 We're ready to get started. We obviously have a very highly technical setup here. We dialed our first guest in via cell phone. Good afternoon anyway. I'm Shelly Koffler, the news director at Texas Public Radio. I am, and Texas Public Radio also is very, very honored to join the children's shelter today for this very important town hall. But we're going to explore one of the most important issues for all of us, and that is protecting and healing our children. We have a little bit of discord in our microphones up here. Let me step over here and see if that helps. I think there are a lot of you in the room today who've spent untold hours, probably most of your professional lives working to improve the lives and the circumstances of children at risk for physical and emotional abuse or neglect. When our programs are working and our children are being helped, we don't hear much about those programs and we don't hear much about what you're doing. But when things go wrong, we read some of the headlines, as you know. And we've seen many of those headlines recently during the past few months. Special court masters are telling us that there aren't enough foster care providers in Texas and that some children removed from their homes have to sleep in the offices of case workers or in motels. We hear that the state has lost track of some potential victims of child abuse. We've learned recently that they've been visited and many of them haven't rather been visited by their case workers. Child Protective Service case workers are being assigned double the recommended number of cases, so care and attention may at times be falling through the cracks. These are the things we're hearing from special masters who have just rendered a report. We're also hearing that functions within our child welfare system are failing some of our kids. So in the next 90 minutes we're going to acknowledge that reality, but the experts who are with us today are also going to talk to us about some of the amazing programs that are working that are improving the situation for our children who are at risk of unspeakable abuse and neglect. So right now let's just take a minute and applaud all the child care providers in this room and elsewhere who are doing such a great job. Thanks to so many of you who work so very hard. I also want to introduce some of our public officials. We'll be introducing those who are up on the panel today, but in addition to them, the City of San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor is with us today. Thank you so much for being here. I believe our Bear County District Attorney, Nikola Hood, just walked in. Thank you, Mr. D.A. And Bear County Children's Court Judge Charles Montemayor, I think he might be in the room as well. And if not, I think he's on his way, so thank you to him as well. We're going to begin our conversation today by getting a better picture of the national landscape with Susan Dreyfuss, the President and CEO of the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities. It's a network of more than 450 organizations across the country. I mentioned our highly technical connection here by cell phone. Susan is an extremely busy woman traveling across the country to do her work. And so she's taken a few minutes to join us. I'm going to sit down and speak with Susan about what she has been doing and a report that she's just been working on. A few little facts about her bio, and that is that she has overseen children's programs in two states, Washington and Wisconsin, in addition to the work she does now. She has also been a part of a national commission that was put together by Congress, the National Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities. It produced a very important report earlier this year. And Susan, thank you for joining us. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Hey, it works. That's great. So let's just start out by talking a little bit, Susan, about that report and what you learned with respect to the landscape for children. First of all, I just wanted to give you a shout-out to the children's shelter and the network we get if you don't mind. She's a member of our National Board of Directors. And it's really record-winning, so my perspective is the very best of our sector. When we see ourselves as a sector, more than just providers of programs and services, that spaces and chains that pull people together, that have conversations just like the ones today, to give a shout-out to a network team and the board for really representing the best of the nonprofit sector in our country today. So thank you very much. I also just have to give a quick shout-out to Ben Stesha. He and I go way back, and I see someone I hold in the highest regard. And I got to tell Texas, thank you for your staff program, which we stole from you when I was in Washington State. That's the COVID type that we use that we re-invige in our Medicaid program for children in foster care. So thank you, Texas. Well, Susan, what you can't see is we have about 140 or 150 people at our gathering during this noon hour. That's a pretty good gathering for people who could be doing something else on this very beautiful day. They're very anxious to hear about the study that you worked on and some of what you learned. In a conversation we had over the phone, you said the two-year study determined that about four to eight children die daily of abuse and neglect, and, excuse me, 75% of them are under the age of three. Can you talk a little bit about that finding? Sure. So I just want to remind everybody there that more children in our nation will be killed by abuse and neglect this year than will die of childhood cancer. This is a very, very serious issue in our nation, and also that for every one child's fatality, there are 10 children that experience a near fatality in our country. The other thing that's very important to understand is this issue is our African-American neighbors much harder at two-and-a-half times more than children who are white. And the other thing we found which was quite surprising to the commission that I had the honor of serving on was that any call in the child protective services, whether it is screened in or screened out, any single call in the child protective services is the biggest predictor of child fatality for children. So those calls matter, and one of the things that we as a commission came to understand is that in many ways we've got a 20th century child protection model working in a 21st century world, or trying to work in a 21st century world. These are some of the findings that we had. First of all, young children under the age of three are the most vulnerable, and that the earlier we can intervene, because the other thing we found is that 70% of the children who will be killed by abuse and neglect or who experience near fatality, they did for the issues of neglect. And I just remind everybody there in the room, we're used to hearing of the worst-case story of horrific child abuse, but neglect, which is oftentimes steeped in issues of inconsistency of housing, mass of access to quality childcare, of a transportation system that works for families where they're trying to hold down multiple jobs. I'm not making excuses, but I hope that your listeners and those in the audience understand that what we found was the context that families that are living their lives mattered a lot. Housing, transportation, access to food, the safety of their neighborhoods, employment, substance abuse, and the opioid epidemic, blood and venom in their mental health. So many of the things that people alone are not controlled for, that are really things that are at a community level, matter a lot in them. So to simply think that if we just pull in both sticks to families, we fall for this. We be full already on our part, because neglect and the risk for children when there are conditions of neglect are far more than just about parental treatment. Susan? Yes. Within which kids live their lives every day, matter a lot. And we certainly found that. The other thing that we found is interagency coordination. They did no longer to go paid. So us to be thinking that we can just send out a singular person into a home to do an investigation and not be looking at it to an interdisciplinary lens. In Colorado, they have both nurses as well as education specialists. They go out with child protection services when doing investigations. Law enforcement and the coordination of investigations with law enforcement is critically important. That was another finding that we had. Again, interagency coordination early. Not when the case becomes problematic, but very early on, and that is new to the blood cycle, is crucial. Susan, I'm wondering if you can talk just a little bit further about the nurse family partnership. I think you mentioned it just a second ago, but you, in our phone call when we