West Texas witnesses urge pilot to keep foster children closer to home in SB 513

The Senate Health and Human Services Committee heard testimony on Senate Bill 513, a proposed pilot to strengthen local, community-based supports for children and families in rural Texas. Witnesses told the committee the bill could reduce the number of children sent outside their home regions and improve outcomes for foster families.

Justin Smith, pastor of Bessell Church in San Angelo, described his family’s experience fostering 13 children and urged support for SB 513. “Fifty percent of foster parents stop fostering after their first placement,” Smith said, adding that a lack of local support and “poor experiences with the system itself” were primary reasons families leave the system. He recounted a placement that saw “four different caseworkers over a period of four months,” which he said resulted in poor case management and prompted greater local advocacy.

Associate Judge Elizabeth Watkins of the Child Protection Court of the Concho Valley said courts have seen similar approaches succeed. Watkins cited a court model documented in the documentary All Rise, For the Good of the Children and described a family-recovery court in Williamson County that used memoranda of understanding with community partners. “That court system had an 85 percent success rate,” Watkins said, referring to low recidivism among participants in the referenced model. She and other witnesses emphasized that sending children far from home creates transportation and visitation problems: a placement three hours away can make regular visits impractical and requires staff travel time that reduces caseworker capacity.

Rebecca Beltran, director of operations for the WIC program in San Angelo and a person with lived experience in foster care, told the committee SB 513 “does not compete with community based care. It fills a much needed gap.” Beltran said roughly 60 percent of children from her region are placed outside the region and argued the pilot would better coordinate local leaders, providers and advocates to keep children in their hometowns when appropriate.

Sarah Crockett, director of public policy for Texas CASA, said the bill’s proposed collaborative governance structure would formalize community engagement already encouraged under community-based care and would include an outside evaluation to identify which elements could be replicated elsewhere in the state.

Crystal Kreitler and Sheila Hemphill, both community members, urged lawmakers to match local resources with needs and to improve public understanding of local services; Hemphill emphasized the need to educate communities so resources already present can be better mobilized.

Committee members asked witnesses about how community-based care has affected local caseworker retention and whether the pilot could be adapted to the Concho Valley’s large service area. Witnesses noted challenges unique to rural regions, including provider shortages and long travel distances: one witness described a local service area covering about 40,000 square miles.

The committee closed public testimony on SB 513 and “left this bill pending,” the chair said. No committee vote on the bill was recorded during the hearing.

Ending: The chair closed registration for SB 513 testimony and left the bill pending for further consideration.