It can be deadly to be a child in need of assistance in Dallas/Fort Worth.

State child protection workers failed to act quickly to protect local children in danger 70 percent of the time, according to an originally confidential state audit released last fall. That shocking admission followed on the heels of widely publicized reports that at least one-fourth of 509 Texas children who died from abuse or neglect in two and one-half years had been previously investigated by Child Protective Services (CPS). Dallas County ranked second in child deaths (behind Houston?s Harris County, the state?s most populous county) with 42 children dead, while Tarrant County was third with 27 deaths.Read more

Going to work is not exactly a safe proposition for Child Protective Services investigative caseworker Jennifer Deible. Once, a knife-wielding youngster attacked her while she was trying to find her next appointment. ?I?ve been in homes where I knew they were doing drug deals while I was sitting there interviewing another person,? she also recalls.

Then there?s her workload. While national child welfare organizations recommend monthly caseloads of 15 to 18 cases per worker, Texas investigative caseworkers average a numbing 74 cases per month. The recent overhaul of the Texas child welfare system will lower that figure to 44.7 cases ? still two to three times the national standards. Caseworkers like Deible will continue to find themselves woefully overburdened. Read more