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The investigator can also determine the state needs to take custody. That's what happened to Maria Martinez, and even though her children were placed with Rafael's mother and stepfather, the state technically has custody. Finding a relative for the child is the preferred option, but if there's no relative, the child goes to a foster family or a foster facility. Wherever the child goes after the investigation is complete, the state assigns a CPS caseworker until the child is back with his or her family, is adopted or turns 18 and graduates from high school.

After lawmakers looked at the structure of the system, they decided to increase the pay of investigators and to hire more of them. The goal was to lower investigators' caseloads. The agency also planned to gradually privatize the duties of the caseworkers and the foster system itself by doing away with state-run facilities.

In September, the Department of Family and Protective Services, under which Child Protective Services operates, issued its fourth report on the progress of the 2005 reform, and state officials painted a pretty picture of "tremendous ­improvement."

Agency officials cited a reduction of 1,000 children in foster care between March and September. This reduction is attributed to lower investigator caseloads resulting in an improved investigative force. According to the top officials at the agency, the reform is passing through CPS like a cool breeze.

But former and current CPS investigators and caseworkers, along with state advocacy groups, say the 2005 plan may have made problems worse. Employee turnover has actually risen since 2005. About 34 percent of CPS investigators and caseworkers quit during their first year, and that number is about 10 percent higher in Harris County. Children in Texas still die at a rate that almost doubles the national average. Harris County is tops, with almost four deaths per 100,000 children. The number of Harris County children in foster care has dropped by about 100 since last year, but has actually risen by almost 1,000 since 2005.

"There are definitely faults by the legislature," says Jodi Smith, a public policy director for the child advocacy group Texans Care for Children. "They're very reactive, very short-term."

Smith says her group advised lawmakers in 2005. The idea that was championed by the legislature — lowering caseloads for investigators — should have been done years earlier, Smith says. But privatizing parts of the system was an idea that child advocacy groups strongly opposed.

"There really is a wide range in the quality of the [private] care," Smith says. "With children in the state's care, we think the state should have the authority to make decisions on the children's behalf."

The privatization idea has gone horribly awry. A pilot program started in the San Antonio area was unable to secure bids from foster care providers. This year, the legislature voted to kill the plan.

Furthermore, the 2005 measures created a backlash among CPS caseworkers. After the agency beefed up the investigator position — better pay, more positions, lower caseloads — many employees simply left the caseworker side to become investigators. This created a larger strain on the caseworkers that stayed. They were paid less and doing more work. And until this year, the agency had plans to cut caseworkers for the looming privatization.

Then, in March, the state entered a foster placement emergency. The state had failed to renew contracts with foster care agencies, and several group homes shut down. CPS officials alerted caseworkers in Houston that they would have to start working weekend shifts at the agency's Chimney Rock office to care for foster children who had no place to go.

That was the breaking point for many of the overworked employees, according to former caseworker Lee Welborn, who left the agency in July.

"We felt like we shouldn't give up our weekends because they couldn't get a contract signed," Welborn says. "Some people who I never thought would leave are ­leaving."

Before working as a caseworker, Welborn was a middle school teacher, where, among other things, he taught journal writing. Welborn read some dark, sordid writing from his students, things he considered abuse. He wanted to protect these kids, not just teach them. He left for CPS.

"I went there hoping I could stay. I did love it," Welborn says. "There are times I feel guilty for leaving, but when you have 72 cases, you feel like you can't really help a kid."

Ursula Christian had worked as a CPS caseworker for a year and a half when she heard the weekend order. Already, Christian says, she was handling 75 to 80 cases. Christian was told she'd have to add three weekend shifts a month. Sometimes that meant working an overnight shift at Chimney Rock, then returning to her regular office at 8 a.m. It became too much.

"Here we are an agency supposed to be protecting children, you know, what's in their best interest," Christian says. "But is it in my best interest to work a 14- or 15-hour shift and ignore my own ­children?"

During Welborn's tenure at CPS, he had trouble sleeping. He often felt nauseated and suffered from ulcers. Gray whiskers sprouted from his charcoal beard. He tried to stay despite the weekend order, but then he received e-mails from his bosses that said the standards of work needed to rise. Welborn felt insulted.

"The system was in so much crisis this summer, it could not make the right decisions," he says.

