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The letter from nine members of the state's congressional delegation comes as the state fights a nearly 13-year-old federal class action suit over alleged failures to ensure the wellbeing of children in foster care.
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State documents show Texas paid $260 million over three years to keep kids in hotels and leased homes temporarily. Unregulated placements that advocates say warehouse youth with the most needs in the most dangerous way.
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Both sides finished their arguments Wednesday after days of testimony over accusations that Texas agencies don't protect foster children.
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Lawyers for the state’s foster care system tried to fend off contempt complaints stemming from alleged failures to observe several court orders from federal court monitors and plaintiffs in a case that stretches back 12 years.
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A hearing in Bexar County around a child in state's foster care program raised questions about how the system is run and what damage a lack of placements has on youth.
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An email from a former foster care official claims his colleagues are collecting big hotel rewards for booking youth in their care.
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Advocates say better accounting of deaf and hard-of-hearing children in the state’s care and better access to translators is needed.
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Judge Janis Jack took the state to task about the use of drugs and documented instances of errors. The state said it was concerned but disputed whether court has jurisdiction.
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Relative caregivers, like grandparents who want to keep kids out of foster care, usually get half as much state assistance as strangers who take in children.
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Texas’ foster system has dropped hundreds of runaway kids from its care over the past five years. 170 of those kids were minors when the state stopped its relationship. One legislator says the state is 'washing its hands' of the most vulnerable youth — youth who often end up being sexually abused or trafficked while missing.
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After a murder-suicide in 2018, a reporter spent years investigating Texas’ troubled foster care system. Too often, it prioritized terminating parental rights over keeping birth families intact.
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Stephanie Muth, the new commissioner of the Department of Family and Protective Services, was given a warm welcome and a laundry list of fixes from a federal judge Friday.