Systems Improvement

The Systems Improvement Committee executes innovative projects aimed at encouraging fairness and justice for children, youth, and families; promoting judicial leadership in courts and communities; and expanding court and child welfare system capacity to support continuous, systemic improvement.

For more information about current Systems Improvement Committee projects, please link below:

Committee Members, May 2025

Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children

The Children’s Commission partners with many key stakeholders with a goal of preventing and addressing commercial sexual exploitation of children and youth in foster care. In addition to serving on the Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force, the Commission also works with the Office of the Texas Governor’s Child Sex Trafficking Team, the DFPS Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation team, and the Office of Court Administration to develop strategies to improve judicial handling of child welfare cases where children or youth are at high risk of becoming trafficking victims. The Commission is focused primarily on providing information to judges and attorneys responsible for child welfare cases to raise awareness about human trafficking as it impacts children involved with the child welfare system. The Commission also participates in state and national trainings on human trafficking to stay informed about successful strategies to combat trafficking and develop expertise to relay information to judges and attorneys.

Dual Status

The Children’s Commission has worked since its inception to strengthen courts for children and families in the Texas child welfare system. Federal Court Improvement Program funds require a focus on child abuse and neglect, but children involved in the juvenile justice system present with many of the same challenges and needs. The Texas Judicial Council recommended to the Supreme Court of Texas in 2018 that the Children’s Commission should convene a task force to study and report on issues relating to youth with involvement in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems. The task force was formed to establish a common, statewide definition(s) for the population, identify resources needed to meet the needs of youth who are dually involved, and make other recommendations as may be necessary to improve outcomes for dually involved youth. The task force was directed also to address training needs for judges and other necessary parties on handling cases involving youth involved in both systems.

Foster Care & Education

Using The Texas Blueprint as a roadmap, the Foster Care & Education Committee focuses on strategies to improve educational experiences and outcomes for children and youth experiencing foster care in Texas.

Transforming Education Outcomes for Children and Youth in Texas Foster Care

In 2010, the Supreme Court of Texas issued an Order Establishing the Education Committee of the Children's Commission. The Education Committee — a high-level group of court, education, and child welfare decision-makers — created a collaborative initiative and produced a roadmap for the Education Committee to follow, the Texas Blueprint: Transforming Education Outcomes for Children and Youth in Foster Care.

The Education Committee recognized that when the state has the legal status of a parent for a child in its Temporary Managing Conservatorship, the child’s community is also responsible to provide support to that child as they experience the child welfare system. Through improved communication and collaboration, the court, child welfare, and education systems are better equipped to meet the educational needs of students in care.

Working together, the various systems affecting the children and youth in care can aim to improve the educational outcomes of our children and youth in care.

In December 2012, the Supreme Court of Texas signed an order officially discharging the Education Committee from its duties and creating a new Texas Blueprint Implementation Task Force and Advisory Council to continue the collaboration begun by the Education Committee and to monitor the progress of implementation of the recommendations issued in the Texas Blueprint. The Implementation Task Force met from January 2013 until December 2014, at which time it provided recommendations in the Texas Blueprint Implementation Task Force Final Report for future work to the Children's Commission.

In February 2015, the Children's Commission created a standing Foster Care & Education Committee to maintain momentum and oversee the continued implementation of the Texas Blueprint recommendations. The next phase of implementation began with the first meeting of the Foster Care & Education Committee on July 20, 2015. The Foster Care & Education Committee meets quarterly to monitor progress of the workgroups and prioritize projects.

Prevention

The Children’s Commission collaborates closely with child welfare stakeholders on prevention efforts. The Commission and DFPS collaborate on the implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA), as required by the federal Administration for Children and Families. FFPSA restructures federal child welfare funding, particularly Title IV-E and Title IV-B of the Social Security Act, which Texas uses to pay for services for children in foster care and their families. FFPSA seeks to reduce entry in foster care, to limit the use of congregate care, and to increase access to substance abuse and mental health services. There are certain training provisions directly impacting the courts and Court Improvement Programs, but beyond that, FFPSA mandates that states seeking Title IV-E funding create and provide more robust prevention services for families in the state’s child welfare system. The Children’s Commission collaborates with Casey Family Programs, DFPS Prevention and Early Intervention (PEI) division, and other state and national groups on best practices for implementation of all FFPSA provisions, including the development of IV-E prevention programs and court involvement in encouraging a primary prevention approach

Statewide Collaborative on Trauma-Informed Care

In July 2017, the Children’s Commission launched the Statewide Collaborative on Trauma-Informed Care (SCTIC) to elevate trauma-informed policy and practices in the Texas child welfare system by creating a statewide strategy to support system reform, organizational leadership, cross-systems collaboration, and community-led efforts with data-informed initiatives.

