DALLAS — The state department that is responsible for finding placement and care for abused and neglected children in Texas has been quietly rolling out a region-by-region plan to privatize its work for more than a decade.
It’s called Community-Based Care (CBC), and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) moved nine counties in North Texas into the first phase of the plan this month.
Historically, Child Protective Services (CPS), which is a branch of DFPS, has maintained a staff of case workers and other placement and adoption specialists who work with the organizations that contract with the state to provide the services and housing the children need.
So how will this privatization work?
Here's what we know about the rollout:
What is Community-Based Care?
The state’s privatization plan is to contract large non-profit organizations, or Single Source Continuum Contractors (SSCCs), to take over the placement and case management for all of the children who have been recovered from abusive homes within the region they are hired to serve. Instead of the state directly working with the providers, the SSCC will use its own employees to work with those providers, while the DFPS shifts into a supervisor role.
On Sept. 1, Dallas, Collin, Grayson, Fannin, Hunt, Kaufman, Ellis, Navarro and Rockwall counties, which make up DFPS’ Region 3 East (3E), were moved into what the state calls “Phase 1” of Community-Based Care under a company called "EMPOWER."
“We’re becoming more of an oversight agency who is overseeing the work as opposed to doing the work and making decisions about the work,” Kimberely Carter, DFPS 3E regional director, said. “Right now, with the region, we are shifting our point of view of how we’re looking at this work.”
Carter said allowing private non-profits to manage placement and services for foster children creates more flexibility that the state currently does not have for making decisions and shifting resources.
“Even if we [DFPS] see something that needs to be changed, something that does not impact safety, there are still layers that we would have to go through to make those changes,” Carter said. “They [EMPOWER] will have the ability to make those changes immediately.”
What is EMPOWER?
EMPOWER is a network of large non-profit organizations that have been either recruiting and licensing foster families, managing foster placement, facilitating adoptions, and/or managing residential or treatment facilities in North Texas for years.
The organization is led by its parent company, Kansas-based Texas Family Initiative, and supported by four other big players in child welfare in North Texas. Those organizations are CK Family Services, Jonathan’s Place, The Bair Foundation and Pathways Youth & Family Services.
Senior Vice President Dr. Linda Garcia said EMPOWER’s first step was to build bonds with those well-established non-profits to create that network. Now, in Phase 1, the focus is on expanding.
“In Stage 1, our hope and dream is that we will build a solid network of providers that will help to care for the children and families that are within our network,” Garcia said.
Phases 1 and 2
Garcia said, in Phase 1, EMPOWER started making the payments to all of the entities providing paid foster care services. She said they also started handling placement services for all children taken into state custody after September 1.
Garcia said Phase 1 is mostly an administrative shift.
“Hopefully there will be minimal disruption to the network,” Garcia said.
Phase 2, which is scheduled to be rolled out by March 1, 2024, is when EMPOWER plans to have fully taken over case management for all of the children in the region.
“We will be taking over the work with the families,” Garcia said. “So, the families that have had their children removed, we will be working with to develop those services, whether it’s drug treatment or mental health services.”
In 2017, the state legislature created the Office of Community-Based Care Transition (OCBCT) to work with DFPS and SSCCs in transition to CBC.
“Families won’t see the impact until Stage 2,” Esmeralda Silva, implementation director for OCBCT, said. “That’s when they may experience a case manager change.”
Shifting Staff
While the entity that manages and implements foster care in Texas is changing, the work itself will be the same. This means the people who have gained expertise in case management, finding the right placement for children and working to facilitate adoptions are crucial to the success of the process.
These CPS workers have historically been employed by the state.
Carter said DFPS has 778 positions designated to Region 3E.
“450 are going over in the transfer,” Carter said.
Carter said 49 of the positions transitioned on Sept.1 and admitted this is not an easy change for many members of her staff.
“There are people who are grieving because this is a major transition for them, and they’ve been with the state for a long time,” Carter said. “And there are people who are very excited about the move. I am encouraging everyone to go over. I am encouraging everyone to have a positive attitude, and I am encouraging them that if they want to continue doing this very important work that this is where it will be.”
While there are CPS workers who have opted to retire, move to other departments in DFPS or seek other employment instead of going to EMPOWER, Carter said there are also people who have retired early to receive their state benefits and transitioned over to start working for EMPOWER.
Two weeks into Phase 1, the spokesperson said EMPOWER said the organization still had a few open positions online for the first phase and was beginning to hire for the 449 positions budgeted for Phase 2.
“We’re still interviewing the existing staff that are in the FAD (Foster Adoptive Home Development) Unit and the CPU (Centralized Placement Unit) to entice them and hope they come over to us,” Garcia said.
When it comes to current CPS case workers, Garcia said EMPOWER will take anyone who chooses to transition over.