chatted earlier, you said that was one of the best solutions, potential solutions that your group identified when they did its study. Right. Well, we found, based on evidence, because Congress commissioned us and the president to find out what's going to work here. And I don't think it'll probably surprise your audience, but we only found, based on evidence, one thing that has been found to reduce the fatality of children. And I just remind everybody, if as a nation, we can reduce the number of children who are killed by abuse in the blood, it will create an inoculating influence across all children who are potentially at risk of abuse in the blood, because the same thing that you'll do will have an influence across the less-wired head of children that just those who would ultimately die of abuse in the blood. And the only thing we found that has evidence is the nurse family partnership. Again, comprehensive home visiting, we've got places in the country now that are starting to implement nurse family partnerships prenatally before the birth of a child, from families who are abused potentially having risk factors, and that's the only thing that we found that worked, and the other thing that we found that showed promise was when jurisdictions are using predictive analytics, data analytics, they have integrated data sets, and they're using them in more predictive ways, and the best model we found was in New Zealand, and in Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, they're using that model and bringing it into their shock detection system there. Susan, I also wanted to just ask you to comment on the flow of federal money, the money that comes from Washington into our states. I think there's been some conversation about whether we should allow that money to be used in different ways to make it more flexible. What did your commission find in that regard? First of all, you're lucky to have a champion for kids with represented doggies. He really gets them, but as somebody that has run two child welfare systems in our country, folks, we have a failed federal financing system. It's utterly failed, and thinking that we can just put damage on it as we've been trying to do for ever, this doesn't work. This is so popular, we'll continue if we don't align the federal financing system with the kind of preventative front-end kind of system that we want so that kids don't become abused and abused and neglected, and if they do, we're interacting with that earlier and much smarter to stop those cycles. So right now, at the federal level, we have almost four and a half billion dollars that is associated with foster care. So when Texas decides to remove the child from their home, then the federal financing participates in friction daytime with helping your state with those costs. I think it's two and a half billion dollars nationally. However, we do have some money that are for prevention and earlier intervention, and they only amount to less than $750 million financing system that has basically been pushing us to more of a deep end of the system. And don't get me wrong, very important, we've got it when kids are abused and neglected, we've got to be there for that, and we've got to be there for them big time. But there's got to be a better balance in perfecting the health and function when we've got a shot at doing for kids the one thing that they'll tell you more than anything else they want. If they want their families, and we've got a federal financing system that is absolutely, from my perspective, failed and broken and needs to be recreated. Susan, let me ask you just real quickly before we let you go because I know you have somewhere to fly off to this afternoon. We have a new administration coming into Washington, and we probably don't know who is going to be overseeing what at many of the agencies. Do you have any sense of whether there would be an opportunity for this funding issue to come up again so that money might become more flexible when it's siphoned through to the states? Well, first of all, I just want to state all the advocates in the room. It's not too late right now. We think there might be a window before the administration comes in. We think there might be a window for this bill to get to the floor. So I'm hoping that everybody there will be contacting their members of Congress about the importance of the family first act getting this run of Congress because it's very important to get that moving from my perspective. But I really do believe that states are going to be very important to this administration, and that's a good thing because it's going to be very important to this administration. And that out again to Texas, you are the first state in the country, the very first state in the country to have a plan to prevent fatality from children. And I can't thank you all enough for that as a former commission member. But I can say that only to say states are going to be very important to this administration. And I do believe that this is a very non-partisan issue, a very vice-vice-partisan issue. And I really do believe that whether Republican or Democrat needs to come together on this issue of child protection in our nation, for events and earlier interventions, strengthening families, and helping more kids to reach their fullest potential. And I don't think anybody regardless of local persuasion disagrees with that. So I'm very hopeful. Whether it's now or it's in the next administration, then we will see something significant moving. But in the meantime, Texas, keep doing what you're doing. Keep the pressure on. Keep demonstrating to the rest of the country. And I think that while Texas has been envisioning a system for years, it's absolutely on target. It's just a question of now getting it done. And I think that's the biggest question that all states are facing right now. We know what we need to do. Now we're just getting serious and doing it at a level of scale so that all kids can be faced and when they do need the system, the system is there quickly and responsibly. Susan, thank you so much. Susan Dreyfuss, the president and CEO of Alliance for Strong Families and Communities. Thank you for joining us from wherever you are today. We're going to now shift gears a little bit and take a look at what's happening at the state and local level. We have three public officials who are going to join me up front here. I think a lot of you know them and they have worked at the legislative level also state agency level and in the court systems here in Bear County to address this very important situation. So with my apologies, I'm going to read a very truncated bio for each of them because their bios are very long. They've all done a lot. I'd like them to come up and sit down with me up here and then we'll have a good conversation. Texas Senator Carlos Uresti is with us today. He's a San Antonio native and a lawyer. He served in the Texas legislature almost 20 years first in the house. Now he's in the Texas Senate. He has tried to steer child welfare issues for as long as he's been there. I covered the legislature in 2004 when he was doing this 10 years ago. So he's been at it for a long time and he's also currently on the Senate's Committee on Health and Human Services. Also with us, Judge Peter Sakai who oversees Bear County's 225th district court a nationally recognized children's court. Through Judge Sakai's work Bear County leads the state in the adoption of foster children. He's also been instrumental in establishing some special courts to address the needs of children and their families. He's going to be talking about that with us this afternoon and the honorable John Specia. Judge Specia was one of the state's earliest child welfare attorneys. He then spent nearly 20 years presiding over the children's court where Judge Sakai now presides. While he was there he helped create specialized services for children including the family drug treatment court and in 2012 Governor Rick Perry tapped Judge Specia for a job that I'm sure was very filled with tension. It was a hard job. They asked him to overhaul child protective services. So he's going to share some of his war stories and his progress that was made at Child Protective Services while he was there. Thank you gentlemen, all of you for being here. We're so lucky to have you to share your wisdom and your insight. Let me just start out with this report that came out. I think it was about a week or so ago from the special masters who were looking at our services for the foster care system in particular but child protective services on the order of a judge who has said that our system isn't working. Here's what the judge through her experts have told us. That case workers here are handling about 30 cases when ideally they would handle 14. Recently about 300 children considered at high risk for abuse or neglect hadn't been seen by case