DALLAS (CN) — A festering problem within the Texas foster care system resurfaced Monday as a high-ranking official clashed with a federal judge overseeing reforms about a court-ordered cap on the number of children assigned to caseworkers.
Senior U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack has already found Texas in contempt twice and fined it for not complying with remedial orders finalized in 2019 that are meant to protect the roughly 8,000 children in the state’s long-term care.
Texas appeared to be heading for another contempt order on Monday, the first day of a show-cause hearing in which Paul Yetter, lead counsel for a group of state wards who brought a class action in 2011, teamed up with Jack to grill officials from the state’s Health and Human Services Department and Department of Family and Protective Services, the two agencies that oversee its foster care system, about their failings.
Following a bench trial, Jack wrote in a December 2015 order that “rape, abuse, psychotropic medication, and instability are the norm” for Texas foster kids, and she determined Texas was violating their 14th Amendment due process rights to adequate care and a safe, secure, and suitable placement while in state custody.
Jackie Juarez, 18, testified for the plaintiffs Monday that she entered state custody at age 11 and staff at a group home mistreated her and other youths.
“When we misbehaved, even cried about something, they would tell us we were there because our family didn’t want us, or we were bad kids, and nobody wants bad kids,” Juarez said.
Juarez recounted how after her caseworker bought her an iPad for Christmas 2020, a male worker at the home started sending her text messages, though she was only 15.
“What was he telling you?” asked Yetter, a partner of the Houston firm Yetter Coleman.
“I look cute and he liked my personality,” Juarez said. “And he kept texting me morning and night, asking me what I was doing and all this kind of stuff. I felt uncomfortable. Because I already had a trauma with my stepfather and didn’t trust men.”
She said she told the home’s other employees and they took her iPad but did nothing to the man harassing her.
Following her stint at the group home, Juarez recalled, she was dropped off at a psychiatric hospital, then she cycled through a series of unlicensed settings — a church, three Department of Family and Protective Services offices, and three hotels within four months of being in a status Texas calls “children without placement,” or CWOP.
Juarez, who is 4 feet, 9 inches tall, and weighs 100 pounds, said throughout her time in foster care, she had trouble staying awake in school because she was overmedicated. “At one point I was taking eight pills,” she revealed.
Yetter noted that among her prescriptions she had been on albuterol, an asthma drug that is also prescribed for panic attacks; lithium, a drug for bipolar disorder; Keppra, a seizure medication; and Prazosin, a high blood pressure medicine that doctors say can help children with PTSD sleep better.
Juarez said she complained about all the drugs and her caseworker and CWOP caregivers told her she had to take them because that’s what her doctor had prescribed her. Meanwhile, every time she saw her psychologist he urged her to give the drugs time when she told him they were making her tired.
Now off all the medications, Juarez said she is in a program for children who have aged out of foster care. “I feel happy, I’m able to process things more. I do a lot of things. I’m not tired. I’m able to focus more on sports, arts and reading in school.” She is taking classes and has obtained her GED.
Follow @cam_langford
