Texas child welfare agency scrambles as turnover hits new high

Nearly 2,300 employees have left the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services since the beginning of the year, stressing an agency that has already experienced some of the highest turnover rates of any large state department.

In interviews and at public town halls, more than two dozen current and former employees described a department that has been stretched thin for more than a year, needlessly losing passionate workers who carry decades of experience and knowledge. From dangerous overtime shifts watching children in hotels to political drama to problems with their supervisors, workers say the agency has lost its mission — and in the end, it’s Texas kids who suffer for it.

One child welfare worker said she knew she needed to quit when, last year, she visited the home of a parent suspected of child neglect. The mother failed a drug test for methamphetamine, but because there was no “immediate danger,” the caseworker could not remove the child from the home, she said. She lost sleep for weeks.

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Another worker said she first thought of resigning after a foster child, staying in a temporary placement at a DFPS office, threw a perfume bottle at her in spring 2021. She considered quitting again when she was assigned to drive a child to and from his placement, four hours roundtrip almost every day, and officials, she said, would sometimes change the hotel he was staying at overnight without letting her know. She finally quit in February, after her bosses suggested they would discipline her when she needed a break from her overtime shift to pick up her own children from a closing daycare.

Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Yet another said she quit because of unmanageable workloads and pressure to close multiple cases a day even though she believed more investigation was needed. Several others said they were offended by Gov. Greg Abbott’s order to launch child abuse investigations into families of transgender children. A former director cited the politicization of the Department of Family and Protective Services, questioning why employees tasked with caring for children were caught up in culture wars and legal battles.

Of the 2,267 employees who left the agency by Aug. 3, about 83 percent of them had quit — the highest voluntary exit rate the department has seen since it became an independent agency in fall 2017.

“The focus has been taken so far away from child safety that I don’t want to do this job anymore,” said a current Houston-area caseworker.

The worker, like the others quoted in this article, spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they feared repercussions for discussing the agency’s internal problems.

The total number of departures, including employees who retired or were terminated, has also been climbing. In the same seven-month period last year, about 2,000 employees left; in 2018, it was just shy of 1,400. In all of 2021, about 3,500 employees left the agency — and if current trends continue, the department could see even higher numbers by the end of 2022.

Most of the departures have affected Child Protective Services, the division responsible for ensuring the safety and health of Texas children. In the 2021 fiscal year — a period that coincided with the “Great Resignation” spurred by COVID — more than 3,000 employees left DFPS; nearly two-thirds of them were CPS specialists.

DFPS reported an overall turnover rate of 26.9 percent that year, which stretched from September 2020 to August 2021. It was the third-highest rate of all agencies with more than 1,000 employees.

Agency turnover is “absolutely a crisis,” DFPS Commissioner Jaime Masters told a federal judge in June. “I have been traveling the state to meet with staff to hear what their concerns are and to see what we can do about it — a lot of it is morale, a lot of it is just the job itself is hard, even when we don’t have a ‘Great Resignation.’ This is a hard job to keep staff in anyway because of the nature of the work.”

The agency’s most recent exit survey report, which included data from March to May of 2022, indicated work-related stress was consistently the top reason why employees departed. Aside from other job opportunities, which was another major factor, workers cited safety concerns, lack of communication, low pay and problems with their bosses.

CPS caseworkers earned an average salary of $53,600 in the last fiscal year, but pay is often much lower for entry-level employees.

DFPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins said the agency is addressing the high turnover by ramping up recruitment efforts “to a level not seen before in the agency.” DFPS posts 20 job listings a month on social media, hosts statewide job fairs, invests in LinkedIn recruitment and advertises the department at events hosted by other state agencies, he said.

Masters continues to tour the state and will share recommendations to improve work conditions and morale once the meetings are finished, Crimmins added, but a date is not yet known.

At the core of their jobs, CPS workers take on cases — allegations of child neglect, the placement of a child recently orphaned, the anonymous tip claiming abuse. But employees say they are being assigned too many cases, and are expected to close them too quickly, jeopardizing the integrity of their work.

Child protective workers had an average 17.6 cases each day in the 2021 fiscal year, according to state data. That’s a slight decline from previous years, but employees say it’s only because their managers require them to close a certain number of cases each week.

Sometimes, it’s easy — an allegation will be unfounded, or a situation is quickly resolved. But in others, the circumstances are more complex and require hours of additional investigation and possible action that caseworkers don’t feel they have time to do.

