Texas Department of Family and Protective Services

Our caseworker was very experienced.

Our Texas, our DFPS caseworker was very experienced.

So she prepared us for the after adoption process early on.

So she made us fill out paperwork, you know, let us know that there's tuition assistance, things like that.

Now, he was born and raised in San Antonio, local guy, attended Fox Tech High School and UTSA, graduated from the Thurgood Marshall School of Law in Houston.

He's practiced law since 1999 with experience in family law, child welfare advocacy, and he prosecuted cases involving the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

Thank you, Judge Pedales, for joining us.

I'm going to call you, Raul, if that's okay.

Lay out for us a couple of the moments that really illustrate how problematic Empower was in caring for these children.

So this foster parent took in two siblings and had fostered children before this and was familiar with the system, but was familiar with the system under DFPS's management.

And what she explained to me was that throughout their cases, there were many concerning decisions that Empower made that she flagged to all parties in the case Decisions that were being made that were putting these kids in danger, she believed.

In one instance, they were sent back to live with a family member who had a concerning history and who this foster parent did not believe was adequately prepared to take on these children.

And you always ask them, like, are there things that have happened like you just don't want to talk about right now? Because that's an open door for it's a yes, it's maybe a no.

If it's different things that have been said to them, make a DFPS report, make a law enforcement report, because As a parent, before starting this job as a person, if a kid came up and told me, if my niece had told me or if another friend's kid had said like, hey, so-and-so hurt me, I'd be like, what do you mean so-and-so hurt you? Like, what happened? I'm going to go handle this.

I'm going to go talk to this person, which then could put somebody on the defensive of like, no, no, no, I don't want you to get in trouble because you might go hurt somebody because of me.

So it's really taking that emotional step back.

And so that's a feeling that I want for every mom that's in a domestic violence situation of you don't have to be there because there are resources that can help you out of this.

And without funding those resources, like you were talking about, those moms are trapped and they have nowhere to go.

And they have to decide between, do I put up with this abuse or do I and have a roof over my kid's head and food in their bellies? Or do I leave and end up homeless in a vehicle with my children? And then DFPS comes in and takes away my children.

And then now we're separated and they have even more trauma.

Scott Shepherd, Executive Director of HomeAid North Texas.

Daniqua Lewis, who's the Regional Faith-Based and Community Engagement Specialist with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

And Tony Childress, owner and president of Childress Engineering Services.

Together, we're going to talk about why these beds are needed, the children and families that they serve, how North Texas building industry has rallied around this effort, and what can happen when government, nonprofits, businesses, and volunteers come together around a very practical need.