A statewide shortage of foster homes means children are sleeping in offices, hotels and other makeshift settings, putting stress on county workers.
Against the advice of those around her who insisted there were more lucrative ways to use a master’s degree in social work, Christie Carrington took a job with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
It was 2009 and she was fresh out of graduate school. The agency’s mandate to protect families and children was important to her, and she devoted her career to that mission. Within seven years, Carrington worked her way into management ranks, becoming a supervisor.
But last year — due to a shortage of foster homes — hundreds of youth ended up effectively homeless in the foster care system, left to sleep in makeshift settings such as county offices and hotels. The unsuitable environments led to blow-ups, runaways and a sense of hopelessness among the children.
In Harris County, where Carrington worked, line staff and even supervisors were required to take on new tasks in addition to their regular caseloads: these shifts were called “child-without-placement” rotations.
By April, the job became untenable for Carrington, and she cut short her career of 13 years.
“It was a lot to leave,” she said. “I just couldn’t do it anymore. I just feel like I was part of something that had become corrupt.”
Carrington is one of more than 2,300 Texas Department of Family and Protective Services employees who monitor the care of kids in the agency’s custody to leave this year. That represents an increase in departures of roughly 43% since fiscal year 2021, according to a September report produced by the child welfare agency.
In a statement sent to The Imprint, department spokesperson Marissa Gonzales said the problem that drove Carrington and other employees to seek work elsewhere has significantly improved. There are currently roughly 65 children a night statewide “who are awaiting placement,” Gonzales said, and “every possible step and option to alleviate the situation is in play.” That’s down from a high of 416 in July 2021.
The statement described further steps the department has taken to hire staff, stating that “recruiting has been amped up to a level not seen before in the agency.” The stepped-up recruitment efforts included booths at more than 100 job fairs at universities, colleges, military installations and workforce boards. At six of these, more than 500 conditional job offers were made following same-day interviews. The department is also seeking employees through social media, and the job platforms Handshake and LinkedIn.
‘Not an easy job’
The exodus of child welfare workers in Texas is just one example of similar walkouts taking place across the country. Although there are several reasons for this worker shortage, often it is driven by staff unable or unwilling to work in situations where children cannot be housed safely in foster care, national experts say. In Oklahoma, Washington, New Mexico, Alabama, and Tennessee, caseworkers and staff are leaving for safer positions and better pay, creating critical shortages, according to leaders in several states from the National Association of Social Workers.
“People can’t do their job because they are on day watch, or at night they are in a hotel with the kids,” said Myko Gedutis, organizing coordinator for the Texas State Employees Union that represents staff with the Department of Family and Protective Services. In some counties, he added, staffing is so short that employees have spent four to six hours a day, five days a week keeping watch over children living as if they were homeless — at times sheltering in churches when hotels and rented office building space were unavailable.
These spaces are unlicensed and not equipped to keep the children safe, or address their trauma and help them heal from troubled childhoods, according to a court-authorized report released in January by three child welfare experts.
Gedutis said that although other states have a variety of reasons for CPS staffing shortages, in Texas, “child-without-placement” rotations, also known as CWOP cases, are a main driver of the worker flight.
These staff are trained in their jobs, “but not trained in caring for children with unmet needs in an extremely unstructured environment,” he said. “They’re thrown into a dangerous situation, and it’s just worn folks out.”
In Texas, the crisis that has recently led to more than 400 children poorly housed stems from past system failures.
The 2013 federal lawsuit M.D. v. Abbott revealed extensive abuses within state-licensed congregate care facilities. The state of Texas repeatedly appealed but eventually had to increase investigations, surveillance and closures of unsafe facilities. The unintended effect, however, was a significant loss in foster care placements.
Texas is not alone — states across the country have hundreds of children sleeping in makeshift quarters — at times even in social workers’ cars.
The greatest toll of the foster care housing crisis is on the children.
But less has been reported about the employees charged with children’s safety and well-being in these unstable settings. In Texas, professionals trained to support family systems, navigate courts and conduct investigations have found themselves acting as the primary caregivers and protectors to children and teens with complex needs living in destabilizing environments. It’s a role workers like Carrington say they are simply not equipped to handle.
