The Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) presents an opportunity for Texas to address two important goals for the child welfare system:
To safely keep more children connected to their biological families and out of foster care by expanding access to behavioral health services and better supporting caregivers, especially teen parents in foster care, and
To ensure children in foster care have high-quality homes and services that will help them heal from the trauma they have experienced and thrive as they grow up.
For Texas to best meet these goals, we encourage DFPS to 1) engage all cross-system stakeholders in the planning process, 2) develop a broad definition for eligibility for prevention services, and 3) build out foster care capacity that will best serve children and minimize the potential federal funding loss for our current foster care providers.