Brandace Mata, the former Galveston-area DFPS employee who left after defying her supervisors by picking up her children from the closing daycare, said she knows of at least two incidents in which a child was accidentally placed in a clearly dangerous environment because employees were too bogged down with work to thoroughly vet the caretaker. Both workers involved in those cases still work at the department, she said.

“There have been plenty of cases that have probably been closed that shouldn’t be, because there’s not time to deal with it, because our supervision is just breathing down everybody's necks,” Mata said. “It's all about the numbers. They just want s— closed. I don't feel like we're ever talking about child safety.”

Crimmins said the department could not comment on specific incidents, citing a state law that makes investigations confidential.

But that’s not caseworkers’ only responsibility. As some employees’ caseloads increase — often because the department is losing the personnel to adequately apportion them — employees are also mandated to take overtime shifts watching children without placement, or CWOP.

Their struggles have been well documented: These are dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of high-risk, high-needs foster children who do not have a permanent placement. Instead, the state lodges them in hotels and churches, tasking caseworkers with supervising them.

The employees, usually working four-hour shifts, are not allowed to discipline the children, and they do not receive specialized training to care for them. Two workers are assigned to each child at all times, making 12 adults responsible for one person in the course of a day.

The issue hit a high point in July 2021, when upward of 400 children were without placement. Staffers said they were assaulted and overworked, unable to intervene as they watched children destroy property or put themselves in dangerous situations.

The children, in turn, have been missing school and lacking the structured care they need. In many cases, they are re-traumatized while moving through the system.

A quarter of Texas children who had been sexually abused were victimized or re-victimized after entering foster care, according to a June report by court monitors tasked with reviewing the state’s foster care conditions.

“CWOP has been the worst issue that has hit us in the 15 years that I've worked here,” said a current San Antonio-area worker. “I have never been so overwhelmed, overworked, exhausted — mentally, physically — defeated, deflated. I can just go through the list. This has been the worst experience.”

Though workers have been raising concerns about the unplaced children for more than a year, many said they are disheartened that department leaders, or Abbott, have declined to meaningfully intervene.

Crimmins said that premise is false, and “every possible step and option to alleviate the situation is in play; with the support of the governor and Legislature, we are doing everything we can to stretch our capacity and find placements for the youth.”

Lawmakers last year passed a bill aimed at increasing capacity, which has helped reduce the children without placement numbers to 75 as of Aug. 1 — mostly because the measure prohibited non-emergency removals, which caseworkers say may leave some children in dangerous homes. It’s a lose-lose situation, they say, and the workplace issues will persist as long as Texas continues to place children in unlicensed facilities.

“We’re waiting for Gov. Abbott to help — send the life raft, send the safety guards, acknowledge that this is a problem, declare it an emergency, and let’s get this problem fixed,” the San Antonio employee said. “We waited for at least a year for him to do that. … And then you start to make the decision: Do I leave the job that I love that pays my bills? Or do I stay and try to see it through?”

Some child welfare employees have considered the same for political reasons, accusing the state’s Republican leadership of using Child Protective Services as an outlet to further their own agendas. The agency saw a string of departures this spring, after Abbott directed CPS to investigate families for child abuse if they provide their transgender children with gender-affirming care, such as puberty blockers.

Abbott and other Republicans have argued that those treatments take away a child’s constitutional right to procreate when they are too young to legally consent, and the medication could result in physical and mental harm. Most major medical organizations support gender-affirming care, which is linked to reduced rates of attempted suicide, depression and drug use.

Shelby McCowen, who worked as an investigator in a Travis County office, said the directive to investigate transgender care was the “last straw” for many employees. She’d only worked at the agency for 10 months but burned out quickly — she was averaging 50- to 60-hour work weeks and responsible for upward of 100 children at a time.

“There are a ton of social workers who do already identify with the LGBTQ community, me being one myself,” McCowen said. “It kind of feels like we’re turning on family members at this point.”

Robert Richman, the DFPS associate commissioner who headed the investigations, quit his job on Sunday. After less than a year in the role, Richman’s resignation letter cited another opportunity that would further his law enforcement career.

“There are many things beyond our control, but what we can control is our effort and determination to do our job,” Crimmins said, responding to accusations of politicization at the department. “We have a succinct mission, to protect and serve children and families, the elderly and vulnerable, and that is where every bit of energy and attention is directed.”

Edward McKinley and Taylor Goldenstein contributed reporting.