Reforming CPS Should Be Child's Play

Child Protective Services is currently still pursuing state custody of Ana Marie Maudlin, a 2-month-old girl who was placed in a microwave oven in a Galveston hotel room by her parents, a young Arkansas couple whose exact motive for performing their abuse changes with the tide. Hearing about these events, our public gut instinct naturally encourages immediate and permanent state custody until a suitable foster home is located.

Unfortunately, agency mission obligations coupled with a less-is-more ‘funding’ cry continue serving up a disastrous recipe for saving Texas’s abused children.

Teresa Cunio’s scathing 1998 expose of the inner workings of CPS was penned by an ex-case worker who had seen first-hand what happens when this understaffed agency must handle seemingly endless caseloads. National guidelines recommend each worker only receive 12-15 case loads; the average CPS caseworker handles 75. Her book quickly prompted enactment of many reforms, but Texas currently ranking third highest in children in foster care as a percentage of the total underage population, so we still have lots of room for further improvement.

Though it once sounded like a viable answer to crunched public-sector budgets, outsourcing of public sector work (and monies) to for-profit corporations has proven ineffective. The Houston Chronicle uncovered three unreported child deaths in the same foster homes selected by those outsourced contractors, adding to an already heart-breaking 2005 state-issued tally of 500.

An outsourcing agency apparently has no way of ensuring the quality of its contracted employees. Therefore, it must make the best of what it can get — regardless of employees' actual credentials and intentions.

Like mold, corruption grows without the light of public oversight. Those ‘hurdles’ which periodically cause us so many headaches and public complaints are really procedural safeguards explicitly designed for the safety of the public. Without these extra steps, the state would be unable to ensure things were running smoothly. The hurdles and bumps are therefore a small price to pay for public peace of mind.

Building upon previous measures, CPS reforms will ensure that all Texas children will be entitled to enjoy a happy childhood.