This chart counts the number of unique children for whom a court entered a legal status order during the fiscal year. If a court entered multiple different legal statuses for a child during the fiscal year, the child is only counted once.

A description of the different types of legal statuses is in the CPS glossary.

Visit dfps.texas.gov for information on substitute care placements and all DFPS programs.

Reflects families that are receiving monetary assistance to care for relative children who are in DFPS' legal responsibility.

A removal occurs when CPS determines that a child cannot safely remain in their own home and DFPS needs to seek legal custody to ensure child safety. Removals can occur in an investigation, family preservation, family substitute care or family reunification stage.

For removals at the end of the Fiscal Year, the placement represented may be from the following Fiscal Year.

Based on the Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) philosophy, Circles of Support (COS) are meetings that focus on the youth and their plans for transitioning to a successful adulthood. They are led by the youth whenever possible. Participants represent a broad spectrum of the youth’s support network. The youth choses who they want to include in their COS: Participants can be the youth’s siblings, birth family members, foster or kinship care providers, teachers, relatives, church members, friends, mentors, and anyone else who is willing and able to support the youth into adulthood. These participants come together to develop and review the youth's plans for transitioning to a successful adulthood, including strengths, hopes and dreams, and goals. The plans cover needs in the areas of education, employment, mental and physical health, housing, and all Preparation for Adult Living (PAL) life skills training components. The COS is about having discussions with the youth about what is needed and important to the youth and how participants can support the youth.

Child Protective Investigations (CPI) conducts either a traditional investigation or Alternative Response (AR). Traditional investigations and Alternative Response require caseworkers to assess safety and take needed actions to protect a child while assessing any risk of abuse or neglect in the foreseeable future. AR cases present a less adversarial more collaborative approach to working with families by allowing for family engagement along with other community supports to ensure child safety. AR differs from traditional investigations in that AR cases are Priority 2 cases involving victims who are age 6 or older, there is no substantiation of allegations, no entry of perpetrators into the Central Registry (a repository for reports of child abuse and neglect), and there is a heightened focus on guiding the family to plan for safety in a way that works for them and therefore sustains safety.

Alterative Response has been fully implemented in Regions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6B, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11. AR in Region 6A is in the implementation stage. Full state implementation is anticipated in March 2021. Region 6A is Harris County and Region 6B is Region 6 excluding Harris County.

Stages that were administratively closed or closed to merge were excluded from this report.

This dashboard addresses Texas Family Code Section 264.017 (b) (3).

Chapter 48, Title 2, of the Texas Human Resources Code (HRC) and Chapter 705 of the Texas Administrative Code (TAC) authorizes APS to investigate abuse and financial exploitation of a person age 65 or older or an adult with a disability when the person responsible for the maltreatment is a:
• caretaker;
• paid caretaker;
• family member; or
• person who has an ongoing relationship with the alleged victim. Examples include a personal friend, paramour, or roommate.
In the case of neglect, the perpetrator may also be the victim himself or herself. This is called "Self-neglect".
In cases of family violence, a protective order can be obtained from a court that prohibits a member of a family or household from remaining in the household, and from contacting or coming near the victim. The purpose of the order is to prevent that person from committing further acts of family violence against the victim.
The statutes governing family violence protective orders are set forth in Texas Family Code Chapters 71-87. This order is only available when family violence has been committed by a family member, member of the household, or in some circumstances by a person the victim has dated.

Each victim may have more than one perpetrator at the end of an investigation.

Visit dfps.state.tx.us for information on all DFPS programs.

Services provided to clients by DFPS may include social casework, case management, and arranging for psychiatric and health evaluation, home care, day care, social services, health care, respite services, and other services.

The APS specialist works with the client to develop a service plan to address identified problems. Safely maintaining clients in the least restrictive environment is a primary goal of APS intervention.