This summer, CPS investigated Stephanie and Giselle Garibay. The women lived with their seven young children at Bissonnet Gardens, an apartment complex deep in southwest Houston. The children would often wander around the complex alone, wearing little more than diapers, according to Ofelia Cruz, the manager at Bissonnet Gardens. On September 12, CPS investigated a complaint that there was no food in the apartment for the children. There wasn't.

"They don't take care of the kids. It was like, where is the mother at," Cruz says.

About a week later, Giselle was arrested for child neglect. Three of her children had strayed from the apartment, and Giselle left to look for them. When officers arrived at the apartment looking for Giselle's brother, who was wanted on an auto theft charge, they saw an infant lying face down on the floor. When police told Giselle they would call CPS, she said an investigator had already been to the apartment and done nothing.

Write Your Comment show comments (10)

  1. They will never get their children back! No matter what they do! CPS will adopt the children out for the adoption bonuses that they receive. Caseworkers are over worked because CPS lies and falsifies documents as to be able to steal your baby/child/children!

    I was told by a Case worker during a meeting with her that she needed my white baby (my granddaughter)! I immediately starting researching, and seeking out other familes.

    They did get my white baby! No, they did not get to keep her, nor did they get to adopt her out, not that they didn't try!

    Overworked is just the way they portray the system as to get more money. If they worked at keeping the children with the families rather than taking them they wouldn't have so many children in the system. If they helped the ones that really needed help instead of taking the ones that are loved and in loving homes, there would not be so many cases. Nor would CPS make as much money.

    I hope and pray that the children are in a good foster home. As my granddaughter almost died in a foster parents care.

    We complained, but CPS didn't care! They don't get paid to move a child from one home to another. CPS claimed that my daugher tested positive for marijuana and opiates at the birth of my granddaughter. It was an outright lie! CPS will not release any records to you either, why is that? Because they lie and falsify documentation as to be able to keep your child or children.

    My granddaughters Peditrician snuck up to the hospital and got the records for me. My daughter and son in law just got their daughter back at the end of September. The case is set to be thrown out in January.

    We were only able to do this because Channel 13 got involved and got my daughter a visitation with her daughter after being told twice in one week that "they forgot the baby". How do you forget a 3 month old baby?

    They didn't forget - they were hiding her from us. They did not want us to see how sick she was. Not only did CPS not get her medical care but they refused it!

    It is a Government Funded child stealing ring!!!!! This must be stopped!!!!!

    Comment by Debbie — November 8, 2007 @ 11:25AM

  2. My son-in-law and daughter just went through the same thing
    because of false alegations and manufactured evidence on CPS's part.

    Maria and Rafael most likly will never have custody of there children becuase
    CPS is in the market of stealing babies legaly for profit and bonuses.

    CPS is totaly out of control.

    Comment by BERT — November 8, 2007 @ 12:56PM

  3. One more thing to add - if you need a good attorney in Houston for cases such as this one his name is Chris Branson. He specializes in CPS cases. Most of the other ones take your money and do nothing.

    Comment by Debbie — November 8, 2007 @ 01:01PM

  4. The Fremont County Colorado DHS removed my 3 children from my husband and me over a year ago and gave them to my lesbian mother and her 'partner'. I do have an attorney, but he isn't doing much. I don't want my kids raised in a lesbian household. I was and I have severe depression and anxiety! I was also physically abused by some of my mother's many 'lovers'. Also the judge involved in this case is a known lesbian and there are many lesbians in this county.
    The Social Services caseworkers didn’t even let me see my kids for Easter or take them to church, when I have NEVER been accused of abusing them! My case is based on the fact that my son, who was 2 at the time, was left outside for a mere 30 seconds, and a neighbor called The Fremont County CO Department. of Human Services. It took them 6 months (with plenty of 'help' from my mother and her partner) to invent a case against us. In April of 2007, my attorney has informed my husband and I that the children's Guardian Ad Litem had hired a private investigator who had supposedly seen my husband drinking. Is this even legal? This is pushing the boundaries of government spying to a new level! One of our caseworkers also reported, that she had seen my husband drinking at the bowling alley (he bowls every Monday night). Our case is only a dependency/neglect based entirely on hearsay and false allegations. I feel that the government is taking this way too far.
    On Sunday July 29, 2007 my husband and I got back from visiting our kids at my mother's house. My oldest daughter informed us that Karen Moffitt, our caseworker was over to visit at my mother's house She brought her grandchildren over and were riding horses. My understanding is that caseworkers, social workers, etc. are NEVER allowed to have a social relationship with anybody involved in their case! I am currently attending the University of Phoenix in CO Springs, and have had an ethics in human services class a while back. I specifically remember that rule! This is a major conflict of interest! I did write to the State Department of Social Services in Denver and they referred my letter back to the Fremont County DHS. They supposedly did an investigation and questioned Karen Moffitt, but found nothing wrong because our case is closed. I know for a fact that she influenced the DHS ruling for my mother and her partner to have custody of our children because she phoned my mother during non-business hours and visited their house on a frequent basis while the case was open.
    I am pleading for somebody in our Legislature to investigate the Department of Human Services. If you are really against child abuse, you should be against the DHS abuse of children and their families. DHS is all about money and it seems most people who approve of their Gestapo tactics and family destruction are somehow benefiting from the system. My husband and I completed our court ordered service plans last August and we still didn’t get our children back!

