It’s a Monday night at 8 pm, and that heart wrenching email subject line pops up in my inbox again: “Do you have openings?” Two babies risk spending the night in a Plano office building unless CPS can miraculously find two open beds in a foster home. Emails circulate around the county as CPS tries to identify an available, licensed foster family they may have overlooked.
Children who are removed from traumatic situations are brought to the CPS office until a foster home or other safe placement is identified. On occasions when a new home can’t be found, CPS often has no choice but to keep the kids living temporarily in the CPS office building. According to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, between December 2014 and April 2016, 67 Dallas area foster children slept at least two nights in state offices.
When new homes are found for child victims, approximately half are sent away from their friends and schools to placements in other parts of Texas. This frequently happens when our Collin County foster homes are full.
Fostering is a worthy undertaking, but it’s also an enormous commitment that not everyone is able to make. To learn more about becoming a foster parent, visit the state’s website to read about the process and requirements. To discover other ways to help abused and neglected children, visit our about Foster Friends section to learn more about how we help foster kids live more well-rounded lives.