruling that officials’ remedies “are indeed admirable.” But, she wrote, “policies not practiced are of no value, and voluntary conduct of a defendant after the beginning of a suit cannot deprive a court of the power to order relief.”

She also wrote that state officials have “taken minimal steps” to work with special masters to craft policies and were “limiting their participation in providing requested information.”

StevieRay Hansen
HNewsWire Editor

HNewsWire- “All political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” Just look at some of our modern-day examples: torture is “enhanced interrogation techniques”; murder is “collateral damage”; the aggression initiation of war is a “pre-emptive strike”; the theft of taxpayers’ money is a “bailout”, and the theft of depositors’ money in a bank is a “haircut” or “bail-in”.In a blatant example of Newspeak, the New World Order controllers (through the psychiatric DSM V) have tried to rename pedophiles as “minor-attracted persons” and redefine pedophilia as “sexual orientation”. This makes no sense since sexual orientation has to do with gender, not age, with whether you are attracted to males or females, not how old they are. There are even organizations (like B4UAct.org) which are claiming that pedophiles are being unfairly stigmatized for their feelings! Psychiatry, it should also be noted, has a history of inventing fictitious diseases such as ADHD (as admitted by its inventor on his deathbed by Leon Eisenberg).

It is impossible to find anyone in the Bible who was a power for God who did not have enemies and was not hated.

Please help me help these kids(orphans) that are in trouble, PLEASE 80% of the book sales goes directly to https://the127.org

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“It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error. It is better to speak the truth that hurts and then heals, than falsehood that comforts and then kills. Let me tell you something, friend, it is not love and it is not friendship if we fail to declare the whole counsel of God. It is better to be hated for telling the truth than to be loved for telling a lie. It is impossible to find anyone in the Bible who was a power for God who did not have enemies and was not hated. It’s better to stand alone with the truth, then to be wrong with a multitude. It is better to ultimately succeed with the truth than to temporarily succeed with a lie. There is only one Gospel and Paul said, ‘If any man preaches any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”

Proverbs 31:8 (NIV)
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute

MY MISSION IS NOT TO CONVINCE YOU, ONLY TO INFORM…

Jesus come quick, there is nothing left in society that’s sacred….

Evil Exists So Spiritual Warfare Becomes Necessary!

Evil men don’t understand the importance of justice, but those who follow the Lord are much concerned about it. ~ Proverbs 28:5

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