DALLAS COUNTY, Texas — The child welfare board for the county with the most children in foster care in North Texas received a long-awaited report at its July meeting which was held this week.
EMPOWER, a private non-profit collaborative that's been contracted by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, began fully managing foster care in Dallas, Collin, Grayson, Fannin, Kaufman, Ellis, Navarro, Hunt and Rockwall Counties at the beginning of March. In April, the Dallas County Child Welfare Board as well as the Dallas County Commission expressed frustration and confusion about a lack of relationship, collaboration, and transparency with the group.
Those concerns and frustrations came amidst reports from current and former EMPOWER caseworkers about staggeringly high caseloads, improper accommodations for children without placement and overwhelming work conditions.
This week- a change in tune.
Not only did the board receive a report on EMPOWER's current staffing numbers and child placement data, but the information was presented directly by EMPOWER Senior Vice President Dr. Linda Garcia.
"Part of the feedback from the committee is we needed someone to communicate, specifically me, what's happening with EMPOWER," Dr. Garcia told WFAA in an interview following the board meeting.
Dr. Garcia assured the board that EMPOWER is "looking to the fall, in September, for brighter days", after explaining that more than 70 staff members who are currently training to become caseworkers will finish their training in a couple of months.
EMPOWER has stated that a majority of the issues the organization has faced with its transition have been because of caseworker turnover. The organization says that has led to high caseloads and a host of other problems.
“We felt like we were ready," Dr. Garcia said. "We did not account for the number of DFPS employees who signed letters of intent but on that last week or month did not come over to us. That hurt us. That’s really…it’s the caseload that has hurt us the most.”
Dr. Garcia said that when a case worker is hired, there is a mandatory 13-week training academy they must go through before they're assigned a case. Then, they have a graduated caseload system, which means new caseworkers have to start off with a smaller number of cases before they can "graduate" to have a full caseload.
"In hindsight, I think 90 days prior to us going live, I would have had probably two classes of trainees waiting in the wings, but we were counting on the ones that signed their letter of intent," Dr. Garcia said.
At this week's meeting, Dr. Garcia's report showed that EMPOWER currently has 88 case workers who are able to work a full caseload, 20 who can work partial caseloads, 72 who are in training, and 10 who are awaiting case assignment certification.
"It just takes time," Dr. Garcia said.
Additionally, Dr. Garcia addressed the issue of having enough beds for children who need placements. She said the greatest barrier they are running into is that there are about 700 children from North Texas counties to the west of Dallas and Collin Counties, which are under a different company, that are placed in EMPOWER's region. While many of those children were placed with family members, a portion of them who have been placed in licensed foster homes are filling placements that would be available for children in EMPOWER's care.
"It's going to take time before we start seeing the opening of beds for our kids. If I can just ask the community to be patient with us," Dr. Garcia said.
EMPOWER said it still needs about 376 foster homes in Dallas County and is launching an awareness campaign to recruit more.
Dr. Angela Scheuerle, the chair of the board, said EMPOWER fulfilling the board's request for information is a step in the right direction.
"We anticipated the transition would be difficult….that there would be a lot of holes to plug and that there would be a lot of things to manage because it's not a simple system," Dr. Scheuerle said.
She said she assumed there would be "setbacks", but the priority of the board is to work with EMPOWER to provide solutions.
"I like that we seem to have a better collaboration than we have had previously," Dr. Scheuerle said.
According to EMPOWER's report to the board, the organization has about 2,267 children in its care as the counties it serves are seeing an uptick in the number of children removed from their homes.
"It is a monumental task, and this is the largest community-based care launch for the whole state of Texas," Dr. Garcia said.
Dallas County
EMPOWER says 1,624 of the children in its care, more than 70%, are from Dallas County.
The average age of a child in foster care from Dallas County is seven years old, which is also the average age of a child that foster homes in Dallas County will accept.
The report shows that 707 children who were removed from homes in Dallas County were placed in Dallas County, in addition, 396 of them were placed in the eight other counties making up EMPOWER's region and 415 of them were placed out of the region.
It's important to note that nearby counties like Tarrant, Denton, Wise, Parker, Cooke, Hood and Johnson Counties that are in North Texas are under a different foster care provider, Our Community Our Kids (OCOK), and are considered to be a different region. Children who are placed in those counties are considered to be out-of-region. DFPS focuses on keeping children within 50 miles of their home.
An accurate look at the state of foster care in North Texas's most populated county is helpful for the board created to serve the children in the system, and a sign that positive change could be on the way.
"I'm optimistic," Dr. Scheuerle said.
While the data in EMPOWER's report was specifically for Dallas County, WFAA requested the same data for the other eight counties EMPOWER serves. This is the information that was provided on July 18, 2024.
Collin County
Number of children in care: 245
Number of children placed in the region: 166
Number of children placed out of the region: 73
Average age of child removed: 7.8 years old
Average age foster homes are accepting: 8 years old
Ellis County
Number of children in care: 64
Number of children placed in the region: 43
Number of children placed out of the region: 7
Average age of child removed: 7 years old
Average age foster homes are accepting: 8 years old
Fannin County
Number of children in care: 20
Number of children placed in the region: 13
Number of children placed out of the region: 5
Average age of child removed: 9 years old
Average age foster homes are accepting: 1.5 years old
Grayson County
Number of children in care: 92
Number of children placed in the region: 66
Number of children placed out of the region: 23
Average age of child removed: 8 years old
Average age foster homes are accepting: 1.5 years old
Hunt County
Number of children in care: 86
Number of children placed in the region: 66
Number of children placed out of the region: 11
Average age of child removed: 7 years old
Average age foster homes are accepting: 8 years old
Kaufman County
Number of children in care: 73
Number of children placed in the region: 45
Number of children placed out of the region: 24
Average age of child removed: 7 years old
Average age foster homes are accepting: 8.3 years old
Navarro County
Number of children in care: 34
Number of children placed in the region: 25
Number of children placed out of the region: 8
Average age of child removed: 6 years old
Average age foster homes are accepting: 7 years old
Rockwall County
Number of children in care: 29
Number of children placed in the region: 20
Number of children placed out of the region: 13
Average age of child removed: 8 years old
Average age foster homes are accepting: 6.9 years old