Gonzales, the department spokesperson, said all staff supervising the youth “are required to be trained prior to their first shift.”
“Caregivers who supervise youth in CWOP review each youth’s history prior to caring for them, so they can be aware of the youth’s specific needs and receive training on trauma informed care and preventing sexual abuse,” Gonzales said.
The work can be dangerous. Children’s emotional outbreaks can lead to police intervention, and assaults on staff who are not trained to de-escalate tensions.
When Carrington started, caseworkers sometimes struggled to find children temporary homes with relatives or foster parents — for a day or two. Carrington recalled that early in her career it once took 48 hours to find an appropriate home for a child with autism.
But it was never as bad as this, she said. “Never kids just languishing in hotel rooms.”
As a result, in April 2022, Carrington — then 59 and far from her intended retirement age — cashed in on her retirement savings.
Ill-equipped to protect
The foster youth most likely to end up without placements are older teens who’ve been through a lot, Carrington said. Of the 236 children without placement in Texas in November 2021, according to the state’s expert panel report, nearly a quarter were discharged from psychiatric hospitals and 18% had recently been on “runaway” status.
Carrington, the unions and other department employees say there’s little that staff can do to give them support or protection when they are haphazardly housed.
In these settings, regular therapy is unavailable and unlike foster parents who live with the children, caregivers are constantly changing shifts. And if violence ensues, Carrington said, staff aren’t permitted or equipped to resolve conflicts. That can lead to 911 calls, and early criminal records for the children involved.
Staff also don’t have the authority to force children to stay at the hotels or other locations, Carrington said. She recalled multiple instances in which a teenager returned with a weapon or illegal substance.
Even when a placement is found, it often doesn’t last. According to a 2021 email the department described in the Texas expert report, more than 40% of teenagers return to a “child-without-placement” status within 90 days of being taken to a foster home or residential facility.
Staff shortages nationwide
Child welfare staff shortages can be found nationwide. In Tennessee, Knox County juvenile court judge Tim Irwin testified before lawmakers that the child welfare system is short by hundreds of workers and “near collapse.” Foster youth have been left in offices for weeks and months, a situation he described as “illegal.”
“Throw money at it, tons of money at it,” Irwin implored lawmakers. “We have got to make these positions attractive to people.”
In Alabama, employees are leaving at a faster rate than they’re being hired, said Dawn Ellis-Murray, executive director of the Alabama chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
Her counterpart in Oklahoma, Steven Pharris, said that in a desperate attempt to fill vacancies, states often add to retention problems by hiring new caseworkers who aren’t well-prepared for the high-stakes work.
“It takes a well-trained individual to accept that pressure and cope with it,” Pharris said.
Politicizing child welfare
Under increased pressure the problem of foster children without placement has recently begun to improve, said Will Francis, executive director of the Texas chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
Although the number of youth without placement has dropped significantly, he said, the problem remains “a looming crisis.”
Indeed, the number of beds for foster children in residential treatment programs have declined since early 2021, according to a report published in September.
Meanwhile, Francis said, state leadership continues to drive its workers out through politicized policymaking. Instead of finding a way to increase safe placements and access to care, he offered as an example, the department has aligned itself with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has long neglected fundamental problems in the state’s foster care system, and even created new problems. This year, Abbott issued an executive order allowing CPS to investigate law-abiding parents who allow their trans children to receive gender-affirming health care but the order has been held up in court.
That has created even more friction among already beleaguered staff, Francis and others said. Many employees are having a “crisis conscience,” he added.
Carrington says that for the situation to change, the general public will have to care more about the children in government custody — young people who don’t vote, don’t pay taxes, and don’t seem to matter much to politicians.
Experts interviewed for this story say the state needs to invest in supporting children at home, like mental health care access and community-based services.
Without these changes, Carrington said, the chances of these children overcoming their harsh beginnings are slim, and it doesn’t bode well for society at large.
“If we don’t help these children today,” she said, “we are definitely going to feel the effects tomorrow.”
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