THE EYES OF TEXAS CHILDREN ARE UPON US:
Child Welfare Reforms Mean More Children Need Homes, So What Can the Bar Do to Help?

By CHARLOTTE D. BOOKER, CATHY O. MORRIS
and PAMELA K. PARKER

Every year thousands of Texas families step forward to adopt a child, sometimes adopting two or more siblings at the same time. Adoption gives a child a second chance to have that most simple but far from universal experience — growing up in a family. Leaving behind an institution, a group home or a series of foster homes, a child who is adopted has the best opportunity to forge the permanent, stable bonds that are essential to healthy human development.
The concerted efforts of child advocates, legislators and judges in recent years have eliminated many of the hurdles that often prevented children from exiting foster care to a more permanent future as quickly as possible. The many successes in this campaign, profiled below, have only fueled the momentum to expand and improve Texas’ ability to give every child a chance to find permanency. While international adoptions have grown in popularity over the past few years, many Texans are not aware of the increasing number of children available for adoption in our own state. These are the children in the care of Child Protective Services (“CPS”), a division of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (“FPS”). As of April 2004, there were 4,151 children whose parental rights had been terminated, waiting in the care of FPS for an adoptive home.1

Federal Call to Action
The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA)2, passed by Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support in November 1997, made clear that the safety, permanency, and well-being of children in the child welfare system is a national priority. Core changes in the law brought about by ASFA reflect basic tenets of child welfare policy:
• Child safety must be the paramount concern;
• Foster care is not a place for children to grow up;
• Permanency planning, including quality services for families,
   should begin as soon as a child enters foster care;
• The child welfare system must be accountable; and
• Complex child welfare issues require innovative solutions.

The Leading Edge
Even before Congress enacted ASFA, the Texas Legislature was making strides to streamline the CPS litigation process. In 1997 and again in 1999, the Legislature passed significant new legislation focused primarily on Texas Family Code, Chapters 262 and 263.3 The result is a strict timeframe that requires —

• An Emergency Hearing at or near day one (the day the child is taken into possession)4
• An Adversary Hearing at or near day 145;
• A Status Hearing at or near day 606;
• An Initial Permanency Hearing at or near day 1807;
• A second Permanency Review Hearing within 120 days of the first8;
• A Final Order before the one year anniversary of the case
   (unless a single 180 day extension is granted)9;
• A Placement Review Hearing at or near the 180th day following a final order and every 180
    days thereafter until the child is either adopted or ages out.10

These timeframes have added incentives to address CPS cases with as much precision as possible at the outset to ensure that permanency goals, including adoption, can be met. In the intervening years both Congress and the Texas Legislature have enacted additional child welfare innovations, including increased protections for children who leave foster care as independent youth,11 accelerated appeals for child welfare cases12 and, most recently, new standards of practice for attorneys and advocates who represent children.13

