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Addressing disproportionality in the Texas child welfare system 
Child Protective Services knows that African-American children are over-represented in its system. The agency looks for solutions by listening to local communities.
Across Texas in 2004, African-American children represented about 29 percent of those entering foster care; the state census, however, indicated that only 12 percent of all the children in the state were African-American. Federal government studies document that race is not a factor in the likelihood that a parent will abuse or neglect a child, so these two percentages ought to be roughly equal. The fact that they are not is evidence of disparate treatment of children of color. Child welfare professionals refer to such racial imbalances as disproportionality.
Race and foster care
Disproportionality—a racial imbalance indicated by statistical analysis—is a relatively new idea, especially for state child welfare systems. Racial disparities have been evident for a long time, however. The champions who arose to address disproportionality in the Texas child welfare system already knew that the issue of race was inseparable from foster care.
Joyce James—now the assistant commissioner of Texas’ Child Protective Services (CPS) agency—is one of the champions. As a case worker in the late 1970s, she recruited families of color to foster or adopt children whose cultural heritage they shared. James wanted to find families who could help the children in their care develop a sense of identity strong enough to cope with the racism directed against them by the outside world.
Root causes of disproportionality
Through the 1980s and 1990s, James’ rise through the ranks at CPS gave her the opportunity to examine data from a larger geographic region. “We knew our family recruitment efforts were working, and we knew we were doing a good job moving youth into permanent homes,” says James. “But African-American children kept coming into the system.”
In 2001, James and her partners at universities and community organizations formed a collaborative to break down barriers to services for families in Port Arthur, Texas, addressing some of disproportionality’s root causes in Jefferson County.
“We made a commitment to begin to look at ways to engage the community in addressing issues of poverty, lack of educational opportunities, and access to resources,” says James. “We wanted to provide services to families before they came to the attention of the child welfare system.”
In 2005, the initiative launched Helping Our People Excel (HOPE). The project provides a place where families have easy access to services that strengthen families and create healthy communities where children can thrive.
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