    Comment by Susan — November 9, 2007 @ 11:25AM

  5. Having worked at the Texas Department of Family & Protective Services, I have a different spin on the extensive problems that plague the agency. From my perspective, I the continued dedication and training the caseworkers display and receive over the course of their careers, ever how brief, is impressive (and no, I did not work for the agency as a caseworker; however, I was allowed to sit in on and to evaluate, to some degree, some of the extensive training the agency puts all new caseworkers through before such workers are ever assigned their first cases).

    The problem is not with the caseworkers, per se, but with the caseworker turnover rate. No privately owned and operated business in the world, let alone this state, would survive the unyielding turnover rate this agency continually experiences. How many Boards of Directors, Executives, and Managers would survive without federal bailout? Who is accountable and how is this accountability measured?

    This agency is filled with retirees who have either returned to their previous positions or to lower-level positions designed specifically for their aging comfort. They no longer care about protecting the unprotected. They care about protecting the good-old-boy network and their comfortable set up—one retirement check plus one paycheck plus no accountability is pretty sweet. They’ve earned their place, and no one is going to take it away from them. This, not dedication or concern for our children and our elderly, is why the turnover rate is proportionate to years of service. What is the turnover rate for returning retirees? What about for upper management? And, while I’m at it, why does the agency need 47 attorneys at the state level, not by region or county? These attorneys are there to protect the agency and its valued management staff, neither of which are there to protect the unprotected. This responsibility, after all, is why the agency so desperately needs qualified caseworkers.

    And this is why the agency (at least from my perspective) conducts criminal background checks and central registry checks on applicants before they’re even been brought in to interview (a simple way to weed out undesirables before unnecessarily wasting time).

    Never mind the civil rights of such caseworker-wannabes.

    Never mind that, regardless of the findings, such applicants are never notified of the pre-employment/pre-consideration background checks, whether interviewed or not, which I thought would constitute disparate treatment, but I guess that’s only if the EEOC ever found out.

    Never mind that such applicants are never notified of the results, are never given a chance to review, without charge, the accuracy of such results, and, therefore, are unable to dispute the validity of any unfavorable findings. (Obviously my interpretation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act differs greatly from the very tenured upper management powers that be).

    And never mind that pre-consideration Central Registry checks are conducted on applicants—in conjunction with criminal backgrounds—in order to determine if an applicant is or ever has been involved in an adult and/or child abuse/neglect investigation.

    After all, the turnover rate is so high that certain steps, legal or otherwise, have been taken in order to minimize the initial effort required to actually interview and evaluate the merits and qualifications of potential caseworkers; because, after all, any new hires “clean” enough to pass the pre-consideration application review process, patient enough to endure the intensive and, in my experience, demeaning and substandard training required, and smart enough to pass the intensive proficiency exams are also likely to be intelligent enough to realize their inevitable futility in an impenetrable good-old-boys network and, accordingly, wisely and justly abandon ship, further perpetuating both the solidarity and sustainability of the “network.”

    In my experience, those who make up the “network” are public servants who have previously agreed to lie, cover up, or otherwise aid in one or more illegal activities that is or was perpetuated by one or more of its members. For example, I have records from open records to prove that there are no records pertaining to the investigation that was supposedly being conducted during my three-month paid administrative leave. In contrast, the former Houston CPS Region Director, Randy Joiner, only received two weeks paid administrative leave during the recent internal investigation conducted on him. It pays to be a member of the “network” because he got a much sweeter deal in the long run.

