AUSTIN — The biggest change in federal funding of child welfare in 40 years has Texas youth advocates frantically waving their arms, trying to get state GOP leaders’ attention.

For the most part, child advocates say they’re being ignored – at peril of losing a chance to navigate the momentous and system-roiling changes they say are coming.

Smart sailing, they add, could help reduce the frequency with which Child Protective Services removes kids from their birth families — and in just a few years create a better, safer foster care system. Poor helmsmanship, though, could strip crucial federal dollars from a state child-protection effort that has lurched from crisis to crisis, they warn.

Last month, advocates who say the state should pay more heed to the so-called Family First Act responded with delight to Speaker Dennis Bonnen’s order that three House committees jointly study the law’s effects during the run-up to the 2021 legislative session. Also last month, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick did not mention the law in his “interim charges” for senators.

“We’re really excited the House is showing a keen interest in what’s happening with the implementation of this complex federal legislation,” said Kate Murphy, a lawyer and the top child welfare expert at the nonprofit advocacy group Texans Care for Children.

“There’ll be a lot of positive things that could come of this, long term,” she said of the federal law. “But the first few years are going to be a challenge, both financially and logistically, for the system.”

More mental health providers?

The law poses two tricky questions for Texas: Can it develop a strategy to direct millions of federal dollars into attracting mental-health providers and substance-abuse treatment providers in underserved regions, such as most rural areas?

The law holds out that prospect, though money only can flow to assist families where there’s a “candidate for foster care” and the services provided are “time-limited,” for no more than 12 months. Also, at least half of services provided at state direction must be from a program that gets a good housekeeping seal of approval from the federal Administration for Children and Families.

The “back end” of Texas’ child welfare system is foster care, in which youngsters who can’t be reunited with their birth families or adopted often linger for months if not years. There, the question is whether the state can get enough “Qualified Residential Treatment Programs.” Currently, it has none.

For decades, federal funds have been paying roughly half of the tab for Texas foster kids’ stays. For that arrangement to continue for long stays in cottage homes and residential treatment centers, though, will require providers’ getting accredited and jumping through other hoops.

It’s unclear if the state will make a concerted push for that to happen or just forego federal aid for such children in favor of having freedom to house them where it wishes. However, the care would have to be paid 100% with state dollars.

Prevention push

The decisions for states are coming fast, as dictated by the Family First Prevention Services Act. Authored by Texas congressman Kevin Brady, it was part of a larger budget deal. Congress had debated the measure for several years. President Donald Trump signed it in March 2018.

Passed with bipartisan support, the law made historic changes to how the federal government pays for child welfare systems. Congress put a premium on prevention and demanding higher-quality foster care. It created strong financial incentives for states to place more foster kids in family-style settings and fewer in large institutions.

A few states, such as Colorado, Delaware and Rhode Island, have raised their hands and are now — or soon will be — operating under the new strictures. States, though, were allowed to postpone the law’s mandatory provisions for a couple of years.

Experts say big states such as Texas are especially challenged. Highly populated states are daunted by the idea of getting all their providers up to snuff in time to meet the law’s looming 2021 deadlines.

That includes providers of parenting classes and mental-health and drug-addiction treatments on the front end. States will have to make sure at least half of what they’re spending on the new preventive efforts are “for well-supported practices,” according to a Texas Department of Family and Protective Services summary of the law.

On the back end, the state could lose federal funding for many providers of group foster care.

“It’s way too fast,” said former Travis County District Judge Scott McCown, who until recently ran the Children’s Rights Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin.

“The states aren’t going to be able to get it implemented that fast and they’re going to lose federal money because their placements aren’t going to be able to qualify,” he said. “They’re going to lose a significant amount of federal money.”

No updated cost estimates

As Congress debated the bill in 2016, Texas’ protective services department made “very rough and high level” estimates of state and provider costs in Texas in fiscal 2020, the current state fiscal year: Loss of $31.5 million of federal funds, assuming the state had no group foster care providers that qualified; and $100 million of new costs as group-care providers scrambled to try to qualify with new staff and services.

Last week, department spokesman Patrick Crimmins said there have been “no updated cost figures” on the federal law.

“[The department] has worked closely with federal and state staff and stakeholders to analyze the impact to the child welfare system” caused by the Family First Act, he said. “Texas does not have enough providers who offer evidence-based services” that might prevent removals, such as substance-abuse treatments for parents neglecting or abusing their children, he said.

“Texas is awaiting additional guidance from federal agencies,” Crimmins said.

For group foster care, federal funds will still be able to flow after Oct. 1, 2021, for certain favored placement options.

They include:

· Traditional family foster homes;

· Facilities for pregnant and parenting youth;

· Centers for substance abuse treatment, where the addicted parent and child can stay safely together;

· Shelters for youth who are or are at risk of becoming sex-trafficking victims; and

· Supervised, “independent living” homes for those over age 18 who voluntarily remain in foster care.

But for the highest-needs kids, after 14 days in care, federal funds won’t be able to be used on care settings with more than six children unless they are Qualified Residential Treatment Programs.

To get that designation, providers first must receive accreditation from one of three national groups, the Council on Accreditation; the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, or CARF International; or the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, now called The Joint Commission.

They also must have nursing staff on site during business hours, use a “trauma-informed care model,” engage the biological parents or former caregivers in a child’s treatment plan, and provide up to six months of “after care” services after the child has left the facility.

‘Lot of work to do’

Katie Olse, executive director of the Texas Alliance of Child & Family Services, said many providers are seeking accreditation.

“Some are doing that on their own because they just want to go through accreditation,” she said. “Some are doing that in anticipation of the requirement coming down.”

Olse said she is “pleased to see the state thoughtfully planning" for implementation of the federal law.

Testifying before a House panel earlier this month, CPS chief Kristene Blackstone provided a list of “ongoing work.” It ticked off various meetings that have been held to inform providers. The state has engaged Olse’s group and Casey Family Programs to help it analyze the federal law’s effects. A delegation of state and private officials is going to Colorado next month.

“We have worked diligently to understand this very complex legislation,” Blackstone said.

Child advocate Murphy, though, said Texas still “has a lot of work to do to get up to speed.”

She noted that earlier this year, the Legislature didn’t include any money in the budget for Family First Act readiness and compliance.

Lawmakers are likely not to review the situation until their regular session in 2021. The state’s new two-year budget and any related laws they pass will kick in on Sept. 1, 2021, Murphy noted. That is just one month before certain federal payments for Texas child welfare could be cut off.

“We’re not going to be able in one month to magically have all the capacity we need there, especially because the accreditation process takes 12 to 18 months,” she said. “So we’re going to lose quite a bit of federal money … and that’s going to hurt.”