New Federal Family First Act Offers Way for Texas to Provide More Support through HIP Program
Austin - New data released by the state show that the Legislature must provide additional support to teens in foster care who are pregnant or are parenting their own young children. According to the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) data, in FY 2019 there were 289 Texas youth in foster care parenting their own children. There were also 43 children born to young parents in foster care who were then placed in foster care themselves before their first birthday. Additionally, 322 youth in Texas foster care were pregnant, according to DFPS. In addition to the statewide data, DFPS released county-level data showing that Angelina, Bexar, Cameron, Comal, Dallas, Harris, Lubbock, Tarrant, and Travis counties were among the communities with the greatest need to support pregnant and parenting youth in foster care.
“If we want babies to grow up healthy, Texas policymakers need to provide better support to these teen parents and their infants in foster care,” said Kate Murphy, Senior Child Welfare Policy Associate at Texans Care for Children. “If we want to help families stay together safely rather than seeing more children enter foster care, then state leaders need to step up for these young families. After all the trauma and instability that teen parents in foster care have already been through, the state of Texas should do everything it can to help these teens raise their babies safely and successfully so CPS doesn’t end up removing them, too.”
Although the 2019 data reflect increases over the 2018 data for the number of youth in foster care who were parenting and the number of infants removed from their minor parents in foster care, those increases can largely be accounted for by a change in the agency’s methodology.
The state’s main programs for supporting these youth and their babies is the Helping through Intervention and Prevention (HIP) program. Unfortunately, HIP is no longer available in Lubbock, Angelina, Comal, Fort Bend and certain other counties served last year. However, HIP has expanded to McLennan, Hidalgo, Cameron, and other counties that were not served last year. Texas officials are currently considering options for counties that lost the program.
DFPS is currently using HIP to implement HB 475, the one bill the Texas Legislature passed last year to support pregnant and parenting youth in foster care. The bill takes a small but important step by providing more pregnant and parenting youth with basic parenting education and services that will help preserve their young families.
“We appreciate the steps that CPS is taking to implement HB 475 and improve the support provided to pregnant and parenting youth in foster care,” said Ms. Murphy.
Texas could provide HIP services in more communities by drawing down federal funding through the Family First Act. The new federal law offers funding to states to provide prevention services aimed at strengthening at-risk families and allowing them to safely stay together and out of the foster care system. To obtain the additional funding for pregnant and parenting youth in HIP, Texas must include the program in the Family First Act plan it submits to the federal government. To secure an even larger increase in Family First Act funding for HIP and help implement the program in more counties, the state must notify the federal government that it will not only use the funding to serve pregnant and parenting youth in foster care, but also to serve other HIP-eligible families. Other families eligible for HIP include young parents formerly in foster care and parents who have a baby after a child dies of maltreatment. To serve these other HIP-eligible families through the Family First Act, Texas must add them to the state’s definition of families who are at risk of entering foster care (the state’s “foster care candidacy” definition). During a January hearing on the Family First Act at DFPS, the parent agency of CPS, agency officials said they were considering broadening the definition.
“We are optimistic that state leaders will take the steps necessary to support more of these babies and young parents by drawing down additional funding through the Family First Act,” said Ms. Murphy. “We urge the Legislature to work with DFPS to reach that goal.”
In addition to leveraging the Family First Act and implementing HIP in more counties, state policymakers can also support young families in foster care by taking up the goals outlined in a number of bills that were filed during the 2019 Texas legislative session but did not pass. The bills included proposals to identify where the state needs high-quality specialized foster homes to serve this population; improve data collection to understand what services are currently provided and what is missing; and support healthy relationships for youth in foster care by offering optional trainings to CPS caseworkers, foster parents, attorneys, guardians ad litem, CASAs, and judges.
In a major research report published in 2018, Texans Care for Children found that youth in foster care — who often experienced trauma and instability before or during foster care — had much higher teen pregnancy rates than other Texas youth, faced significant health challenges during their pregnancies, and faced other risks. The report found that only 60 percent of youth in foster care received timely prenatal care compared to 87 percent of other teens and adults enrolled in Medicaid, for example. It noted that 30 percent of all teen girls who drop out of school cite pregnancy or parenthood as the reason, and that pregnant and parenting youth in foster care are twice as likely to drop out of school compared to other teen parents. It also highlighted that children born to youth in foster care were more than twice as likely to spend some time in foster care compared to children of other teen mothers under age 18.
“The good news is that the number of pregnant and parenting youth in foster care is low enough for the state to provide each one of them ample support to be healthy and have a chance to safely stay together with their baby,” said Ms. Murphy. “The state of Texas serves as the official parent of youth in foster care, so the state needs to go the extra mile to make sure these kids have the support they need during this critical moment in their lives.”
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