The front line social workers are doing their best. They really are. No one who doesn’t sincerely care about kids takes that job and keeps it. It’s incredibly tough work and mentally damaging.
But the system is broken and underfunded. Texas DFPS is in a decade long lawsuit over how kids are not safe in the foster care system. But despite a very active judge, almost nothing has changed. The only thing the GOP dominated legislature done is shift licensing regulations to the health and human services agency. Which did help a bit. That’s it.
Social services everywhere need more money, more inspectors for the foster homes, more support for the foster homes (both money and therapy), more therapeutic support for the kids. But the GOP would rather fund almost anything else. The forced-birth polices are going to make this worse. People who didn’t want to be parents, already have as many kids as they can handle, or just aren’t equipped.
This boy should have a safe temporary place to live. But the ER is unfortunately as safe as it gets. The nurses and doctors are understandably frustrated but kids in the spectrum are incredibly vulnerable to abuse and that is a little less likely in the ER than a temporary group home.