Creative Solutions
The number of conferences, pilot projects, and new resources dedicated to improving child welfare practice in Texas is also encouraging. Every year the Children’s Justice Act of Texas14 (“CJA”) hosts a conference with nationally renowned speakers on medical, legal and psychological topics. State of the art information on child battering, sexual assault, fractures, burns, shaken baby syndrome, forensic dentistry, starvation of children, new state and federal legislation, case law updates, pre-trial and post-trial strategies, ethical issues, discovery, jury charges, and expert witnesses, among many others, give prosecutors and judges the best tools available to litigate child abuse and neglect cases.
CJA has also funded grants to support mediation and Family Group Conferencing projects. As in family law in general, the use of mediation in CPS cases has the advantage of settling cases in a collaborative, non-adversarial environment. Families can feel empowered to make critical decisions about their children, avoiding litigation that can be costly, both financially and emotionally. Beginning in 1997 with six mediation programs, ten more programs were started thereafter. The results have been impressive. Beyond resolving cases more quickly, participants report that the mediation process provides an opportunity to be heard, an increase in agreements for visitation or communication between natural and adoptive parents and savings in both time and money.
Similarly, the initial CJA sponsored Family Group Conferencing project was so successful that it is now being incorporated into CPS practice. The model is based on a New Zealand initiative originally designed to meet the needs of the Maori indigenous people. The concept is to encourage involvement by extended families in resolving child abuse and neglect cases as a way of finding unique and culturally sensitive ways to meet a child’s needs.
The Cluster Courts project, administered by the Court Improvement Project,15 has also been a highly successful effort to equip courts to better serve children. First started in 1997, there are now Cluster Courts covering 111 Texas counties and 39.8 percent of the state geographically. Modeled on the judges who once traveled a circuit to serve across a broad span of the country, Cluster Courts allow less populated counties to jointly funnel child abuse and neglect cases to a single docket that provides the cases with exclusive priority. The judge who presides over these cases is able to specialize, develop expertise in the field and, without civil and criminal cases competing for space on the docket, devote the time necessary to adjudicate what are often complex cases. When a child’s safety, family ties, and future are at stake, this investment of judicial expertise and time is well spent.
The FPS Legal Division also provides resources for local prosecutors and judges litigating child welfare cases. First produced in 1997, the Attorney Desk Reference is a comprehensive roadmap of permanency legislation, with sample scripts, practice tips and articles on specific practice issues targeted for the prosecutor. Similarly, the Legal Forms Manual offers model pleadings for standard hearings as well as less frequently used forms, such as motions and orders to participate and orders for special immigrant juvenile status. The Automated System for Advocacy and Protection (ASAP), a legal forms library, is available for use with HotDocs, a licensed interactive software program that allows the practitioner to enter relevant data and automatically generate pleadings and other documents without reentering the data. FPS Legal and CJA provide these resources, as well as technical assistances, free of charge to prosecutors and judges across Texas.

Advocates Take Action
Equally important are the community leaders, faith-based groups, child advocacy groups and committed individuals across the state speaking up for the children of Texas. Former District Judge F. Scott McCown of Austin16 has been one of Texas’ most visible and vocal defenders of children. In 1998, Judge McCown wrote the highly influential “A Petition in Behalf of the Forsaken Children of Texas to the Governor and 76th Legislature,” which documented the lack of resources for Child Protective Services, specifically a serious lack of CPS workers. The next year, the Texas Legislature approved significant additional funding for the agency and enacted further reform legislation to support protection and permanency for children.
Another powerhouse behind the child advocacy movement in Texas is the Court Appointed Special Advocates (“CASA”).17 Since the Texas program was formed in 1989 it has grown to serve 175 counties and continues to expand. Volunteers across the state provide essential support to children caught up in a system that can overwhelm even a seasoned professional. Volunteers also spearhead local initiatives for children, support adoption fairs and help to recruit potential foster and adoptive parents.
Lionel Betancourt, a member of the Rotary Club in San Benito, Texas has long been troubled by the number of foster children in Texas waiting for homes.18 The success of a special picnic hosted by the San Benito Rotary Club in 1998 started a chain reaction that continues to gain momentum. Designed to give prospective parents a chance to see children needing homes in their most natural state — at play — the picnics have not only been great fun, but have resulted in many children and families finding each other. The idea has spread as far as Annapolis, Maryland, but Betancourt’s next goal is closer to home. He is helping to launch events in Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and hopes eventually to blanket the state of Texas with opportunities for children and families to find each other.
Another successful program in Texas is the One Church, One Child program, which originated in Chicago in 1980. The goal is to reach out to the minority community through the church, and recruit at least one family or single parent from every congregation. One Church, One Child programs in Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston and Beaumont work closely with CPS staff to recruit families and promote adoption.19