workers. So the new state commissioner for Texas Department of Family and Protective Services sent state police out into the communities across the state to find them. There's a shortage of foster foster people at all. Well, first of all, can y'all hear me in the back? I want to thank Children's Shelter for hosting this event. As I look around I see a lot of very familiar faces and it's great to see the new faces as well but to your point about 10 years, actually 10 years ago when there was a crisis facing child protective services I called upon these two gentlemen sitting to my right to your left to ask them what do we need to do to try to fix this problem and we were talking about case workers that had caseloads of 75 1200 cases per case worker turnover rate in Bear County was 75 percent. It was ridiculously high. So we've come a long way with a lot of progress in large part because of the stakeholders that are here, these two gentlemen our new DA, Nikola Hood we've created Blue Ribbon Task Force about 10 years ago as well it went statewide for several years come a long way but nonetheless we're still facing some challenges you still have a number a large number of children being abused and neglected I would submit to you that part of that is because sadly there are kids being abused and neglected also because of the awareness that exists not only statewide but specifically here at our level, the city's level San Antonio we do a wonderful job I think of reporting and so as a result your numbers are going to go high at the state level I can tell you that the state has finally stepped up when Judge Bishop was the commissioner we worked very closely with regard to not only changing policy as well and more specifically for prevention services we heard the speaker talk about that it's been one of my top priorities we were able to get an additional 37 million dollars this last legislative session on top of what we normally fund for prevention but I'd be the first to tell you we still need to do more we've come a long way but we still have some more to do Judge Spesia, you would be very able to speak to this whole thing you were there when Janice Chad was looking at the system she was trying to determine whether we had a system that needed court ordered improvements do you think we've made some progress and where do you think we go do you think this judges order is going to propel the state into making changes more quickly first of all we have made significant progress over the years the legislature in the two sessions where I was commissioner put over 500 million dollars and added 1500 to 2000 new staff so the legislature has continued to put resources into it now Judge Jack's opinion only affects children in the permanent managing conservatorship so it's a very small part of the system it's not the whole system it's children who grow up in the system it's children that do not find permanency it's the children with serious mental health needs special medical needs and so when you start talking about this court order you got to be careful it only addresses one part of the system a very important part of the system the children's rights organization who brought the lawsuit has brought the lawsuit against about 30 jurisdictions in the United States and many of these jurisdictions are still under court order and really don't do a better job than we do so I think that the court order is an impetus for change but it's not like no change has been happening there is no silver bullet Judge Jacks will not find a silver bullet we've been working on these issues since before 2004 and we're heading the right direction so the state admits we need to do a better job with these children in permanent managing conservatorship the state admits that we need greater capacity one of the problems with capacity is our society has changed dramatically there are a few two parent homes where one of the people stays home and is available to do foster care and so as much as the children's shelter and pathways and folks are recruiting we're having trouble finding that particularly at the current compensation rate really foster parents are only compensated for room and board and not for the special needs that has to come in from some place else now we have this great program Star Health that Susan Drive has talked about our kids in foster care have better health care than your kids have their insurance plan is the best and it's really good there are some issues with the utilization of that program because one of the things Texas is so large I didn't understand it until I became commissioner we have 7 million children in Texas I googled the other day populations of states there are only 12 states that have more than 7 million population not children our child population is the largest in the nation second to California so we're really dealing with 4, 5, 6 states and so when you look at our problems a lot of people come into the system and leave quickly and do well there are significant problems that need to be addressed hopefully the special master's report the recommendations are good recommendations but her focus is improve retention and build foster care capacity if you want to summarize it we've been working on that and we're still having a lot of problems you mentioned reimbursement for foster care families is there any movement to increase that is it wholly inadequate I think that's what I'm hearing you say that some families couldn't afford to take children because they just can't dig deep enough into their own pocket books to pay does that sound right? foster care is subsidized by the child placement agencies by 20% or more so it's very hard to build capacity when you're saying give us another 100 beds but you've got to go out and raise 20% now this is an issue that's known to the legislature and they are very happy with the partnership with the child placement agencies but if we want to build capacity we're going to have to look at completely changing the rate structure looking at the special needs of the kids if the child needs a single parent foster home then we're going to have to compensate that single parent foster parent adequately if that parent needs special training we're going to have to pay for the training I just wanted to ask real quickly any questions from the audience naïve we had talked about having people ask questions on little cards if we're doing that we'll keep a few minutes at the end so we can answer your questions we've heard the new gentleman Hank Whitman who's in charge of family protective services now say he's recommending a thousand dollar pay increase for case workers which on top of the thousand dollars did you not increase actually I did it for four counties out of the Midland area and based on that results we were able to reduce retention by over 50% by paying them $12,000 more a month what he requested of the legislature was to give a $12,000 raise across the board and senator uresti is intimately familiar with that do you think the legislature will support that senator well I think the legislature realizes the legislature realizes that with the turnover rate being that it is not only bair county but in Dallas Fort Worth the turnover rate is 57% amongst case workers we lose 1,500 case workers every year that are walking out the door it costs us $54,000 to train one case worker a year so that's $83 million that we're losing every year I've been saying this for quite a while and I think the legislature finally is realizing you've got to give our case workers a living wage if you want to retain them and therefore the result is you lower case loads so my case loads aren't going to Peter's going to John that's what's happening and then they're leaving as well so I think and I hope that the legislature is going to receive that recommendation from the new commissioner we've got to find the money that we should have done a long time ago so I'm hopeful that it's going to happen it sounds like what you're saying is that to pay our case workers a better wage is actually saving money for the state because we wouldn't have to train as many new case workers because of turnover exactly and more importantly or just as importantly I should say that little child is going to be seen quicker faster, get the help that he or she needs and that's the ultimate goal I want to shift now to our local courts and what's happening here locally we'll be talking with Annette Rodriguez a little bit later about what's happening with private organizations that are providers but I want to talk about what's going on in the courts because both of you gentlemen are rightly recognized as being real innovators doing things that help the family stay together and that hopefully prevent bad things from happening in the homes so Judge Sikai let me ask you took over the Children's Court from Judge Specia I think I've got all this down