Poor Economy Leaves More Children at Risk
A girl playing last month at the Emergency Shelter for Teen Mothers and Young Children, a unit of the Austin Children's Shelter.
By CLAIRE CARDONA
Published: December 2, 2011
Judge Darlene Byrne sat on the bench one Monday in November hearing the 28th case of the day on her Child Protective Services docket. The young woman before her was pregnant with her ninth child and wanted to reunite with her other eight children who were scattered among various homes.
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Jennifer Whitney for The Texas Tribune
High chairs lined up at the Austin Children's Shelter.
Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune
Judge Darlene Byrne hears Child Protective Services cases, some of which may involve the Austin Children's Shelter.
The otherwise patient and soft-spoken judge raised her voice.
“These children did not make this mess; the adults in this room made this mess,” she said to the mother, whose name has been withheld to protect her and her children’s identities. “Love does not feed or shelter or clothe or take your kids to the doctor. Love’s a good thing, but it’s not enough to raise a kid.”
More children are living in poverty than ever in Texas. About 1.7 million Texas children — 26 percent of the total population — live below the federal poverty level, according to United States census data released this week. And experts speculate that a key factor in the increase in reports of child abuse and neglect is the struggling economy; the number of reported cases of abuse has gone up 6 percent in Texas since 2008, before the recession.
In Travis County, the number of new cases opened with Child Protective Services rose 36 percent from 2008 to 2011.
“In an economic downturn, when you’re losing your job, it pushes you over the edge in terms of the resources you have both internally and externally to care for your kid,” said Jane Burstain, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a liberal research group.
Texas lawmakers have worked in recent years to keep children in their homes or with relatives instead of moving them to foster care. In Judge Byrne’s 126th Judicial District Civil Court chambers in Austin, the goal is to reunite children with their families. But in many cases, like that of the pregnant mother she saw in November, it does not work.
“The thought that that’s even appropriate is staggering to me, that we’ve got another child on the way and Mom and Dad can’t even take care of these,” Judge Byrne said. (Judge Byrne is a donor to The Texas Tribune.)
The foster-care system is overwhelmed, and Child Protective Services, like most state agencies, was hit with severe cuts during the 2011 legislative session.
Financing to prevent child abuse was slashed 44 percent. And because the Legislative Budget Board did not increase money for caseload growth or to support family services or relative caregivers, the agency will continue to operate on a budget designed in 2009. Shelters and facilities that care for children and provide services like domestic-violence prevention are struggling to find ways to serve more families with far fewer dollars.
The Austin Children’s Shelter receives about 30 percent of its money from the state and relies on private donations and grants to make up the rest.
The number of teenagers in the shelter’s emergency program has risen 23 percent since 2010, and the number of teenagers in the shelter has grown by 27 percent. More people are also staying longer, including two children who have stayed for two years.
Kelly White, the shelter’s chief executive, said it has seen a surge in the number of children who require serious treatment.
“We’re doing everything we can to not have it affect care,” said Ms. White, who has laid off two employees. “Some things we’ve done to save money we realized were not good for kids, so we’re having to figure out other ways to do that.”
Ms. White said the larger number of older youths coming in is most likely a result of the economy. “All of those things create the fertile ground that can create more abuse situations,” she said.
The average stay has nearly doubled, to 62 days in 2011 from 32 days in 2008. And many youths who have aged out of foster care end up back in the shelter, Ms. White said, often because they cannot find jobs.
In Austin, SafePlace, which provides services to victims of domestic violence and to children accompanied by family members, has seen a 60 percent increase in the number of parents who have children in the Child Protective Services system.
“I don’t think that a bad economy causes violence,” said Julia Spann, executive director of SafePlace. “The precursors are already there, and then you add all the stressors and it gets worse. Then it’s harder to get help, and for shelters it’s harder because people don’t even have the means to leave the shelter because they can’t get jobs.”
To keep children in foster programs connected with their families or communities, the Department of Family and Protective Services is working on a plan to restructure how the state pays for foster care so that children can stay close to home and quickly move out of the system into permanent homes.
The program, which will award a contract in 2012, aims to help children who bounce around between multiple foster homes, as was the case with one Austin Children’s Shelter client who had lived in 32 foster homes by the time he was 16.
Although Ms. White said the overhaul is necessary, the new program will most likely reduce the amount of state money the shelter and other care facilities around Texas receive because it could result in lower reimbursement rates for services.
“I hate talking about kids where you get down to a rate,” Ms. White said, “but unfortunately we have to make sure that we also pay our bills.”
Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Department of Family and Protective Services, said that with no end in sight to the recession, the agency is reallocating resources statewide to have as many caseworkers as possible working directly with families. It is also constantly monitoring caseloads, he said, to ensure they are manageable.
“It is, admittedly, a big job,” he said, “but we are up to it.”
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