As directed by the 86th Texas Legislature, the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) recently released a report providing performance measures and comparative trends between the legacy foster care and Community-Based Care (CBC) systems. The report reveals key indicators such as keeping children placed within 50 miles of removal, ability to place sibling groups together, safety, kinship placement, and keeping children in the least-restrictive setting. Below are some of the main findings based on these key indicators.
Placement within 50 Miles:
- The percent of children placed close to home decreased for the state as a whole, for non-CBC providers, and for Single Source Continuum Contractors (SSCC) providers in FY21 Q3 compared to FY20 with the exception of Region 8A (Bexar County). The data shows that the decrease was largely driven by non-foster home placements.
Sibling Groups Placed Together:
- Catchments in Stage 1 (Regions 1 and 8A) show performance improvements in keeping siblings together, averaging a 1.5% increase.
- Catchments in Stage 2 (Regions 2 and 3B) show significant declines in this measure, averaging a decline of 3.4%.
- Non-CBC areas showed a steadier trend, with less than a 1% decrease in performance in FY21 Q3 compared to FY20.
Least Restrictive Placement Setting:
- While non-CBC areas of the state saw more children spending time in foster care in a family setting (least restrictive setting), SSCCs experienced mixed results.
- Region 1 experienced the most volatility with a 4.2% decrease from FY20.
- Region 3B also decreased, though less so with a 1.4% decline.
- Regions 2 and 8A saw slight improvements of less than 2%.
Safety:
- Similar to the trend seen in the rest of the state, all four SSCCs have noted a decline in this metric. The safety range ran between 98.2%-99.2%. Safety below 100% represents an area for improvement.