The Trauma Blueprint

Based on the work of the SCTIC, the Children’s Commission published Building a Trauma-Informed Child Welfare System: A Blueprint in February 2019. The Trauma Blueprint provides a roadmap for the child welfare system and invites innovation and improvement in both the public and private sectors to become trauma-informed and trauma-responsive.

Guiding Principles of Implementation

The Blueprint focuses on nine Guiding Principles to create a trauma-informed child welfare system. These Guiding Principles and correlating strategies inform the work of the SCTIC Implementation Task Force, as well as provide principles for all interested stakeholders to center their trauma work around.

SCTIC Implementation Task Force and Workgroups

Chaired by the Honorable Judge Carlos Villalon, Judge of the Child Protection Court of the Rio Grande Valley West, the Implementation Task Force was created to oversee the implementation of the strategies set forth in the Blueprint. The Implementation Task Force set global priorities for the SCTIC, established workgroups to carry out these priorities, and monitored progress to help ensure successful implementation.

The workgroups Policy & Practice, Training, and Information Sharing, Data, & Funding each completed large projects during the initial phase of implementation.

For additional resources, please visit the Reports and Resources page, Statewide Collaborative on Trauma-Informed Care.

TraumaInformedTexas.com
2021 Judicial Trauma Institute - The Judicial Trauma Institute was presented live on April 22-23, 2021 via webcast. The content was designed by Commission staff in partnership with the Statewide Collaborative on Trauma-Informed Care (SCTIC) Training Workgroup and hosted by the Texas Center for the Judiciary. The goal of the conference was for judicial teams to gain information and discover practical tools and resources about how to become a trauma-informed and trauma-responsive court in CPS cases. Video replays and conference materials can be accessed on the Judicial Trauma Institute webpage.

Trauma Informed Court Pilot Project

The SCTIC work continued under the guidance of an Implementation Task Force. Through a grant partnership with the Texas Center for Child and Family Studies, the SCTIC work focused on supporting four court sites to implement trauma-informed projects. Each court site had a lead judge who convened a court team made of key collaborative partners to implement projects with the goal of addressing child and family safety through a trauma-informed lens.

About the Court Teams

The pilot included court teams led by the following judges:

Hon. Linda Dunson, Judge of the 309th Family District Court, Houston;
Hon. Angela Graves-Harrington, Judge of the 246th Family District Court, Houston;
Hon. Andrea James, Associate Judge of the Second Region Child Protection Court Number 2, Bryan; and
Hon. Cheryl Vaughan, Associate Judge of the Child Protection Court Eighth Region North, Gainesville.

Using strategies from the Trauma Blueprint, the court teams developed a plan for their communities to prioritize felt safety for families and children, focus on effective courtroom environment, and build lasting community ties. Projects designed by these court teams include a monthly brown bag training series; phased service plans to support families in successfully completing services; a video for families explaining what to expect in the courtroom; and parent notebooks.

In collaboration with the Children’s Commission, the Texas Alliance of Child and Family Services (TACFS) published Building a Network of Trauma Informed Courts in Texas in March 2024 to highlight the work and the resources created by the Trauma-Informed Courts Pilot Project.

Consortium on Trauma Informed Court Practices

The Children’s Commission began the next phase of the work related to trauma informed care in August 2024, by launching a new initiative called the Consortium on Trauma Informed Court Practices. The Consortium provides a statewide network for judges to have a forum for discussion, education, and training. For more information, please visit the Consortium on Trauma Informed Court Practices webpage.

Youth Voice & Normalcy

Engaging in normal, age-appropriate activities and experiences is a critical component of healthy child development. However, experiencing abuse or neglect and being removed from a family to foster care is not “normal.” Although foster care may be safer for a child or youth, cultivating normal childhood experiences while in foster care is a challenge. Providing normalcy in foster care includes managing risk, giving children the opportunity to act like children, and encouraging the development of a child’s interests and strengths. Normalcy is just one of many considerations for children in care. It is important that normalcy is viewed through a holistic lens, in tandem with education, medical, mental health, and other considerations.