In 2015, U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack declared that the conditions for children in the Texas foster care system were so bad that it represented a violation of the children’s constitutional rights. Texas children, she wrote, had been “shuttled throughout a system where rape, abuse, psychotropic medication, and instability are the norm,” and where children “often age out of care more damaged than when they entered.”

Ten years later, dramatic changes have shaken the child welfare system in Texas. Much work remains, but the outcomes are nothing short of shocking. Texas now removes fewer children, keeps more children out of foster care, and protects more children from abuse and neglect than ever before. Accomplishing all three of these goals at the same time is something few people thought was possible.

Many Texans may not realize how quickly a child can be removed from their home if Child Protective Services believes there is an immediate risk. Even today, after years of reforms, a court has the authority to take a parent’s child even when the parent, CPS, and the judge all agree that the parent is most likely innocent of abuse and neglect.

Nationally, 1 out of every 3 children will experience a CPS investigation by age 18, according to a study published by the American Journal on Public Health. For Black and Native American children, it’s more than 1 out of every 2.

Once a child is removed, he or she will stay in foster care for an average of 14 months. In Texas, only a third of them will ever return home. Reform advocates often point out that a stranger who is accused of abusing a child is entitled to a litany of due process protections in a criminal trial that a parent is never afforded in a civil trial — even when the parent is accused of the same conduct. Yet, it is the parents who face the prospect of losing their child completely.

Termination of parental rights is often referred to as the “death penalty” of civil law. It’s not hard to see why. Most parents would sooner go to jail than lose their children.

In 2018, Texas removed 20,685 children from their homes. That same year, 211 children died from abuse and neglect in Texas. But since that time, the system has been shocked by a barrage of reforms. In 2024, Texas removed 9,220 children — a 55% drop in just six years. Furthermore, 99 children died from abuse and neglect in 2024 — a 53% drop.

Also in 2018, a new set of CPS reforms began taking effect, reforms that would set the tone for nearly eight years of earthshaking changes to the child welfare system in Texas.

State Reps. Gene Wu, D-Houston, James Frank, R-Wichita Falls, and Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, who is now the speaker of the Texas House, worked together in 2017 to craft and pass HB 7 with the help of Sen. Bryan Hughes. The bill included a long list of due process reforms to Texas CPS law. Among other reforms, the bill prohibited child removals based on a family being low-income, required CPS to end its practice of suing parents in multiple courts at the same time (one court for each child), and prohibited CPS from terminating the rights of both parents when they only had evidence against one. The bill passed the Legislature with near unanimous support. Due process in CPS cases had gotten the Legislature’s attention.

In the years following, due process reforms in Texas sped up. In 2020, the Texas Supreme Court ended a practice whereby a jury could terminate parental rights even when jurors could not agree on what the parent had done wrong — a rule change specifically set in motion by HB 7.

In 2021, HB 567 dramatically reformed the definition of child neglect. In 2023, HB 730 required CPS caseworkers to inform parents of their rights before questioning them, like police officers do with criminal suspects. Both bills included numerous other reforms as well, and they were accompanied by a slew of other bills each making additional “pro-family” reforms to the system — reforms ranging from narrowly targeted due process changes to broad new standards of training for CPS caseworkers. Almost all of the bills passed with broad bipartisan support.

In 2021, Rep. Wu put clear words to the problem when describing how HB 567 changed the definition of neglect to prohibit the removal of a child unless there was an immediate danger. “We’ve always looked at what we’re doing for kids, but we don’t consider often what we’re doing to kids. … We guarantee you, if you strip them from their family, they will be traumatized. The question that we’ve never asked is this: Is it worth it?”

Because fewer children are being removed from their homes, the total number of children sitting in foster care has also plummeted, according to Texas Department of Family and Protective Services data. Altogether, the shift in the system since the 2018 reforms began has been dramatic:

• Children removed by CPS each year: down 55%
• Child deaths from abuse and neglect: down 53%
• Number of children sitting in foster care: down 47%
• Number of children waiting for adoption: down 43%
• Six-month and one-year recidivism rates: both at the lowest levels ever recorded (five-year rates have been essentially flat since 2015).

The Texas Legislature is now well into the 2025 legislative session. More reforms to the system are already being proposed. There are many holes left to be filled. In his State of the Judiciary speech before the Texas House and Senate, Supreme Court Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock spoke for several minutes about the critical importance of ensuring due process for families in the CPS system. At the state’s highest court, due process for families is now a point of critical focus.

Doubtless, not all of the positive changes in the system are attributable to the due process reforms of the last seven years, but many of them clearly are.

One thing is apparent: Texas is embracing the theory of due process in the child welfare system, and seven years in, outcomes for families and children have dramatically improved.

Jeremy Newman is vice president of Family Freedom Project.