Post by pavel on Apr 11, 2016 19:11:19 GMT -6
Texas’ Most Traumatized Foster Children are Stranded in Psychiatric Hospitals
Turbulence continues for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services: Recently, a federal judge in Corpus Christi condemned the organization, calling it “broken.” Department commissioner John Specia, Jr. is leaving in May. And add to that an investigation showing that a shortage of space in foster care homes is leaving some children – some as young as two years old – stranded in state psychiatric facilities.
The Texas Tribune’s Terri Langford says there’s nowhere else to house these children.
“These are the most traumatized children in the foster care system,” she says. “They’re being held there longer because they are a harder child to place. You can’t just take a child in a psychiatric setting and move them to what we know as a typical foster parent setting. You need a more enhanced skill set for those foster care parents, or a foster care facility.”
Langford says it’s not currently known how many foster children are in psychiatric facilities. Family and Protective Services only track of the number of children admitted into the facilities, not differentiating between first-time and repeat admissions. There are roughly 4,000 admissions annually, and 17,151 children in the foster care system, so some children could be counted more than once.
Read more: www.texasstandard.org/stories/texas-most-traumatized-foster-children-are-stranded-in-psychiatric-hospitals/
Turbulence continues for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services: Recently, a federal judge in Corpus Christi condemned the organization, calling it “broken.” Department commissioner John Specia, Jr. is leaving in May. And add to that an investigation showing that a shortage of space in foster care homes is leaving some children – some as young as two years old – stranded in state psychiatric facilities.
The Texas Tribune’s Terri Langford says there’s nowhere else to house these children.
“These are the most traumatized children in the foster care system,” she says. “They’re being held there longer because they are a harder child to place. You can’t just take a child in a psychiatric setting and move them to what we know as a typical foster parent setting. You need a more enhanced skill set for those foster care parents, or a foster care facility.”
Langford says it’s not currently known how many foster children are in psychiatric facilities. Family and Protective Services only track of the number of children admitted into the facilities, not differentiating between first-time and repeat admissions. There are roughly 4,000 admissions annually, and 17,151 children in the foster care system, so some children could be counted more than once.
Read more: www.texasstandard.org/stories/texas-most-traumatized-foster-children-are-stranded-in-psychiatric-hospitals/