    So, before you attack the performance of caseworkers, please consider that most received their four-year degrees in Social Work, more than likely because they have a strong desire to serve the best interests of the public. All have chosen to be public servants and to protect the unprotected, and all have received stringent training and are duly certified in accordance with state law. Then, ask yourself what happens to the cases that are abandoned when the caseworkers come to their senses? (Hint: they get dumped on the caseworkers who haven’t . . . yet.)

    Attack, instead, our state legislature for allowing this corrupt, unethical system to continue. Attack the retirees that have returned to enjoy a paycheck with their retirement (note, not all returning retirees are coasting, some actually return to continue protecting the unprotected, but far too many retirees are only there because they feel they’ve earned it, whether by bribe or by merit).

    By all means, demand accountability. No privately owned and operated business would survive if its owner(s) and management weren’t held accountable for their actions.

    Demand investigations by our media. Are they afraid they won’t continue getting sound bites or interviews if they report negatively about the agency instead of reporting on the alleged perpetrators? That’s my guess.

    Comment by jml — November 9, 2007 @ 03:03PM

  6. At least Texas admits to having a problem with CPS. Here in corrupt backwards Colorado, it's a different situation. There is not a very high employee turnover here in this county. There are no retirees working at DHS that I am aware of. I do know for a fact that CPS workers here do not have to have a license or undergo any psychological testing for their job. Even corrections officers have to have a psych exam prior to getting hired at DOC. I suspect caseworkers are given kickbacks for stealing kids from loving 2 parent families who are NOT abusers or criminals, such as mine! Some of these childsavers don't even have children! Another thing, there is NO grievance policy posted ANYWHERE in the DHS office. This is WRONG! Normal businesses have grievance policies posted where the public can see them. We have a totally corrupt family court system here, involving an anti-family judge, the DHS attorney who has had his job way too long, the 'specialists' parents have to be sent to for counseling, drug testing, anger management,etc,corrupt guardian ad litems who are just whores of the court and always side with DHS, even the lawyer whom we are paying out of pocket provided NO real defense for us because he also works as a GAL for this county. We just want our children back! The feminazis our son lives with have him in counseling and say he is suffering with gender identity. He isn't even 5 years old yet! We desperately need some good legal help! I honestly believe that this case would have never gotten this far in any other city because of lack of evidence.

    Comment by Susan — November 11, 2007 @ 09:54AM

  7. The entire system is a JOKE and so is everyone who is a part of it. This joke of a department should be dismantled for good.

    JT
    www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
    "ONlien pRivacy when it Counts"

    Comment by John Thomas — November 13, 2007 @ 07:09AM

  8. I had a friend that got on with CPS several years ago and she barely made it through the training. She quit three months later.

    It's corrupt and racist and completely broken. But you won't hear that from anyone inside because all they had to do was apply for the job and do nothing beyond that. Besides maybe treating all the white people in the system like they owe them something and they don't belong and trying to pick fights with them EVERY SINGLE DAY.

    I'm not saying that all CPS workers are like this. I'm saying all but three, inluding the instructor, were just like that in my friend's training class and first months on the job.

    I like what somebody above said about scrapping the entire system, firing everyone, and starting over with new everything. Better pay, qualifications maybe. Yeah, that would be a good idea. Qualifications.

    Maybe somebody besides us regular folk will see that at some point.

    Comment by JayR — November 27, 2007 @ 11:43AM

  9. This part is from the article: McClure suggests that salaries must rise to keep caseworkers and investigators. The average starting salary is $28,740. McClure says that many workers leave CPS for jobs in teaching, where they can make about $10,000 more a year and have a summer vacation.

    Yes, raise the salaries, so they have to take more children to make more money to pay the child snatchers more money!!!!!!!!

    That's the answer. Kinda like that old commercial... I do more coke so I can work more hours, so I can make more money to do more coke.....

    It makes perfect sense to me!

    Note to the Editor: None of what I have had to say is against you.... I thank you for having the courage to write about AMERICAS DIRTY LITTLE SECRET!

    Comment by Debbie — December 7, 2007 @ 06:14PM

  10. Please research the 1998 State Legislative Responses to the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.

    Who wrote it and what his concerns were when he wrote it.


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Comment by Debbie — December 7, 2007 @ 06:35PM

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