now and we have a drug court that you oversee that Judge Specia started and then now you have an early intervention court as well talk a little bit about some of the special programs that you think are working well thank you Shelly let me also thank Annette Rodriguez for the Children's Shelter and I see all the advocates and the providers and people that work with us in the court system so let me say thank you for being here thank you for your dedication advocacy kind of to give you the state of the situation state of the children here in Bear County is I basically want the community to understand regardless of the headlines you read or the criticisms at the high levels from Susan Dreyfuss at the national level to the state level that Senator Oresti works with and Commissioner Specia used to work at CPS I want the public to understand that things are well in Bear County do we still have issues yes I see that we have Judge Charles Montemar in the room him and Judge Richard Garcia we have a unique system that Judge Specia created so we really have a very structured discipline court system that can really influence and create the collaborations that are necessary that we're going to talk about shortly also have a new DA that's been a breath of fresh air for this community because basically what we've been able to do is overhaul the court system I want the public to understand is we've looked to help CPS and I think that's part of the stability for CPS here in Bear County what we've done is we've looked to look at time management as a business practice and principle we need case workers out in the community not stuck in the courtroom sitting there waiting to testify because there are these disputes numerous disputes because we have basically an adversarial system that requires these case works we've been very successful about reducing the amount of time to get these case workers back out into the community District Attorney LaHood has really refocused and put child abuse neglect on the forefront one of the real shifting paradigms is his focus on criminal prosecution of child abuse neglect and he has proposed legislation to enhance penalties so that when these perpetrators come into our Children's Court if they are accused of serious bodily injury and death as you've heard from Susan Dreyfus then the criminal courts are going to hold those parents accountable and ultimately those parents will have to have their day in court and if they're found guilty and by their judge then they got to pay their dues and Mr. LaHood wants to make sure they pay the appropriate dues basically that takes the burden off the CPS court when in the past there has not been a focus on the criminal prosecution and therefore looking at Children's Court to try to rehabilitate and work with parents that obviously need to be taken out of the community for the harm and danger they bring to our children and families now getting to the programs what Judge Spiesha started 12 years ago it was a drug court and it was a public-private partnership and that's one of the uniqueness of Bear County and one of the reasons why I say things are well in Bear County because the private community the philanthropist stepped up to give Judge Spiesha a $1.5 million grant to start the drug court what it is is a multi-disciplinary team approach what we do is we basically strip away the process that the court system with attorneys and having case workers sit we basically run an intensive program where parents are brought in every other week they're held accountable they're drug tested but we have a wraparound services I see the numerous providers here in the room that sit with me every two weeks and they have their leisons their representatives and what we do is we problem solve there's another word that we call these courts a problem solving courts and what we do is we resolve those issues that Susan referred to transportation employment housing barriers to getting back in because of criminal record warrants in traffic court we work all through those issues in order so that people can succeed because as you heard we had these family totally disconnected especially in the world of neglect they're usually dropouts they're illiterate they got criminal records they have numerous barriers that we have to work through and people by themselves generally can't get through because of the bureaucracies so what drug court does is come up with solutions we've been highly successful we have put metrics to this we see that we have a 1% recidivism which means if they successfully not everybody successfully graduates but if they successfully graduate through a family drug court program then they get their children back working they're paying their taxes and they're being productive citizens in our community we now have taken that to the early intervention program which is say because of those child fatalities this is the new court that we just again another public private partnership I got more money out of the private sector to say we got to focus on those zero to three children that are most vulnerable to child fatalities and we got to provide the same wrap around services and I have the same providers drug treatment family violence mental health access and we're partnering up and what we're doing is with these partnerships and with these collaborations it's like a field of dreams people see the success that we bring to our community and they want to contribute that's one of the hopeful programs that we have with Children's Shelter with their new Hope Center that they got supported by Harbin Agium a great philanthropist in this community and we're going to provide more intensive psychiatric services because that's an inherent weaknesses we can yell and scream at the federal government we can yell and scream at the state government but what we have to do is we have to figure out locally is how do we come together and how do we collaborate because we can't wait for the federal government to figure it out we can't wait for the state government to make the decisions to bring the resources down and that's the reason why I restate Bear County as well how unique and different is it that you would have so much private investment so much philanthropy does this happen in other counties or maybe not when I was commissioner I had 254 counties but Bear County shined even then the commitment, Harris County there's a significant philanthropic commitment but across the state of Texas particularly when you get outside the rural areas there's very little private money that goes into this and the citizen driver says child abuse and neglect is a public health issue it's driven by things that CPS can't do anything about domestic violence mental health issues poverty those are the drivers and those are things CPS can't fix and those are community issues and that's why the county and the city have to step up to address the broader problems in prevention money all state dollars all GR dollars because the feds aren't funding prevention as Susan Dreyfus said this community has a unique philanthropic community that is supporting the nonprofit agencies supporting the courts our united way has just gotten two hope grants from the Department of Family and Protective Services that's the new programming bringing together on prevention issues so we are doing well we need to improve and there will always be bad cases but we are going the right direction because we've been working on it for about 14 or 15 years I'm just very curious so parents are coming into the drug court who have substance abuse problems Judge Sakai was telling me about a woman who had 13 children who had her biological kids all removed from her home and how you're now trying to work with her how successful is 10% is that a good rate what it is that example what I gave Shelly was the example I said we have to stop and keep doing the same thing over and over I think that's the definition of insanity and so basically what I saw was the same parents coming back into our court for the same reasons and the system for whatever reason was unable to assist and empower these parents so all we did was take away the children put them in a foster care system that a judge has said is flawed and then we expect that okay we've done our job and we're done and then we see the foster children age out and become part of the homeless population or they take our spaces in the Baird County Jail which Neagle Hood has to take responsibility for and so basically I said we need to stop and do what's basically and this is something I learned from Judge Spiesha a long, long time ago is what's called Restorative Justice can the court system create a system where it can create these partnerships because the court system itself I can order people to do whatever but people need to be connected with service people need to be connected with the right service we need