Gov. Rick Perry’s office said this evening that it has ordered the Department of Family and Protective Services to review its investigation and sanction policies in light of a Houston Chronicle/Texas Tribune article on staffers who forced young girls to fight at a Houston-area residential treatment center for foster children.
Child Protective Services
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Health care
Forced to Fight
Workers at a center for distressed children in Manvel provoked seven developmentally disabled girls into a fight of biting and bruising, while they laughed, cheered and promised the winners after-school snacks. The fight was one of more than 250 incidents of abuse and mistreatment in residential treatment centers over the last two years, based on a Houston Chronicle/Texas Tribune review of Department of Family and Protective Services records.
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Health care
TribBlog: DFPS Launches Safe-Sleep Campaign
Stuffed alligators and wolves? A danger to your sleeping infant, according to the Department of Family and Protective Services’ new “Room to Breathe” TV and radio campaign.
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Health care
Slipping Through the Cracks
What’s in an IQ score? For autistic or profoundly mentally ill Texans: everything. A growing number of disabled young adults are considered too high-functioning for state care services, but their families say they’re too dangerous to go without them. Admission to state-supported living centers is limited to disabled people with IQs under 70 — and community-based care is generally capped at an IQ of 75.
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Criminal Justice
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
Ramshaw on the state’s quiet sharing of infant blood samples with the military and on the things Rick Perry’s opponents aren’t saying about him, Grissom on Farouk Shami’s surprising popularity in El Paso, Philpott on the political advantages of a job creation fund and how Debra Medina’s supporters are reacting to her “truther” comments, Hu on Debra Medina in the latest installment of Stump Interrupted, Thevenot on how the kids feel about the federal option of closing bad high schools, Rapoport on the newest mutation of the state’s pay-as-you-go transportation philosophy, and our roundup of party primaries in the last week before the election: Rapoport on HD-7, Ramsey on HD-11, Aguilar on HD-36 and HD-43, Philpott on HD-47, Thevenot on HD-52 and SD-5, Kreighbaum on HD-105 and one Supreme Court race, M. Smith on another, and Hamilton on the colorful Democratic candidates for Agriculture Commissioner. The best of our best from February 22 to 26, 2010.
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Criminal Justice
The Buck Stops Where?
Three of the biggest social services messes of Rick Perry’s ten-year tenure — the sexual abuse scandal at the Texas Youth Commission, fight clubs at state institutions for the disabled and deaths of children on Child Protective Services’ watch — have been noticeably absent from the campaign trail. Is it because Texans don’t hold him accountable for these tragedies? Or because his opponents think GOP primary voters simply don’t care?
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Health care
Day Care Danger
The Texas Workforce Commission spent nearly $50 million during the last two years on day care centers and in-home childcare providers with troubled track records — including sexual and physical abuse, kidnapping, and leaving infants to suffocate and die in their cribs. A Texas Tribune review found that at least 135 subsidized facilities had their licenses revoked or denied by the Department of Family and Protective Services in 2008 and 2009 and had their funding immediately suspended.
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Politics
TribBlog: CPPP Says Texas Kids Fare Worse Than Most
Texas kids are poorer, hungrier and more often uninsured than kids in almost any other state, according to the Center for Public Policy Priorities.
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Politics
TribBlog: CPPP on Child Abuse Deaths
The CPPP says Texas’ high per capita child abuse and neglect death rate is due to the state’s high child poverty and teen birth rates — but also how Texas tallies its numbers.
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Health care
TribBlog: Room to Breathe
The Texas Departments of Family and Protective Services and State Health Services are launching a “Room to Breathe” campaign to educate parents about the dangers of co-sleeping, a controversial subject that they appear to be approaching with caution.