SORT BLOGS BY CATEGORY:
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review – April 10, 2023 Here are some news items from last week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught our eye: Legal document used to take Dallas newborn had the wrong family’s name Dallas couple...
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review – April 3, 2023 Here are some news items from last week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught our eye: Asking the right questions about adoption On March 26, 2018, white adoptive parents...
Here are some news items from last week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught our eye: Caseworkers hampered by ’90s-era foster care software that the state hasn’t replaced Texas has poured more than $100 million into the state’s aging...
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review – March 20, 2023 Here are some news items from last week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught our eye: Texas removed six Black children from their homes. Their adoptive parents drove them...
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review – March 13, 2023 Here are some news items from last week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught our eye: Former Texas CPS employees say nearly 70 'children without placement' are being housed...
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review – March 6, 2023 Here are some news items from last week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught our eye: Nonprofit network to take over foster care in Dallas, Collin, 7 other counties On...
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review – February 27, 2023 Here are some news items from last week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught our eye: Hurdles keep Texas youth out of extended foster care designed to help them In Texas...
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review – February 20, 2023 Here are some news items from last week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught our eye: 1a. Lawyers for foster children using money awarded in Texas lawsuit to lobby...
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review – February 13, 2023 Here are some news items from last week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught our eye: How a 12-year-old federal lawsuit turned a judge into Texas’ foster care czar When...
We Need More Foster Homes In recent news our attention has been turned to the question: What happens to children and youth that are in care of the State of Texas? This is most commonly known to us as the foster system. Parents, most often, come into hard times...
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review – February 6, 2023 Here are some news items from last week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught my eye: New Texas foster care report shows both improvements and continued deficiencies The...
The Texas Department of Family Protective Services (DFPS) just released a slew of reports ons the State's foster care system. Each report is mandated by the Texas legislature to give them a glimpse of what is under the hood at DFPS. At One Accord we hope to...
Snow days are THE BEST for all the right reasons. Unable to drive anywhere but you can still play in the snow. In West Texas this only happens once, maybe twice a year. The not so snowy snow days on the other hand, can take a bit more creativity to survive...
Well January 2023 is in full swing! Many of us have at least thought about our New Year's Resolutions; wanting to get in shape, reduce stress, or reach some crazy goal. January is perfect for new beginnings. While this focus is great and "self-care" is quite...
Every child deserves a Christmas to Remember. It all started in the Fall of 2020. Due to COVID restrictions volunteers and even staff were not allowed to go into local Child Protective Services (CPS) offices. This presented a problem as CPS was gearing up for their...
Family Help West Texas and FindHelp.org have made helping others easy. With access to your free Family Help West Texas account you can claim your program, manage your program’s information, access free reports, and determine your intake method. Program Update...
Access to Resources is Key The most reliable predictors of family instability and child welfare involvement are income loss, cumulative material hardship, and housing hardship (Weiner, Anderson, & Thomas, 2021). Material supports and concrete services may reduce...
We are excited to announce a new look for One Accord for Kids and new tools for the communities of West Texas. Our focus has always been to improve foster care by putting the West Texas Communities in the driver seat. We deeply believe that lives will be transformed...
In light of COVID-19 and our recent snowmaggedon, we’ve all found that being ready for disasters and the unexpected is vitally important – not only to ensure we aren’t without basic comforts during a storm or difficult time, but to make sure we simply survive when...
This is part two of a two-part series about the ongoing capacity crisis in Texas foster care. Today’s post will discuss the long-term solution to the current capacity crisis. More Children Without Placement Our last post discussed the capacity crisis in the Texas...
The Texas Foster Care Capacity Crisis and Its Solution This is part two of a two-part series about the ongoing capacity crisis in Texas foster care. Today's post will discuss the long-term solution to the current capacity crisis. More Children Without Placement Our...
The Texas Foster Care Capacity Crisis and Its Solution This is part one of a two-part series about the ongoing capacity crisis in Texas foster care. Today's post will discuss the problem and its causes. The Texas foster care system is experiencing the worst capacity...
Broader Pictures by Rhett Lively What time I spent in college, I studied music and psychology. At the time I dreamed of opening a clinic where a couple of friends of mine and I would work on the whole person’s needs – one the body, one the spirit, and I’d take...
