Imagine, if you can, all the children in Texas in one giant room together. What would they look like? How much of the group would be Hispanic? Black? White? Now picture all of the children in Texas' foster care system together in one place. Do the two groups look different? Unfortunately, if you said "yes,” you would be correct. This is disproportionality, the child welfare buzzword that captures the fact that some racial or ethnic groups are represented at greater or lesser rates within the child welfare system than in the general child population.
The issue is timely in light of a new report released this spring by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) and in light of National Foster Care Month happening now. In the days ahead, Texans Care for Children will be releasing a new policy paper on disproportionality in the Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) system, which finds that disproportionality causes many of the negative social and emotional consequences of involvement in the child welfare system to concentrate in communities of color. These children, particularly from African-American and Native American families, are more likely to be funneled into costly state systems, despite that many could have remained safely at home or with relatives.
Beginning in 2005, DFPS took on the heavy task of exploring, assessing, and analyzing the presence of disproportionality in the Texas CPS system. Their findings revealed that disproportionality, especially for African-American children, was present at every stage of CPS involvement and increased as system involvement deepened. Even when controlling for income, age, type of abuse/neglect, and other factors, African-American children spent more time in foster care and exited more slowly from the system than other children. Since this time, Texas CPS has instituted a series of reforms targeting disproportionality, including cultural competency training for staff, hiring disproportionality specialists, and increasing staff diversity among others.
Now, five years later, DFPS has published a follow-up report detailing the progress we as a state have made toward ending disproportionality and shedding more light on the factors contributing to disproportionality. The report identifies several predictors of disproportionate entry into substitute care, including having fewer families of color in a worker's caseload and a negative perception of services in the worker's community. Conversely, practices like having family members participate in Family Group Decision Making improves timeliness for exiting from care. Knowing more about the areas that add to and alleviate disproportionality will improve decision making on the issue, setting a course for future action.
When a family's involvement at any stage in the CPS system can no longer have a correlation with unrelated factors, like race, income, ethnicity, age, or level of ability, we will have ended disproportionality. To get to that point, it is going to take a continued, conscious effort on the part of communities, advocates, individual caseworkers, and CPS leadership. Texas has already taken steps toward addressing this complex issue and must continue to move forward. In addressing disproportionality, we can improve conditions for all children who interact with the child welfare system.
