AUSTIN — Today, the Texas Public Policy Foundation published a new research paper titled “A Unified Standard: Ensuring All Children Are Given Active Efforts for Prevention and Reunification.” In its recommendations, the paper aims to raise the quality of services provided to preserve and reunite Texas families.
Child Protective Services is required to undertake efforts designed to prevent the separation of families. Under current law, however, CPS is required to meet a higher standard for these efforts when a child qualifies as a member of a Native American tribe, effectively creating a two-tiered prevention system. One of the authors’ key recommendations is that the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) should apply the higher standard (“active efforts”) to all cases, not just those involving Native American children.
“Removing children from their families into foster care is a drastic action that results in lifelong trauma for children,” said TPPF Vice President of Policy Andrew Brown. “All children, regardless of their racial or ethnic background, deserve the best efforts we can provide to enable them to be raised by their natural families.”
TPPF Policy Scholar Nicholas Armstrong added, “The ‘active efforts’ standard is better defined than the current ‘reasonable efforts’ standard that applies in most CPS cases and provides a detailed list of remedial services that can be offered to families. Requiring CPS to meet the ‘active efforts’ standard in all cases will provide greater accountability for the state and improve the quality of family preservation and reunification services.”
To read the full research paper, click here.
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