(CN) — The judge who ordered an overhaul of Texas’ foster care system accused state officials Tuesday of endangering children by downplaying neglect by group home providers.
Following her 2015 ruling finding Texas was violating foster kids’ constitutional due-process rights by placing them in a system rife with abuse and instability, Senior U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack, a Clinton appointee, imposed dozens of remedial orders, most of which were upheld by the Fifth Circuit, and appointed two monitors to oversee reforms.
Jack held a Zoom hearing Tuesday to review concerns the monitors raised in a June 25 report — the sixth they have issued in a yearslong class-action suit over conditions in Texas foster care.
The hearing got off to a heated start, as Jack promptly called out Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Cecile Young for not reading the 319-page report and two lengthy appendices.
“As you know, I was out of the country until Sunday night,” Young explained.
“I was able to read them in that period of time,” Jack replied.
“You get email," she added. "The idea that we set this hearing so you could be here, and yet you have not read this report, is absolutely stunning to me."
HHSC creates and enforces minimum standards for residential treatment centers and group homes that house foster youth and licenses them. HHSC is separate from but works with the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services, which investigates alleged child abuse and neglect, including in these facilities.
According to court records, there are around 9,000 Texas children in "permanent managing conservatorship" — a term for foster children who have not been adopted or reunited with their families for 12 to 18 months after the state takes custody of them.
Among other issues to surface on Tuesday, monitors raised questions about how the HHSC classified (and ultimately closed) 70 investigations of what the agency calls minimum standard deficiencies. HHSC had classified some of these probes as Priority 3 — a low-priority ranking that allows officials up to 15 days to respond.
And yet among those Priority 3 cases, Jack noted, was a November 2021 intake report concerning a 12-year-old boy who found a BB gun in a staff member's purse at a group home.
Paul Yetter, a partner in the Houston firm Yetter Coleman who is representing a group of Texas foster kids in their lawsuit, asked Commissioner Young if she would agree that any firearm found by a child presents the risk of substantial harm or injury.
Claiming ignorance of the priority rankings, Young deferred to her staffers. “Respectfully, this does seem like a technical question that I—" she began.
Jack cut her off. "Oh my gosh," she exclaimed.
“This is common sense, Commissioner Young. . . . And I have to tell you all I don’t see how you are ever going to get off monitoring with this attitude," Jack said.
"I’m stunned that the commissioner of HHSC thinks the finding of a BB gun in a caretaker’s purse is a technical issue she can’t adequately address," Jack added. She highlighted another case, also classified as Priority 3, in a which 17-year-old girl snuck a razor into a housing facility and cut herself more than 100 times. Staff discovered the cuts when they noticed blood on her socks. The girl was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
Jack accused HHSC of taking group homes and residential treatment centers off “heightened monitoring" — a status that can lead to them losing their operating license — even when it had issued those same facilities numerous citations during the prior six months.
One such facility, she noted, was taken off heightened monitoring in October 2022 shortly after officials discovered roach and rat infestations. Caretakers there were also found to be physically disciplining children.
“You all are trying to protect your placements and providers and not the children," Jack fumed. "That is not what I ordered."
Cristina Guerrero, DFPS’s director of residential contracts, pushed back on this characterization. The state has closed 46 facilities — one-third of those that had been on heightened monitoring — and stopped placing children in other troubled facilities, she argued.
Jack wasn't done though. The judge also expressed concern about a $17 million state contract with a company owned by a former Texas Ranger to provide security for foster children placed in unlicensed settings like hotel rooms and churches. Such situations — known as "CWOP" for "children without placement" — occur when officials cannot find a licensed placement.
“Many children going into CWOP are kids who have just come out of psychiatric facilities," Jack said. "I don’t think the Texas Rangers are particularly skilled with that. Neither are caseworkers. So, I’m concerned about them being placed in the juvenile criminal justice system."
Towards the end of Tuesday’s seven-hour hearing, Jack accused state officials of violating other court orders. She previously ordered DFPS to impose a limit of 14 to 17 children per caseworker. But the agency is circumventing that mandate, she said, by forcing caseworkers to work overtime watching kids in unlicensed settings and not counting that extra work towards their total caseload.
The plaintiffs have filed a motion to hold Texas in contempt for not complying with Jack’s directives. Jack has already slapped the state with two contempt orders in the litigation, though she has not yet set a hearing on this latest motion.
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