to have providers that have evidence such as children shelters, compadre and compadre with this fatherhood program which I consider one of the best in the community if not the nation we also have an outstanding domestic violence program because this is unique for Baird County the domestic violence advocate through Mark the Palaeus and Family Violence Prevention Service have teamed with CPS to deal with domestic violence through its BIP programs Batters Intervention Prevention Programs we're one of the very few jurisdictions that address family violence in that intensive way we don't just send people to anger management and expect them to change their culture and deal with the culture that they deal with of control and anger which is what domestic violence is all about and it's not people just getting upset and having a bad day and so these intensive services are needed and that's the reason why when I said you know what let's look at this mom anybody ever tried to help her or is it the same in I believe Nicola Hood it makes it real clear in our criminal justice system we just can't lock people up and expect to have a healthy community we need to restore people empower people and that's what the drug court's been done for 12 years that Judge Beesha started and I'm continuing and that's what we hope to accomplish with early intervention now I can't guarantee success for somebody that's been through the system 15 times but we're going to try but if passion counts for something I'd say you're on the right track I don't know whether we're going to be able to take questions from the audience I don't know whether anybody's collecting them but if some we might have time for one or two here if we're not collecting them on paper we could pass a microphone to somebody okay we will have a question now we're getting a few questions from the audience let me just quickly go around starting maybe with Senator Uresti if there's one silver bullet or one thing that you think could absolutely improve the system improve our care for these children where would you use your energy? I would say prevention I think that's the key the earlier the better there's no question we heard about the nurse family partnership clearly that works when you send that young mom home with the nurse the teacher how to take care not only her but the father as well how to take care of that baby that little baby's crying because she's hungry not because she wants you to get angry at her or she's got an earache or she's teething you know things that all of us know about but perhaps that 15 year old teenage mom doesn't because she's still a young lady herself so I think prevention is the key I'm glad we're doing more but when we're spending over $2 billion on DFPS which is a good thing of course but only 2 or 3% of prevention it's just not going to ever work exactly my silver bullet is introspective we got to break the silos we got to break down the bureaucracies you know it can't be the federal's problem it can't be a state problem it can't be a county problem it can't be a city problem it is our problem and we all must break down our silos we must communicate and collaborate we must share our limited resources because we do have limited resources and so it is going to be a priority and one thing I do ask of our child advocates it's up to you to make sure our leadership our elected officials understand the priority of children and families in our community is housing for people young moms I've read too many cases where children have died in motorists we as a community need to be making sure that Judge Ray has the resources to find a safe housing for young families and not have them bouncing from shelter to shelter and not have them living in very very bad places that's the child welfare system you need to get way beyond that it's not just the child welfare system it's the community around and dealing with those problems people ask me what can I do and what I tell them every time is number one, take care of your own kids number two look in your family and is there somebody who needs help and then number three after you've done those two things I got a lot of places you can volunteer but do those first two things first we have two really interesting questions from our audience so let's see if we can answer these before we move to our next panelist this question comes from one of the people in the audience who says I have seen videos of adults abusing children put there for the whole world to see how much work is being put into and I think she means controlling or regulating social media sites Facebook and otherwise so that there's accountability and these images are not out there now that's really interesting anybody who want if one of those things comes out reported to the agency and if you've got a name you can be investigated the bigger issues of what's going on with social media that's way above my pay grade accountable and be a preventative effort I don't follow social media much I'm not on Facebook my campaign is but I'm not but I would think not to throw it to the DA's office but I'm sure that that's something that that they follow as well that they investigate if they have the information and if it's reported to propose some legislation that Judge Kai talked about as well to enhance the penalties and Senator Menendez's bill so I think that's something we can certainly look at as well to hold those folks accountable because it doesn't make any sense if they're posting it on Facebook or wherever they need to be held accountable absolutely I think this is for Judge Specia you spoke about increasing funding I think is supposed to be in this for foster care what about helping grandparents who are raising their grandchildren grandparents are able to become foster care parents however the 60 hours imposed a hardship to them I'm not trying to know all the details here but I think there are many children for the families are taking care of them without being foster parents very very hard on families I know that there's going to be a movement to increase funding for kinship care that's the best place for kids with grandma an awful lot of grandmas taking care of kids that are not known to the system two-thirds of these kids aren't known to the system so we do need to look at providing some help for where in the system where the system looks to the kin to take the family we need to do more than an integration payment it's what we do right now I'm not sure I know 60 hours of training to be a foster parent and frankly I won't reduce that you can be a kinship caregiver maybe we can do something but we need to be very very very careful about the people who are foster parents we need to make sure that we have safe foster parents and so I understand the sentiment that maybe family members shouldn't have training but if they're going to be a foster parents with a child placement agency they've got to go through the training this one's for you or Judge Specia what percent of cases that go through the courts get to be heard in drug court or the other side well at this time those courts are very intensive and so percentage wise 10% maybe I really haven't got that figure especially for early intervention because we're just rolling that out but basically that gives you an idea how big the problem is now let me take it a little bit bigger than that we only remove a very small number of children who get reported and validated for child abuse and so it's like that big funnel we got all these reporting and then it gets funneled and literally it's drops at the bottom of the funnel that come into the court system and then these problem solving courts are taking more of those courts now what we're doing locally and we've been working on it's what we call the bear counter and it's something I learned from Judge Specia is to take those principles and practices that we're doing in our drug court and early intervention court and taking it back to children's court and saying why aren't we doing a better job reunifying children with their families and why aren't these families getting the services that CPS has as under contract and so we're asking some real tough questions of our system which we hold CPS accountable in that regard and so what we're hoping to do is basically try to instead of being reactive in a crisis mode and just taking children and then putting them into care that is going to be overhauled very shortly we're saying let's do a better job about putting these families together I know that that creates discussion about judge you know these families I know but we can't give up on families that live in our community otherwise we continue this divide of those people and those people and I think that's very unhealthy and I think that's what makes Bear County unique is that we have a lot of heart and what we want to do is the right thing for these children and