Critics of CBC have stated that the plan leaves affected state employees out to dry because private entities don’t offer the benefits of a state job.
“The salaries are competitive; however, it is in the private world. Our SSCCs cannot compete with the state benefits. It’s really hard,” Silva said.
When asked how EMPOWER’s salary offers compare to what current DPFS employees are making, Garcia said the “intent” is to pay the case workers what they are currently making with the state but added that “in some cases” they may not be able to.
Why CBC?
While there are still more steps that need to be taken, including staffing, the state’s hope is that creating a more region-specific approach to caring for children will produce better outcomes.
“If we have CBC, that means that the community gets involved,” Carter said. “The community wraps its arms around its own children, and we take care of them here instead of them having to go to all of these others places to get their needs met. It allows families to be closer together. It allows youth to stay in their own school districts in their communities, where they are comfortable.”
Historically, there have been a host of issues when it comes to placing children out of the region, separating them from their siblings and even housing them in unlicensed locations like hotels because there isn’t anywhere for them to go.
“There’s currently about 20 percent of our children who are currently placed outside of the community, and for us, it’s trying to identify that 20 percent and bring them back home,” Garcia said.
Garcia said, as it works to expand its network, EMPOWER is prioritizing building capacity to house children who are harder to find placements for. This group of children is commonly referred to Children Without Placement, or CWOP.
“What we’re seeing is that there is a certain number of children that are sleeping in hotels, called CWOP,” Garcia said. “The biggest need for us is to get enough child placing agencies with their licensed and trained families to take in that children that are currently in those situations.”
According to Silva, other regions that are already under CBC have seen success when it comes to CWOP numbers.
"We see that report come in daily, and they have zero. Zero, compared to our legacy system," Silva said.
While leaders in this transition expressed hope that it will change the system, the actual move to implement CBC was mandated by state lawmakers.
History of CBC
Formerly known as Foster Care Redesign, the program was renamed Community-Based Care (CBC) and expanded by the Texas Legislature.
It was initially introduced in 2011 in response to a lawsuit, which is still ongoing, filed by attorneys representing children were in the state’s care against the State of Texas for the deficiencies in the system.
In 2015, Judge Janis Jack, the federal judge who presides over the case, ruled the state was violating the constitutional rights of Texas’ foster children by not keeping them safe and laid out a number of measures the state had to meet in other to avoid being in contempt of court. Jack also allowed for the state's plan to privatize.
Texas lawmakers voted in 2017 to rename Foster Care Redesign to Community-Based Care. They also expanded the scope of the privatization to include case management and restructured the payment levels for providing foster care.
Other CBC Regions in North Texas
There are about 16 regions designated by DFPS to be transitioned to CBC. Seven of them, including Region 3E, already have CBC plans that are actively rolling out. Five of the regions have been proposed for CBC implementation, which means the state has issued a request for application (RFA) from interested SSCCs.
The 19 counties that make up North Texas, are considered Region 3. The state divided the region into three parts:
Region 3E (Metroplex East): Dallas, Collin, Grayson, Fannin, Hunt, Kaufman, Ellis, Navarro and Rockwall Counties
Region 3B (Metroplex West): Tarrant, Johnson, Parker, Hood, Somervell, Erath and Palo Pinto Counties
Region 3W (Metroplex West): Denton, Cooke and Wise Counties
Region 3B has been in CBC since July 2014. This was the first region to be moved under the new system. The SSCC is Region 3B is Our Community Our Kids (OCOK), which is touted as having had success in finding placements and successful permanent adoptions for children in the region.
Meanwhile, in Region 3W, DFPS issued an RFA for SSCC’s interesting in contracting with the state to manage foster care for the three counties.
Though divided for CBC, it’s important to note that Region 3 as a whole has more children in state care than any other DFPS region.
According to a readiness report created to assess the CBC transition in Region 3E, Dallas County has the 5th highest number of children in state custody.
Silva said bringing Region 3E into CBC will bring about 25 percent of Texas foster children into the new system.
“Twenty five percent of our child population is already in community-based care. We’re about to be in 50 percent,” Silva said. “This is our largest area we’ve transitioned yet. We have over 1,000 children we are transitioning. Historically, I think our largest number has been about 600 children who have transitioned from being under the DFPS system and those contracts and being under the SSCC.”
DFPS said it will act as an overseer for EMPOWER, like with all SSCCs, and that the organizations will be assessed on data and outcomes for the children. Unlike the contracts under the legacy DFPS system, the contracts with the SSCCs are performance-based.
When asked how the community will know if CBC is successful in Region 3E, Silva said the stories of children will hold that answer.
“My hope that as we move this system from this one-size-fits- all to this community-driven work…that we allow children to heal in the space they feel safe,” Silva said. “My hope is that we’re changing the system.”