Today, the Texas Public Policy Foundation condemned the Department of Family and Protective Services for yet another failure to protect the children in its care. The horrific breaking news of the department’s mishandling of allegations that children in its care were sexually exploited at a shelter intended to protect victims of sex trafficking.
“Evil is the only word strong enough to describe what happened to these children the state was supposed to protect,” said TPPF’s Andrew Brown. “It has become abundantly clear that the issues plaguing the Texas foster care system and the glacially slow pace of change are the result of structural and cultural issues within the department. While we applaud Gov. Greg Abbott and the Legislature for their leadership on enacting reforms to fundamentally transform the Texas foster care system, more aggressive action is needed to ensure that these reforms are successful. We call on Gov. Abbott and the Legislature to engage an independent third-party tasked with completely restructuring DFPS and ensuring the timely implementation of legislative reforms.”
The Foundation commends Governor Abbott for his swift response in sending the Texas Rangers in to investigate, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick for quickly establishing a Special Committee on Child Protective Services tasked with getting to the bottom of the failures within DFPS, and House Speak Dade Phelan and Chairman James Frank for convening hearings to hold the department accountable.