SAN ANTONIO – When Valerie Tellez’s family ended up in the CPS system, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to say things would get better.
But with recent legislation, Tellez was empowered to make changes that needed to be made in her home while keeping her 5-year-old son, Diego, by her side.
New data from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services show the number of children removed from their homes has dropped 50% in the last two years, while child abuse deaths have continued to decline for a third year.
>> Texas sees steady decline in child abuse, deaths after legislative changes
“When we look at the data three years out now, it’s validating,” said reform advocate Carrie Wilcoxson.
Wilcoxson is a consultant and former CPS investigator who wrote a lot of the legislation that experts believe has pushed this change.
Wilcoxson said during her work as an investigator, she worked within a specialized unit that included child fatalities, sexual abuse and severe abuse and neglect cases.
She said those cases opened her eyes to the system.
“I learned very quickly how to do a very good investigation, and I learned my policies and procedures,” Wilcoxson said. “What struck me though, was that the same sort of quality of work within that specialized unit was not something we were seeing across the board in other units.”
Those experiences, coupled with her current work consulting with families in the system, led to her writing a large piece of legislation in 2023 that updated training standards for CPS investigators, making their procedures clearer.
For the first time, investigators also have mandated training on local resources that they are required to quickly offer families.
“The instant that the need is identified, why are we waiting 3 or 4 months to transfer our family under a safety plan?” Wilcoxson said.
The 2023 investigator training law and other pieces of legislation serve specific purposes: creating a system where fewer kids are removed from their homes, the system is less overwhelmed and investigators can focus on the severe cases.
It also means families can stay together if they’re truly making the effort.
“The system has been using foster care as a primary resource for intervention versus our resources, versus rolling up our sleeves and doing the hard work with the families,” Wilcoxson said.
Promising changes
Wilcoxson said she has seen the changes working.
“I have seen investigators say, ‘Okay, what can we link you and to what can we connect you with?’ And they’re diving deep to find the resources to provide to those families during the investigative stage immediately,” she said.
Resources may include food banks, clothes closets, domestic violence shelters, substance use help and counseling, such as the state’s intensive counseling and behavioral modification program.
Tellez said she’s making improvements, including doing parenting and drug classes on Zoom.
“A work in progress to keep this family together, because I didn’t have that growing up, and it’s very important for my child,” Tellez said.
Tellez and Diego’s father are also both taking advantage of church support and counseling. They said they are seeing a difference in themselves.
“Communication, more respect, more calmness — no stress, more interaction as a family,” Tellez said.
While the new numbers are promising, Wilcoxson and other advocates know there is still a lot of work to be done.
Wilcoxson recently wrote legislation filed this session with state leaders that would create a new advisory committee over CPS investigations.
The legislation would allow them to continue finding and fixing issues and communicate better across regions, especially rural areas with fewer resources.
The bill is expected to pass soon.
To see full DFPS statistics about removals and fatality reports, click the link here.
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