families and we're trying to reframe it so that we can put these families back and if not with the parents let's put them back with their family members and that's where the grandparents come in and that's the reason why I'm dedicated to them to help them to get some legal orders because CPS in their way to protect will put children with their families and then say the children are safe and walk away and we've got some situations where the grandparents can't get enrollment, can't get aid, can't get any type of assistance because they have no valid court order plus they're subject to a parent coming back saying well I want my kid back and I'm going to court to get my kid back and these grandparents live in that world and I'm very sympathetic to their needs and we're locally we're creating a special process and I haven't had the chance to really talk to that group to say we are doing something for them and we'll unroll it shortly. It's another initiative locally. This audience member says I agree prevention is key however once in the system what can we do to reduce the amount of time kids spend in care? Well it's what we're doing prevention that's part of the incentive for these parents to come in you commit to sobriety you commit to services you commit to deal with the trauma that you suffered and that's another issue that people don't recognize the parents that often come into court are on drugs and alcohol 75-80% they've been traumatized as children either they've been abused and sexually abused as children or as adults and they got significant mental health with the mental health system that's very restrictive and really there's a lot of barriers to getting mental health people with insurance sometimes have difficulty getting mental health treatment because there's even barriers there and so what we're doing locally is to try to remove those barriers and again to try to put families back together again. There's a study. One case worker they get out of care very quickly for every other case worker it increases by two to four months so improving the retention rate of case workers will get children through the system faster. So is at the heart of a lot of this. Okay. I think we have time for one more. We have a child psychiatrist in our audience who wants to know about special programs she admits she mentions for example at-risk parents programs that help them find employment I think employment for child care or some compensation for child care that would help do we have assistance programs like that that are available through the courts or otherwise for anybody who couldn't hear that our audience members said in exchange for child care being provided they would have to sit with counselors or providers and gain some skills and learn from an infant specialist obviously that's the nurse family partnership that is being run out of children shelter but another dynamic and I'm going to open another door here on another discussion but I've had discussion with our placement agency especially with children shelter to change the nature of the foster parenting program to where they're not just caretakers waiting to see what happens and then having attachment issues with the children but you're becoming fostering mentoring which means foster parents need to connect with the biological parents and we've seen that work in our drug court and early intervention court when they come together you will see this synergy created by people connecting with the parents that need help and sometimes it helps the parent realize that they can't parent and they're able to move on and the children are able to move on because we create this closure so from that question of yes we need services that connect with people as opposed to I got a contract for services and here's your certificate good luck goodbye and we just checked the box so to speak and that's where we're trying to get away from is checking the box and saying you've checked the box now you get your kids back no what we're looking for especially in our problem solving court is transformation we need to see people change and become productive and better citizens do you allow the public to come in and watch and observe every they're welcome every Friday morning for many of us I invite them all okay Judge Spisha Judge Sakai Senator Thank you so very much we thank you for sharing all of this information very very informative while Annette Rodriguez is sitting down I wanted to just ignore the congressman dog it was hoping to be part of our program today he couldn't be here but they did he did send a note and asked to read it he's been a long time champion for children and he joined us today while he can't be here he votes in Washington to prevent things from happening that shouldn't happen to children his San Antonio director Mary Ellen Belise I believe is with us today she's waving from the back Mary Ellen and in Washington congressman dog it has been trying to get more federal matching resources to encourage Texas to do more to prevent child abuse and I think you heard us talk about the family first prevention I got the title on that right Susan talked about it the judges mentioned it and it did not pass in congress the last time I think he continues to work on that so thank you congressman dog it did not did not get through the entire process so we don't know if it's still alive or will be alive but obviously there's some interest in Washington so now we're going to turn to our local providers and I just want to introduce Annette Rodriguez she's the president and CEO of the children's shelter our host for today's event so thank you to you and your staff Annette for putting this program together just real briefly another long resume that I'm going to shorten with my apologies Annette has dedicated the last 20 years of her profession to the Texas nonprofit sector working to improve the lives of vulnerable children and families she works with families as well she now leads this organization that serves over 4,500 children and parents in our community each year providing emergency shelter residential treatment for children in crisis the children's shelter also helps children find permanent homes through foster care and adoption and it provides parenting skills to vulnerable families and mental health services to children who have been mistreated thank you so much Annette well thank you for being here and just like to say we are just one of many providers and many of them are here in the room today so I just want to also acknowledge the work that they do because no one organization is allowed you're on the front lines you see the children when they're removed from their homes they're brought to your emergency shelter you follow them through the process quite often by other services let's just start out with what's working and then let's talk further about what you need so what's working I think we heard a lot of the things from commissioner Specia Senator Uresta and judge Sakai we've got some great things in Bear County that are that are working partners coming together trying to take an integrated approach and that's one of the things that I'm really proud of when we talk about Bear County and our partners is that we are trying to bring systems together so when we talk about what's working we've got a great relationship with Child Protective Services we have great relationship with most case workers and trying to do the best for children we've got philanthropists who are wanting to make a difference they are providing their resources to help create innovative programs so for the children's shelter it's like the Hope Center being able to provide mental health services to children and being able to work with their families as well so we have lots of great components we've got resources we have philanthropists we have professionals who are trained and committed to providing innovative care through trauma informed care services so we're innovative in Bear County what's not working is Judge Sakai mentioned is that we still have many silos we haven't come together to truly create an integrated approach and that's really one of the things that we need to work on we need to provide tailored services not cookie cutter services to the children that are coming into care and to the families as well and so we can only do that when we come together and look at what the community has to offer where the gaps are and what our children and families need and then we can create those programs of providers so that we're providing a true comprehensive continuum of care through our community so that we can make a difference so we've heard about the volume of children being removed from their homes and where do we put them and what do we do and do we have the services in our community to address each and every mean are you overwhelmed at the shelter at the emergency shelter or can you handle