SEN. KOLKHORST APPOINTED TO CHILD SERVICES OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE

  

State Senator Lois Kolkhorst has been appointed to a legislative panel created to oversee the transition to Community-Based Care in the Texas foster care system.

Kolkhorst, the Chair of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, was appointed by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick to serve as a member of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Community-Based Care Transition.

Community-Based Care is a new model of providing child services whereby a community-based nonprofit or a local governmental entity contracts with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), the state's child services agency, to provide case management and placements.

According to a release, the model is intended to be more flexible and innovative to build more stable foster care capacity, reunify and preserve families, ensure child safety, permanency and well-being, as well as reduce future referral of families into the system.

Kolkhorst said she is grateful for the appointment, and that the committee will work to ensure that Community-Based Care “is implemented in a timely manner and that it leverages the budgetary resources provided to improve the outcomes for foster children and families.”  She said legislators have laid out a path to make the state’s child services system “more responsive to the unique needs of struggling families in each community.”

The joint committee was established by Senate Bill 1896, an omnibus child services reform measure authored by Kolkhorst this year during the 87^th Legislature.