Child welfare workers fear legislative push to outsource their jobs
For 30 years, Sheila Hazley worked to ensure that abused and neglected children were settling into foster homes and getting the care they needed. Now, the retired caseworker and manager for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services is side-eyeing a legislative proposal to have nonprofit organizations do the same work she and her team did.
Under House Bill 6 — part of a sweeping plan to revamp Texas' child welfare system — the state would slowly create a "community-based care" model, which would allow contracted organizations to monitor children in foster care and adoptive homes and those who have been placed by the state into a relative's home. That would include making sure children are settling into their new homes and their health needs are being met.
Some of that work is already done by private organizations. Former and current state caseworkers and advocates for children say more organizations doing case management could be problematic for both children and state employees. They worry about knowledgable state workers losing their jobs, contractors having trouble placing children with behavioral and mental health issues and not enough qualified nonprofits or local governments stepping up to help.
"It is a good philosophy, and if we could do it, it would be great for families and children, but the services aren't available," Hazley said. "So when our representatives are talking about it, they're talking about it in an ideal world ... but unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world."
Read more: http://www.reporternews.com/story/news/local/texas/2017/03/16/child-welfare-workers-fear-legislative-push-outsource-their-jobs/99273248/
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