the capacity now we're in a capacity crisis when you look at the numbers of children that are being removed in 2015 there was over 7500 children that were removed from their homes due to abuse, abandonment and neglect mostly neglect 79% of those were removed because of neglectful supervision and we're talking we talked about foster homes we don't have enough foster homes who can provide care to these kiddos and so we're needing to provide quality care we know that children that come into care have they end up with really bad statistics for their life outcomes we know that if they're a young girl that's in the foster care system they're 25% more likely to become a teen mother if they're a boy who enters the foster care system they're 59% more likely to be arrested as a juvenile and then we also know that 40% of them will grow up to they themselves either abuse and or neglect their own children so we know that the system is not working we know that there's still pieces that need to be fixed and so when we talk about capacity we need more foster homes we need to be able to recruit and retain many more foster families so that we can provide for the number of children that are entering care so when you get the call from Child Protective Services do you have to look around to see if you have room do you ever have to say for full? we do last year we turned away 2700 requests for foster homes so what happened with those children? they have to go to other providers and for some of them they may even have to go out of region and or they may have to enter a residential facility so where do we go with this you mentioned and we talked just a little bit earlier about the funding only paying I think it was I think the judge said 60% and so you have to raise the other 40% somewhere to provide the space and the services and the resources needed for these kids if you had a change in that math if you got 80% how far would that get you? well that would be wonderful always shooting for 100% that's right that's right but if you ask me where to put the money certainly we want quality care and we need the monies to be able to retain quality foster parents we need to provide quality training we know many of our own foster families will tell us that they're taking their own out of pocket money and helping supplement for what the children needs if they want to be in extracurricular activities they want to do ballet they want to do different things those are things that some of our foster families will pay for and also there's some medical needs they're involved that there may be some things that children need that our foster parents will pay out of pocket and not hassle with the medical aspect of it or the medical program but we do need more money but also what we need is more prevention because you look at what brings children into care and you look we talked about 79% of the children that were removed from their homes were removed because of neglect for supervision and if you drill down on that we know that over 60% of those children were removed because parents had substance abuse issues we know that over 30% of those also had mental health issues and it's not being treated so if we could make a difference it depends on which system we want to work on the foster care system we want to fix that and that certainly needs to be fixed but if we want to prevent children from having to come into the foster care system at all then we have to drill down on some of these community issues and these society issues and we have to put money in prevention or family preservation and we're going to have to look at substance abuse issues and mental health issues and access to our families do we need to have greater resources or do we need to start at the beginning and create programs we don't have to start at the beginning we have some wonderful programs out in our community we just need the resources to be able to take them to capacity and be able to reach more participants and more families correct so we have what we call our family strengthening department so we do two things there we're doing prevention we're working with vulnerable families of the system so that that program would be our nurse family partnership where we have we go out into the homes the mother signs up with the nurse family partnership program during the time that she's prenatal and we work with that mother throughout the two years or through the first two years of that child's life making sure that the mom and also the family members that are in that family system recognize that they are that parent's first they are that child's first teacher so we want to make sure that that child we want to make sure that they're going to all their wellness checks they're getting their immunizations they're going to find these children through the court system or is there another way to identify them well we go through we have great partnerships with our school districts we have great partnerships with different OBGYNs across the city and other health health services and they get first referred to us we also have a great word of mouth referral base so as one girl one young lady make them through our program she sees somebody down the street or she knows someone in her own family who can benefit from the services she'll get referred to us as well we've been we've got eight nurses and we've been full for almost the four years that we've had the program we've got eight great outcomes that's a prevention program we also have our eye parent program where we're able to work with any parent in Bear County also grandparents and so it doesn't matter if the child's been in the system or if the mom's maybe has had some contact with Child Protective Services we've got a program where we can ensure that she has the support that she needs or he so that the child doesn't have to re-enter the system and then what you mentioned Judd Sakai mentioned our compadre program which is a program for dads we do prevention in our compadre program but oftentimes what we're finding is we're doing family reunification there so dads are coming through our programs they're being successful they're graduating they're giving back to the community they're able to demonstrate that they can be great fathers again and so they're regaining custody of their children and or visitation rights I would just mention I have to answer a few questions if there are any so jot a note down on it hard and we'll pick them up and we'll try to answer this before we conclude today so you have a state senator here and you have two judges what do you need from them or what can you do with them what is being done and I would know that senator uresti is on the legislative budget oh we know that oh the piggy bank senator uresti not to put pressure on you in bear county the providers that are here we're lucky on so many fronts we have great partners great stakeholders but we have great representation in our judicial system but also at the state system uresti has been a champion for children for as long as he's been representing us and so he knows the problem he gets it he's not the one we have to worry about it's so many others across the state but certainly he's a voice for us one of the things that I would say and I was reluctant when we first started talking about redesign and doing the child welfare reform for the state but I'll tell you this is for both the state and for the providers it's for the entire child welfare system it's how to improve the foster care system for children how do we keep children from lingering in the foster care system how do we ensure that they're getting the healthcare that they need when they need it ensure that they're successful and that they don't become a statistic so it's looking at every aspect of the child welfare system from case workers to caseloads to turn over to medical needs for the children making sure they're placed within their geographic where they grew up and then also looking at the provider side of that so it's looking at overhauling and just really modifying the entire system so several years ago it has to be probably about 14-15 years ago a group of both private organizations and also the state came together and they called it the private the PPP so private partner partnership private provider partnership yes together and they came up with a model of what they thought the foster care system should look like fast forward now to where we are today and we've had a project that's been rolled out in the Fort Worth area under the auspice of ACH which is a non-profit organization who's been in their community for over 100 years and they in three years have seen some really fantastic successes is this the program where there's a program that recognizes all the others or oversees the operation and that's exactly what it is and what it does what that allows us to do allows us to create tailored