Protective services may be necessary to alleviate or prevent the client from returning to a state of abuse, neglect or financial exploitation. In this case, DFPS may also provide services to a family member or caretaker. (Texas Human Resources Code §48.002(a)(5) and §48.204) Protective services may be delivered in every stage of an investigation

The APS specialist makes all reasonable efforts to resolve problems, including root causes, and stabilizes the client’s condition. Full resolution of a client’s problems is always the goal of APS casework, but it is not always achievable. When full resolution is not a practical goal because of inadequate resources, client resistance, or some other impediment, the APS specialist closes the case when a client’s situation is as close to stable as possible.

The phrase "reasonable effort" implicitly recognizes that:
• personal choice on the part of the client may limit the effectiveness of APS intervention;
• resources available to APS for helping clients are limited; and
• APS cannot remedy all situations.

1. Counts for FY 2015 and subsequent years cannot be compared to those from prior Data Books, due to changes in the APS casework practice model. Cases with services provided during the investigation may not have a separate service stage.

2. Clients in validated cases may receive more than one service.

Visit dfps.state.tx.us for information on all DFPS programs.

Whenever CPS removes a child from his or her home and places the child in substitute care, staff must engage in permanency planning on behalf of the child to ensure that the child can return the child’s family if and when this can be accomplished or be placed permanently with an alternative family, preferably a kinship family, as soon as possible.

Federal and state law provide only four acceptable permanency goals: Family Reunification, Adoption, Permanent Managing Conservatorship to a relative or suitable individual or Another Planned Permanent Living Arrangement.

These counts do not reflect all children in DFPS Legal Responsibility on August 31, only those with a permanency goal.

Human Resources Code 48.152 requires that APS investigations include an interview with the person age 65 or older or adult with disabilities, if appropriate, and with persons thought to have knowledge of the circumstances.

APS interviews all appropriate parties, including reporters, alleged victims, alleged perpetrators, witnesses, medical staff, and others who have knowledge of allegations and alleged victims' situations.

DFPS staff must not disclose the reporter’s name to the victim, the victim’s family, or the public. The reporter’s name may be released verbally or in writing to the courts, the district or county attorney, law enforcement agencies, and DFPS staff.

APS case-related information is confidential. APS only provides the reporter with pertinent case information necessary to:
• confirm whether allegations will be accepted for investigation;
• collect evidence and gather relevant information related to allegations and the alleged victim’s overall situation and risk; and
• arrange for protective services to reduce risk of harm or alleviate abuse, neglect, or financial exploitation.

1. A report of abuse/neglect/financial exploitation may come from multiple sources making the source total higher than the total number of intakes.

2. Inclusion based on intake closure date.

Prevention and Early Intervention (PEI) was created to consolidate child abuse prevention and juvenile delinquency prevention and early intervention programs within the jurisdiction of a single state agency. To provide services for at-risk children, youth, and families.

Community Youth Development (CYD) - The CYD program contracts services in 15 targeted Texas ZIP codes with community-based organizations to develop juvenile delinquency prevention programs in areas with high juvenile crime rates. Approaches used by communities to prevent delinquency include mentoring, youth employment programs, career preparation, youth leadership development and recreational activities. Communities prioritize and fund specific prevention services according to local needs.

Family and Youth Success Program (FAYS) (Formerly Services to At-Risk Youth (STAR)) - The FAYS program contracts with community agencies to offer family crisis intervention counseling, short- term emergency respite care, individual and family counseling, and universal child abuse prevention services, ranging from local media campaigns to informational brochures and parenting classes in all counties in Texas. Youth up to age 17 and their families are eligible if they experience conflict at home, truancy or delinquency, or a youth who runs away from home. In FY2018, contracts for the FAYS program were re-procured and started on December 1, 2017. Under these contracts, families could be served through traditional FAYS services or through one-time focused skills training. In some cases, families participating in skills training also chose to enroll in traditional FAYS services. Programmatically, these families are counted uniquely in both programs; for DFPS Data Book purposes, they are reported unduplicated.

Statewide Youth Services Network (SYSN) - The SYSN program contracts provide community and evidence-based juvenile delinquency prevention programs focused on youth ages 10 through 17, in each DFPS region.