Houston Strong Children Services

Caregivers failed to adhere to a child's rights to be free of abuse, neglect, and exploitation as defined in Texas Family Code 261.401.

In the case here obtaining, it would appear that the caregiver failed follow and implement each of the four children's Service Plans. As such, supervision issues arose which compromised the safety and welfare of the aforementioned children in care.

The service plan review did not include the signatures of the service planning team members that were involved in the development of the service plan.

A child's service plan indicated the necessity for increased supervision, every 30 minutes. The child self-harmed and the caregiver was unaware until provided notification when an unrelated household member delivered a letter written by the injured child disclosing the self-harming incident.

There's evidence that a caregiver informed a child behaviors such as being disrespectful, running away, and not following the rules would result in being removed from the home.

Upon further inquiry, it was discovered that foster mom put wine coolers in the refrigerator making it assessable to children in care. It was discovered that the child took the wine cooler out of the refrigerator to drink.

During an unannounced monitored inspection 1 of 2 children in care records were reviewed, it was revealed no Tuberculosis screening test was not located in the child?s file.

It was determined that a caregiver disciplined a child which resulted in a genuine threat of substantial harm from physical injury to the child.

Caregivers failed to adhere to a child's rights to be free of abuse, neglect, and exploitation as defined in Texas Family Code 261.401.

Foster parent tested positive on drug screening.

The prescribed medication Victoza time of administration was not documented on the February 22 medication log.

The prescribed medication Victoza's dosage was not documented on the February 22 medication log.

A review of the records of Yolanda and Harvis Westbrooks revealed that a Training on Trauma Informed Care was 28 days late and Psychotropic Medication Training was 8 days late. Likewise the record for Dianne Brown foster home showed that the Trauma Informed Care Training was 24 days late. Thus, a deficiency is noted in this standard as the above trainings were not done within the period or time frame allowed to do so.

During inspection of documents, it was noted that there were misspelled names/entries in the Frequent Visitor List and the staff list and contract workers were mixed.

The children in care reported that they are left home alone without adult supervision.

A subject of background check at the operation was arrested and did not report to licensing immediately.

The requested records were not available for immediate request for licensing during monitoring inspection.

During the investigation; the children in care left the foster home without permission and both children sustained a serious injury (broken foot) which warranted medical treatment.

The caregiver slapped a child in care.

The caregiver yelled at a child in care during an incident.

During the monitoring inspection, one of the four files reviewed showed the fire safety evaluation was not documented for the foster family home.

During the monitoring inspection; it was observed one of the four files showed inactive background check.

During the investigation; multiple requests were made to review active records. The active records were not accessible to review immediately at the time of the initial request.

One child in care did not attend school, neither virtual or in person, while in the foster home.