What’s going on with Texas Child Protective Services? No doubt most at the agency are hard working folk trying to protect children from bad situations but, in the last couple of years enough bad things have been alleged to make you wonder if there is a culture problem within the agency.
The latest story comes from El Paso where this week a 51-year-old CPS case worker was charged with having taken a 14-year-old girl to a motel for sex.
Just a bit more than a week ago we had this headline: CPS employees arrested on charges linked to murder of Hunt Co. teen. One of these folk was a CPS investigative supervisor. The indictment is sealed but the case is related “to the investigation of the murder of Alicia Moore, the Greenville teen found dead in a trunk last November,” according to KLTV.
Abilene listeners most certainly recall the on-going Klapheke case in which a CPS investigative supervisor, a resolution specialist, and the office director were placed on administrative leave following the “death investigation of 22-month-old Tamryn Klapheke at Dyess Air Force Base. The three were being investigated for allegedly not cooperating with Abilene police in the death investigation,” according to KTXS.
When the people paid to lookout for the safety and welfare of children at risk in our society become themselves a risk to those children, where do victims turn for help?
One lesson is that no matter a program’s intent, there will always be evil in the world and within the program. We should hold accountable those who break our trust; we should reject the utopianist plans of the Left for which another program and more money is always the solution to every perceived injustice, and; meanwhile Texas CPS should clean up its act.
Mr. Pratt, I was extremely interested in what you had to say about the ‘state’ of CPS in Texas lately.
To add to your report, you should check into what has not been done to help the children of the Levelland Children’s Hope home. I am a teacher in Levelland. My principals (last year and I am sure this year), as well as the school nurse, have reported situations that are not taken care of to insure the safety and health of the kids who are wards of the state, but are housed at Children’s Hope and attend Levelland Public Schools (who go out of our way to help these kids).
NOTE: One employee of the ‘home’ was taking a twelve year old home with him on the weekend for his own [edited by Pratt]. Reportedly the CPS worker called this a definite infraction—-did anything change. NO.
THE STAFF have been known for staging fights, pitting kids against each other.
One girl became pregnant last year while at Children’s Hope….how did this happen and who is responsible?
The students in my classes have reported feeling unsafe at night even though the boys and girls are housed in different facilities.
The man who owns the place also has a facility in Lubbock. He gets 2500 dollars a month per child, yet the kids’ clothing is often wrinkled and dirty, because he can’t hire decent personnel—he hires students I have had in the past who I would not invite into my home. They get their clothes from donations.
The state auditor, cps worker, and case worker, has been contacted by another school employee who is much concerned and nothing changed. That employee reached the conclusion that ‘NO ONE CARES’.
Because these kids are so extremely emotionally damaged, they need intensive care —they do receive counseling—but they need qualified people to watch over them and with the dollars fed into the system, to the owner, “John” , I wonder why they can’t get better care.
Yes, CPS does check into things, but I see a lot of money going everywhere but to these kids. Perhaps the STATE thinks they are better off here—the lesser of the hell they came from—than to try to get “John” to properly manage his funds.
These appear to be ‘throw away kids’ and the state requirements to house them appear to prepare them for our future state prison system.
PLEASE LOOK INTO THIS. As you said, the workers who do a good job have loads of paperwork. This is not an easy job. Why should people like [edited by Pratt] be allowed to profit at the expense of helpless abused children.