Texas Alliance of Child and Family Services testimony to the
Senate Finance Committee
January 31, 2017
The Texas Alliance of Child and Family Services (Alliance) is a nonprofit membership organization that works on behalf of the private agencies and individuals that provide direct services to children and families in Texas. Our mission is to strengthen services to children and their families through high quality care and supports. We serve nearly all of the children in the foster care system and our members also provide prevention services, specialized care, residential treatment, and adoption services.
We are encouraged that the Legislature continues to prioritize the child protection system and are here as a resource, along with other stakeholders in the system, to work toward solutions that better serve children. We are mission-based experts who work within our communities and to serve children and families.
The Alliance supports the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) Legislative Appropriations Request. Specific comments are offered below:
DFPS EXCEPTIONAL ITEM 7
The Alliance strongly supports DFPS’ efforts to build high quality capacity tailored to the changing needs of children in foster care, especially for the growing population of high needs children. The vast majority of these children are served by private providers whose mission is to protect and care for children and help build and enrich families.
Underfunding of the foster care system leads to a reduction in the number of available, suitable placements and can impact the quality of care – such as more placement moves and lack of therapeutic services and specialized caregivers.
Fully fund foster care:
●The foster care system is underfunded and providers are struggling to keep pace with the needs of children. On average, providers are being reimbursed only 80 percent of costs needed solely to provide care.
●The needs of children and those working directly with children require full funding of rates if Texas is to move forward to reform foster care.
In addition, targeted rate increases are critical for the following providers in order to address the state’s capacity crisis and to raise the bar for quality of services for children, particularly high needs children.
Additional 10 Percent Rate Increase for Child Placing Agencies (CPA) Critical:
- CPA retainage is used to build basic and therapeutic foster family capacity, and support families so children are safe in care. DFPS reports they must overbuild foster family capacity throughout the state to ensure children have placement options close to home. CPAs work closely with the faith-based community and other community partners to recruit and verify quality families. Additionally, CPAs use significant resources to highly train foster parents, but only 50 percent of interested families are ultimately verified and the supply of families continually drops for multiple reasons. CPAs must accelerate recruitment to keep pace.
Additional 25 Percent Rate Increase for Residential Treatment Centers (RTC) Intense Critical:
- A 25 percent rate increase above full funding for the RTC Intense Service Level is needed to open capacity for high needs children. This would bring the rate to $346.71, still far below the residential rates in other states and well below child specific contract rates.
Additional 10 Percent Rate Increase for RTC Specialized Critical:
- A 10 percent rate increase above full funding for the RTC Specialized Level is needed to adequately serve children and open capacity for high needs children. This would bring the rate to $217.46. Texas can no longer operate a residential facility program so far below market rates for serving high needs children.
Revise foster care reimbursement rate methodology:
●The methodology, which was adopted many years ago, and reimbursement rates are much lower than other states. Due to outdated cost reports and time studies used to inform the formula, the methodology no longer reflects modern practices.
●No funding for modern ways of serving children such as planful transitions, specialized care to meet the unique needs of children and work with biological families.
●Underfunding higher levels of care has been a driver for reduced capacity for high needs children, and has had the unintended consequence of increasing child-specific contracts. Child specific contracts are not only a significant cost driver, but they are not accounted for in cost reports.
●The Alliance agrees with the Public Private Partnership (PPP) in their written request (attached) to Commissioner Whitman for full funding for foster care. And, requests the Committee consider that full funding, in accordance to the consolidated budget numbers, will still be below costs to provide the highest quality care to children and families, particularly in therapeutic settings and Child Placing Agencies.
DFPS EXCEPTIONAL ITEM 4: Strengthen and Expand High Quality Capacity and Systems in the Foster Care System
●(a),(b) –The Alliance supports the accelerated rollout of Foster Care Redesign (FCR) to eight new catchment areas, with adequate funding. FCR supports capacity efforts by requiring single source continuum contractor (SSCC) to provide and maintain capacity for all referrals. FCR uses quality-based outcomes to measure accountability, such as keeping children close to home and maintaining sibling groups. The Alliance asks the Legislature to support and fund efforts to improve data sharing between and SSCC and the state. This will improve efficiency and effectiveness of using data, and will reduce costs for data sharing.
DFPS EXCEPTIONAL ITEM 1: Increase Funding to Meet the Needs of the Growing Number of Vulnerable Children, Adults, and their Families
●(a),(b),(d) –The Alliance supports the expansion of HOPES and wraparound services for families.
●(e) –The Alliance strongly supports additional funding to adequately support Foster Care Redesign. DFPS has worked closely with the current SSCC to accurately identify all functions and responsibilities. It is critical these costs are identified and fully funded before continuing rollout.
The Alliance recognizes the competing priorities and high demands on the entire child protection system. Investing significantly in providers who work directly with children and families will allow for improved outcomes for children and their families.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the department’s funding request.
For additional information please contact:
Katie Olse
Executive Director
Texas Alliance of Child and Family Services
Phone: 512-963-9049
Email:
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