child welfare

Texas aims to contract child welfare services to private providers by 2029 under a system called "community-based care." The abrupt cancelation of its contract with a foster care provider serving eastern North Texas after child deaths has community stakeholders questioning the system's effectiveness.

Texas' child welfare agency cut ties with the nonprofit Monday, according to an internal email obtained by KERA News. EMPOWER was already under state oversight following the deaths of two children in the provider's care and the hospitalization of another within the past two years.

The parents of Mila Jackson alleged the department put them on an abuse and neglect registry after their daughter Mila’s removal without a clear way to appeal and get their names cleared of any wrongdoing. DFPS says the process is working as it should.

Justices say a court may terminate a Houston-area father's parental rights because his "extensive" criminal history and time in prison has endangered his son's life, even if it didn't directly harm the boy.

Current state law allows children as young as 16 to marry if they are legally emancipated from their parents, a situation critics say has given rise to widespread abuses.

Mila Jackson, now 2 years old, was returned to her family after the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services used erroneous legal documents to put her in state custody. But the ACLU of Texas says the DFPS administrative procedure has left the family with an administrative guilty verdict.

The Texas Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a Houston mother's effort to get a lower judge to reconsider a permanent protective order separating her from her kids.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission will be fined $100,000 a day until it comes into compliance on two remedial court orders.

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.

Both sides finished their arguments Wednesday after days of testimony over accusations that Texas agencies don't protect foster children.

Texas students need parental consent to get abuse prevention education under state law. Advocates say that requirement is an obstacle that does more harm than good.

The East Texas school leader was following school district policy — and state law — which allows for corporal punishment. Texas is one of 17 states that allows it, despite one Democrats efforts to ban the practice.