Speak Up, Speak Out
In 2003 there were 2,444 adoptions consummated involving CPS children.20 If more homes could be found and more adoptions finalized in the year ahead, more families would be created or expanded and more children would have reason to celebrate. The waiting children include boys and girls, single children and sibling groups, children of every age, disposition, and racial and ethnic background. Some have special needs, some have extraordinary talents — but each has the same need for a loving and safe permanent home.
With more than 73,000 members, the Texas Bar is a formidable group of articulate, committed professionals. If every lawyer across the state contributed even a few hours to the permanency campaign for Texas children, the pool of children waiting for homes could be drastically reduced almost instantly. Attorneys speaking to local bar associations, churches and synagogues, cultural centers, service organizations and anyplace else where people gather could alter the future in a remarkable way for some of the most innocent and vulnerable Texans.
Attorneys interested in volunteering can start by going to the agency’s website at www.tdprs.state.tx.us. There are sample public service announcements, recruitment ideas, photo listings of waiting children and links to related sites. Whether you speak to community groups, offer pro bono legal services for an adoption, organize a picnic or an adoption day event, or decide to become a foster or adoptive parent yourself — the time will be well spent. And when there is a family for every waiting child, Texas will be a different place.

Endnotes
1. Department of Family and Protective Services, Adoption Recruitment Report of April 30, 2004. 2. P.L. 105-89, amending Title IV-E of the Social Security Act; 42 U.S.C. § 670 et. seq. 3. S.B. 359, S.B.34 and S.B. 181 (75th Legis., Reg.Sess.); H.B. 1622, H.B. 3838 (76th Legis., Reg. Sess.) 4. Tex. Fam. Code § 262.106. 5. Tex. Fam. Code § 262.201. 6. Id. 7. Tex. Fam. Code§ 263.304. 8. Tex. Fam. Code § 263.305. 9. Tex. Fam. Code § 263.401. 10. Tex. Fam. Code § 263.501. 11. Chafee Foster Care Independence Act of 1999, P.L. 106-169 (1999). 12. Tex. Fam. Code § 263.405 (H.B. 2249, 77th Legis., Reg. Sess.). 13. 42 U.S.C. § 5106a(b)(2)(A)(xiii); Tex. Fam Code Ch. 107 (H.B. 1815, 78th Legislature). 14. A program established by the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 5101 et seq. 15. A federal grant to the Supreme Court of Texas. 16. Currently the Executive Director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin. 17. For more information, see www.texascasa.org. 18. Contact Lionel Betancourt at LCBglacier@aol.com or toll free at (888) 598-5566. 19. Contact One Church, One Child in Fort Worth/Dallas at (817) 923-4441; Houston (713) 880-3878; or Beaumont (409) 880-3358. 20. Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Data Book, 2003.

Charlotte D. Booker, J.D., is the FPS Managing Attorney for the Houston District and regions 4 & 5 of the Southeast Texas District. She supervises legal field staff, including DFPS regional and litigation attorneys and support staff in five agency legal offices. Booker has also been an FPS regional attorney and represented the agency in contested cases in family, probate, administrative and immigration courts. Prior to working for FPS, she was a prosecutor with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. Booker received a B.S. from University of Texas at Austin, J.D. from Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law and has presented topics for CLE seminars on child abuse litigation,
mediation, and immigration.

Cathy O. Morris is Former Chief Attorney for Field Operations of FPS. Morris supervised approximately 100 legal regional field staff and oversaw all regional legal operations, including direct representation of CPS cases. She received her J.D. from SMU School of Law and a B.A. from University of Texas at Austin. Morris worked as a caseworker and supervisor for Child Protective Services prior to attending law school. She worked for the Dallas County District Attorneys office following law school, representing CPS in child abuse and neglect cases,
then for the DFPS as a regional attorney, managing attorney, and ultimately chief of field operations. Morris has been a speaker at numerous conferences, including the TDCAA annual conference and the CJA annual conference and is co-author of “The Attorney as Mandatory Reporter” with Associate Judge Camile DuBose (to be published).

Pamela K. Parker has been a CPS Policy Attorney in the FPS state office since 1996 and previously represented the Orange County Social Services Agency in southern California both as a trial attorney and in the appellate section.
She received a J.D. from Golden Gate University Law School in San Francisco, CA and a B.A. from California State University Chico. She has published articles and presented training on
immigration issues for foster children, the Indian Child Welfare Act, international issues in child welfare practice and the Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children.

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