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Apr 23, 2008 6:34 pm US/Central
Texas Facilities Prepare For Polygamist Children
WAXAHACHIE (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
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Law enforcement officials assist members of the FLDS onto a school bus in Eldorado, Texas, Sunday, April 6, 2008. The group was relocated to San Angelo, Texas after a 16-year-old girl contacted authorities to say she was being abused by her husband.
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Many North Texans have been calling Child Protective Services, wanting to become foster parents and offering their homes to the children taken from a West Central Texas polygamist ranch.
Locally, CPS says they do not need individual foster parents for these particular children. Right now CPS officials say the plan is to move the children to larger childcare facilities that the state contracts with.
State officials say some 100 children, ranging in age from 5 to 17-years-old, were moved into such homes yesterday. The remaining children, about 300 of them, are still in CPS custody in a shelter in San Angelo. According to CPS, 77 of those children are under 2-years-old.
Some of the children will be taken to Presbyterian Children's Homes and Services in Waxahachie and a Catholic Charities facility in Tarrant County. Workers at the Waxahachie location say one of their main concerns was keeping the 12 children, being brought there, together.
"Our primary concern for them right now, what we know they need the most, is safety and security," said Ed Knight with Presbyterian Children's Homes. "We want to be able to ensure their privacy and their sense of remaining together."
Wednesday Catholic Charities Child Welfare Programs released a statement that said, in part – "For children who have actually been removed from their homes because of abuse and/or neglect, Catholic Charities currently has two types of programs to address their needs, shelter care services and therapeutic foster care services. Just as with any foster care placement that Catholic Charities receives from Child Protective Services, we cannot share any information regarding any placements that we are assigned. The privacy of all children in our care is our utmost priority."
A number of state agencies are reportedly working together to ease the transition for the children.
There have been a number of inquires as to how the children will continue their education, since none of them have ever been a part of a public school system.
"They'll need some time to be assessed. We need to know where they are in terms of their education development," says Commissioner of Education Robert Scott. "We also need to recognize they've come from a pretty traumatic experience and we need to take care there as well."
State Comptroller Susan Combs spent part of Wednesday in Fort Worth where she said the well being of the children is top priority, and that the state has emergency funds available. "They're dispersing children everyplace and so they're going to have to have agencies that weren't previously charged with the responsibility of these hundreds of kids, they're going to need the state to help and the state is prepared to do so," she said.
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