On December 31, 2020, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) announced that Region 9 — which includes Midland, Odessa, and San Angelo — would transition to a new system of foster care called Community-Based Care (CBC). This is the fourth in a...
Local Foster Care Capacity The ability to serve children in our communities has always been an issue for us in West Texas. Region 9 - the 30-county administrative region comprising West Texas and stretching from Loving County to Mason County - ranked dead last in the...
On December 30, 2020, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) announced that Region 9 — which includes Midland, Odessa, and San Angelo — would transition to a new system of foster care called Community-Based Care (CBC). This is the third in a...
On December 30, 2020, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) announced that Region 9 — which includes Midland, Odessa, and San Angelo — would transition to a new system of foster care called Community-Based Care (CBC). This is the second in a...
On December 31, 2020, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) announced that Region 9 — which includes Midland, Odessa, and San Angelo — would transition to a new system of foster care called Community-Based Care (CBC). This is the first in a...
Permian Basin CPS Giving Tree Permian Basin area non-profits One Accord for Kids and The Attic Foster Network have partnered with the Texas Department of Family & Protective Services (DFPS) to ensure local children in Child Protective Service (CPS) and foster care...
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review - November 20, 2020 Here are some news items from this week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught my eye: 1. As COVID-19 Takes its Toll, Remember Kids in Foster Care (Commentary) Let's look at the...
Counting Our Blessings to Cover Our Fears By Rhett Lively In caring for twenty-one children, we’ve noticed several common themes in their hearts and minds as they’ve come into our home: Fear, worry, doubt, and a lack of the ability to hope. Early on, one of our...
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review - November 13, 2020 Here are some news items from this week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught my eye: 1. El Paso church joins churches across the country for ‘Stand Sunday’ in support of foster...
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review - November 6, 2020 It was a fairly light week for foster care in the news. It’s almost as if something else was dominating the news cycle this week. Nevertheless, here are some news items from this week related to foster...
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review - October 30, 2020 Here are some news items from this week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught my eye: 1. Mother and daughter transformed by two Buckner programs When Alissa Campos was 9 years...
Surviving Halloween, by Rhett Lively If I'm honest, Halloween is not the easiest holiday. The costumes, spooky references, crowds, and opportunities for people to do tricky things just don't make me want to get out and have fun. But culturally Halloween is something...
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review - October 23, 2020 Here are some news items from this week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught my eye: 1. Editorial: Righteous anger, disgust at treatment of foster kids In the nearly decade-long...
Foster Care and Child Welfare Week in Review - October 16, 2020 Here are some news items from this week related to foster care, adoption, and child welfare that caught my eye: 1. CASA in the Heart of Texas helps keep youth in foster care safe Court Appointed Special...
Opportunities for the Child Welfare System from the COVID-19 Pandemic COVID-19 is presenting the child welfare system with an opportunity to rethink existing practices and refocus on priorities. Remote learning, business restrictions, and operational changes have been...
Support for Foster Parents Comes from their Community George Lucas said it best, “creativity isn’t strictly a well of ideas, but an alchemy of people”. The creator of the “Star Wars” empire has found that our best does not come when we have a bunch of ideas in a pot...
Federal Judge Holds Texas Child Welfare Agencies in Contempt, Again During a virtual hearing last week, a federal court judge blasted the state’s child welfare agencies as indifferent that “children are dying.” Judge Janis Jack held both the Department of Family and...
Texas Foster Care to Sex Trafficking Pipeline There is a Texas foster care to sex trafficking pipeline resulting in over 100 children and youth being victimized while missing from foster care in 2019. 51,417 children and youth were in the state foster care system in...
The Permian Basin Needs More Foster Parents The Permian Basin needs more foster parents to serve our children and youth in foster care. A lack of foster care capacity has been a consistent issue in the 17 counties comprising the Permian Basin. Almost 90% percent of...
Community Collaboration for Child Welfare Intractable social problems like child welfare (i.e., abuse, neglect, foster care) require community collaboration. Federal and state law and policy, done correctly, can create an environment for community collaboration but is...
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted...
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT When we hear about foster care, it is often in the context of failure - specifically, that someone, somewhere who is responsible for the "foster care system" is failing. Blame is often attributed to government actors and agencies who run the...