The Ethics Of The Texas Foster Care System - 1141 Words

While looking at the dangers and environment in a child’s home, advocates such as employees of the Department of Family and Protective Services of the State of Texas, have the moral obligation to take into consideration safety of children shelters and foster homes. Morally, advocates for the children should also take into consideration the psychological trauma that the child may or may not experience through being taken away from family and being placed, possibly multiple times, at new places away from everything they know. The Texas foster care system is administered by the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services (â€Å"DFPS†), a division of the Health and Human Services Commission (â€Å"HHSC†). Within DFPS, the division of Child†¦show more content†¦As conservator, DFPS undertakes the constitutional and statutory duties of ensuring the child’s safety, permanency, and well-being. During the period of TMC, DFPS is required to make reasonable efforts to reunify children with their families if safe and appropriate, or to make timely efforts to legally free them for adoption or find another permanent placement for them. While the child is in the state’s TMC, Texas law requires the appointment of an attorney to represent the child’s expressed interests and a guardian ad litem to protect the child’s best interests in the state court proceeding affecting the parent-child relationship. Under Texas law, TMC lasts for one year, or at most eighteen months. After that time, if the child has not been reunited with his birth family or provided with some other permanent family, he enters the state’s Permanent Managing Conservatorship (â€Å"PMC†). Once the child is in the state’s PMC, that initial legal proceeding is concluded. After entry of that final order, Texas state law provides no mandate that the child continue to be represented as he was in TMC. Thus, a substantial number of children in the state’s PMC have no independent adult obligated to represent their expressed or best interests in state court proceedings held twice a year to review DFPS actions. For each child under the state’s conservatorship, a DFPS caseworker is