Texas' child welfare agency told staffers to keep quiet about gender-affirming care investigations

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/30/texas-dfps-gender-affirming-care-investigations/

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Families sued Texas and, in July, District Judge Amy Clark Meachum blocked the state from investigating two families for providing gender-affirming care to their children. Meachum will decide whether to block child abuse investigations over gender-affirming care for all Texas families at a Dec. 5 trial. DFPS has investigated 11 families for providing gender-affirming care; it has removed no children from those homes to date, KXAN-TV reported last week.

The state’s child welfare agency directed employees to not communicate about cases over email or text, even with the families who were under investigation.

“​​If you get any intakes regarding this issue, please immediately CALL ME to staff; no emails or texts are allowed,” Patricia Salinas, a supervisor with Child Protective Investigations, wrote in a February email to her staff.

Employees were told they would get case assignments pertaining to the directive over the phone; a supervisor in McAllen explicitly wrote to her staff telling them she would not be using text messages or email to discuss the cases. Staffers were also asked to avoid using text and email to communicate with the families under review about their cases.

Getting instructions to not communicate about cases in writing is unusual for DFPS. Employees told the Tribune earlier this year that documenting investigations relentlessly was a standard process that allowed the department to track who was making decisions about each case.

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[Lovie777]

1. This will not end well for Republicans in Texas ......

Persecuting children

[Initech]

2. Conservatives are inching this country closer to genocide all the time.

It's fucking scary. I seriously dread what would happen if Rupert Murdoch installed a willing stooge in the White House and there were a complicit Congress doing his every bidding.