New Child Welfare Chief Asks Lawmakers For Cooperation

(Austin, TX) — The state’s top child welfare official is telling lawmakers specifically what’s required to reform Child Protective Services, and that does not include business-as-usual. The Texas Tribune reports that Hank Whitman, the newly appointed head of the Department of Family and Protective Services, wants to get at-risk kids out of CPS offices and psychiatric hospitals and into foster homes. Whitman says Governor Abbott is sick and tired of reading about infants and toddlers killed while in CPS care.