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Critics of CPS say the root of problems within the agency is high employee turnover, which is caused by the enormous caseloads.
"That's a fact of life," says Houston attorney Brian Fischer, one of around 65 lawyers in Texas to be board-certified in juvenile law.
Fischer recently represented a white couple who were trying to get custody of an Asian baby they had fostered since CPS took the child from its parents. The baby's mother was mentally handicapped, and the father signed away his rights to the child.
Fischer's clients hoped to eventually adopt the baby, but 15 months into the case, the child's aunt and uncle stepped forward wanting custody. Leaders in Houston's Asian community criticized CPS for taking a child from its family and culture. The case went to jury trial, a rarity in CPS cases. It was a messy situation, but the jury sided with Fischer's clients. During the 18-month case, the child had four different caseworkers.
The average length a child stays in foster care in Texas is about 21 months. If the child isn't adopted or returned to the family before that time, the average stay jumps to almost five years, meaning the child most likely turns 18 and leaves.
The agency doesn't keep records on how many caseworkers a child has while in foster care, but Estella Olguin, a CPS spokeswoman in Harris County, says it will most likely be more than one.
According to a report from the nonprofit Texas Association for the Protection of Children, a child with one constant caseworker has a 75 percent chance of placement in a permanent home within a year. Switching caseworkers once almost cuts that chance in half, and multiple changes drop the chance to almost zero.
Kathy Reinhard and her husband live in Spring, and started keeping CPS foster children about three years ago. They tried to have their own kids 20 years ago, but were unsuccessful. They have also adopted two children.
Currently, one of their foster children is John, a two-year-old with some serious medical problems. The first year and a half the Reinhards kept John, they never heard from the child's caseworker, and CPS never went to their house despite a federal law that requires monthly visits. Kathy says they had no luck reaching the caseworker by phone or e-mail.
"That's more like the experience we've had with CPS," Kathy says. "It makes it difficult on us to get things done."
Working as a CPS investigator is a stressful job, says Javier Bernal, who has been with the agency for about five years. The main cause of stress, he says, is the amount of work. Bernal says that his monthly caseload is supposed to be 15, but he usually gets 20 new cases each month. Add that to the backlog of work he's trying to finish, and his actual number of cases is about 40.
"No, it's not manageable. It's very hard," Bernal says.
Since Bernal is one of the few Spanish-speaking investigators working in Harris County, he's often called on to translate for other caseworkers.
"That's when you want to pull your hair and think, 'Oh my gawd.' It's like, oh my gawd, I have to do this," Bernal says.
Each investigation he works should be complete in 30 days, but considering his caseload, that's not realistic. Cases can be extended to 60 days, but they often linger past that deadline. Plus, Bernal spends about half his time doing administrative work such as writing reports and appearing in court.
"We just don't have time," Bernal says. "It becomes a routine, where you already know what you're going to do."
Bernal moved to Texas from Mexico about nine years ago to work as an accountant. Then he started doing some modeling. Then he started teaching teenagers how to model. He liked working with the kids, so when a friend suggested CPS, it seemed like a good idea.
Bernal wasn't prepared for the emotional drain of the job. One of his toughest cases involved removing children from their parents on Christmas Eve. Another was the investigation of a teen who was killed by his father three days after Bernal had been to the house.
"You do feel bad. But whenever you feel like you did everything you could, you just have to move on," Bernal says. "Sometimes it's out of our hands."
Ursula Christian, the CPS caseworker who thought about quitting after receiving orders to spend weekends at the CPS office on Chimney Rock, decided to stay after she transferred to an adoption preparation unit. The duties are similar, but now she has a caseload of about 40.
Still, some cases put on top of her pile are too much to bear, including that of 16-year-old Melissa Flores. Melissa's mother was a crack addict, her father in prison. She had wanted to find an adoptive family when she entered the CPS system nine years earlier, but as she got older, that dream died.
Shortly before Christian switched units, she visited Melissa at her group home. Then, on July 11, the girl called Christian and said she had run away. Melissa had just celebrated her 17th birthday and wanted Christian to know she was doing fine.