Child Protective Services
Handbook Revision, April 2013
This revision of the Child Protective Services Handbook was published on April 1, 2013. Summaries of new or revised items are provided below.
Audio Policy and Recording Interviews With Children
Healthcare for Foster Youth in Transition or in Higher Education
Integrating the Function of Swift Adoption Teams
Audio Policy and Recording Interviews With Children (PATS 2877)
Tablet PCs have Audacity software for recording interviews and the policy needs to revised to reflect this change.
CPS staff were informed of this policy with the issuance of PSA 07-055 on December 20, 2006.
New and relocated items in the 2000 section are documented in the attached chart.
See:
2362 Recording Interviews With Children
2362.1 Acceptable Methods Used to Record Interviews
The item above is new to the handbook. The items below have been renumbered to accommodate this. The previous numbers are shown in parentheses.
2362.2 (2261.1) Unusual Situations That May Legitimately Preclude Recording Interviews
2362.3 (2261.2) Documenting in IMPACT Whether Interviews Were Recorded
2362.4 (2261.3.) Confidentiality of Recorded Interviews
2362.5 (2261.4) Storing, Labeling, Retaining, and Purging of Recorded Interviews
2362.51 Storing Recorded Interviews (new item)
2362.52 Number of Recorded Interviews That Can Be Preserved on Various Media (new item)
2362.53 Labeling of Media on Which Recorded Interviews Are Stored (new item)
2362.54 Storing, Retaining, and Purging of Recorded Interviews (new item)
2490 When People Request Copies of Case Records (new item)
Healthcare for Foster Youth in Transition or in Higher Education (PATS 5892)
The items below have been revised to reflect changes and updates provided by HHSC for these two programs:
Medicaid for Transitioning Foster Care Youth
Healthcare Benefits for Foster Youth in Higher Education
New contact information has been added for both programs.
CPS staff were informed of this policy with the issuance of PSA 13-018 on 12/3/12.
See:
10150 Healthcare Coverage for Transitioning Youth and Young Adults
10151 Medicaid for Transitioning Foster Care Youth (MTFCY)
10152 Healthcare Benefits for Former Foster Care Youth in Higher Education
10153 Accessing Benefits
1544 Eligibility for Medicaid for Transitioning Foster Care Youth (MTFCY)
Integrating the Function of Swift Adoption Teams (PATS 5943)
The following item is deleted because the swift adoption teams' function to expedite adoptions has been integrated into DFPS policies and practice through such means as:
• policy published in Section 6900 Adoption Services of the CPS Handbook;
• the work of specialized adoption staff;
• improvements made to the approval process for foster care and adoption through the implementation of business process mapping;
• an increased emphasis on identifying relatives and fictive kin for placement;
• efforts made to encourage relatives and fictive kin to become foster/adopt parents;
• the Permanency Care Assistance program; and
• Operation Placing Us in Safe Homes (PUSH).
Deleted: 6924 Swift Adoption Teams