services we're talking about not having cookie cutter services for children and families but really looking at the strengths of the community and being able to draw on those strengths to create a comprehensive integrated system of care for children and families who are in the foster care system and what ACH has been able to do a great partnership with Child Protective Services they've been able to share data through technology they've been able to build capacity in recruitment and retention of foster families and also therapeutic foster families they've also been able to increase accountability they've got some great data data points that they've been able to share with the rest of the community and we're talking about what all do children and families need they need workforce employment or workforce resources they need to be able to have access to daycare and they're bringing all of those providers together to truly create a system where children and families can navigate and be successful and so where I was probably skeptical and reluctant when I first started hearing about how this would work I see the successes now and I see that there's hope there if we can continue that momentum and continue working in that direction across the state of Texas I do think we can reform the child welfare system so I sense the brand in Tarrant County and what we're there is that something that the Baird County providers are interested in pulling together? it's going to be determinant on the state they need to determine where the next rollouts are going to be and I think Commissioner Whitman mentioned during one of his last testimonies that he wanted to roll it out in eight new locations over the next two years we're calling that ambitious and we say that's ambitious because it takes quite a bit of an investment so if we look at ACH in the three years that they've been doing the project they've invested six million of their own dollars into this project to make it successful they are receiving reimbursements from the state but it doesn't come close to covering what it truly cost to get this started up get it ready, get it going and get it successful you told me and I didn't know this that about 90% of the providers are outside the state agency they're private, they're non-profit they're homes and you said that the communication isn't what it should be with CPS with states so 90% of the children that are removed when they're placed they're placed with private providers sometimes there's a disconnect with some of the legislatures who don't know the complexity of the child welfare system they don't understand that the children are residing with us and staying with us and they believe that all the fixes need to happen within DFPS I do think that we had some great discussions when the PPP came together that was the public-private partnership that created this model but I don't feel like those conversations continued at the the length and depth that they should and so often times providers get marginalized out of those discussions and out of those solutions and so one of the things that I would like to see is where providers are at the table more often and not just considered a transaction because we're subcontracting with the state but rather as a partner at the table offering solutions to help provide better outcomes for children and families you've observed that you think would change that equation and be of assistance well I think we talked about the reimbursement rates that's certainly important both for the foster family but also for the child placing agency because we incur several costs or many costs we talked about what it takes to train a case worker to be a case worker for child protective services we have those same costs when it comes to foster families they need at least a minimum of four hours of training in addition to all the other requirements and regulations that either the state and or the agency themselves might place on the foster families so if we're looking for quality care and if we want foster families to stay with us for several years and hopefully then move towards becoming a therapeutic foster family then we're going to have to invest more dollars to help support them and put structures in place so that we're learning them out we want to make sure that we've got respite for them if they're taking some difficult children with we're not difficult children but children with difficult behaviors we want to make sure that we've got networks and supports where they can take some respite and take some time and then reintroduce the child back into the home but all of those activities take funds, take resources they take an investment I apologize I wasn't looking far enough to the right here okay this question is about the nurse family partnership why nurses, why not other specialists such as licensed masters, social workers or other people with some skills one of the things that I think is very very important is that when you're going to be working with vulnerable families that you provide evidence based programs and when we decided to do the nurse family partnership program we looked at the evidence or the research that had been placed in creating this program and so the programs may work with licensed master social workers but what we have seen is that the work that we've done or the work that nurse family partnership has done it's been incredibly successful we have incredible outcomes with the children and also with the families and the fact that you're building a long term relationship is really what makes the difference in helping that mother cross crises and challenges and helps guide them when they're making decisions around their own health and around the health of their children do you see room for other licensed professionals like social workers doing something similar do you think that the nursing profession is a unique one the nursing profession is a unique one I think families and mothers in particular they look at nurses and they have that respect for nurses because of the training and the expertise that they bring but I don't think that it's the only solution I think there's other wonderful programs out there I just think that we should use programs that are evidence based and researched and that we know are going to work but you know there's not any one program is going to be a silver bullet for every family another question what are your plans for LGBTQ youth who are in the child welfare system how can we improve it for them well I think what we need to do with that population is just be aware and be sensitive we're talking about being trauma informed and trauma sensitive in our care and we need to look at the characteristics that each child brings to the families what their needs are and so we need to make sure that when we're matching those children if we're matching them in a foster home and or if we're providing services that we're providing tailored services to what they need so regardless of how they classify themselves let me just ask you what if we missed what do you want to say that we haven't talked about I would just say that I'm very hopeful I think there's some wonderful things happening I think Bear County has some wonderful providers I do think that there's some work to do and truly create an integrated system of care so that we can continue to move forward I agree with Judge Sakai that we shouldn't wait for redesign to get here or for the state to tell us when redesign is going to get here I think we should start those conversations so that we have a plan so we can start moving forward all for the benefit of children and families okay and that's Rodriguez with the Children's Shelter thank you now pastsa.com I think a fabulous job and it was great to share this information with so many people I also want to thank the Children's Shelter for hosting this event and for allowing Texas public radio to be a partner in all of this thanks of course to the panelists who gave their time today and shared their wisdom and I think you're going to wrap it up for us on behalf of the Children's Shelter and the Board of Trustees I'd like to thank our distinguished panelists and guests for attending the State of Child Welfare Town Hall my name is Roxanne Bond Board Chair for the Children's Shelter as we move into the next legislative session and inaugurate a newly elected president this is a reminder as to why what we do matters the vulnerable populations of children and families we serve each year rely on a comprehensive model of care to address, prevent and break the cycles of abuse and neglect thank you to Texas Public Radio for their partnership in this community dialogue and for our child welfare advocates and partners for their continued commitment to address the opportunities to help children and families be safe, secure calm and well this concludes our event thank you everyone