Calls for Major Reform of Child Protective Services in Texas

Brett H. Pritchard Calls for Major Reform of Child Protective Services in Texas

Close to 100 children die every year in Texas while in the custody of Child Protective Services (CPS). These are staggering numbers and family lawyer Brett H. Pritchard thinks it’s time that something was done to change that. He believes that CPS oversteps its boundaries far too often and he has a lot of support for his opinion in the Texas legal community and among the public.

CPS is a necessary organization. They clearly do help families that are in trouble. In the majority of cases their intervention is warranted, but there are many occasions when it isn’t. Nobody wants to see a child sleeping in a hotel because adequate foster care isn’t available. Unfortunately, it does happen, but it can usually be avoided.

The truth is that CPS is an overstretched government agency that doesn’t always have the resources to conduct a proper investigation. Their solution is to throw every accusation they can think of at a parent in order to see what will stick. It’s not generally done out of malice. They simply don’t have the resources to do all of the groundwork necessary and the theory is that it’s better to take children out of a potentially harmful situation.

The logic behind creating false charges to protect a child from harm is deeply flawed. In most situations, it leads to more harm than good. Children are removed from the love and care of their parents and placed in foster care with strangers. It’s a nightmare situation for both the parents and the child.

Counseling First

Brett H. Pritchard has argued that removing the child from the family home should always be the last resort. The first step, with the exception of extreme cases, should be counseling. Parents should be given every opportunity to improve the family situation first. The family is still the best place for a child to be in almost all cases. If parents are willing to admit their mistakes and work to correct them, that behavior needs to be rewarded and CPS should do everything conceivable to work with them.

Maintaining Family Connections

Even in cases when a child must be taken out of the family home for their own safety, CPS should make every effort to reunite them with their parents as soon as possible. In cases when substance abuse is the problem, CPS should support parents that are willing to get help. The children should be placed with other family members whenever viable in the interim to maintain as much stability as possible.

Avoiding Foster Care if Possible

At the Law Office of Bob H. Pritchard, they firmly believe that being placed in foster care is one of the most traumatic experiences in a child’s life. It’s not a decision that should be made lightly – if at all. Foster children find it difficult to adjust to their new situation and they often end up running away to escape a bad situation. In one tragic example in Houston, a vehicle killed a 15-year-old girl last year while she was attempting to run away from a CPS officer.

Tragic outcomes like this reaffirm the need to place greater emphasis on keeping children in their own family homes. Child Protective Services is an organization that should only step in as a last resort. There should be no doubt that the protection of the child from abuse and neglect should always be the first priority. There aren’t any simple answers, but if tragedies like the one that happened in Houston are to be avoided in the future, reforming the CPS in Texas needs to become a top priority of lawmakers.