The average number of months required to process a child abuse case dropped from 46 months to 26 months. The Bexar County court has set a goal to achieve permanent legal status for children within one year. The court maintains a separate docket to manage all CPS cases and schedules them to comply with statutory time frames. Cases move through the use of mediation, pre-trial conferences, scheduling orders, and a practice of discouraging continuances. The court uses CPS and district clerk statistics to monitor its performance in hearing cases.
Legal delays cause many children to remain in foster care longer than necessary.
DPRS must plan a permanent placement for each child within its system. The remaining 35 percent were covered under other goals, including permanent placement with relatives, long-term foster care, and care designed to treat severe disabilities. DPRS measures the progress of its permanency plans each year, and present trends indicate that, on average, permanent placements are taking longer to achieve. From 1992 to 1995, the share of cases resolved within the first 12 months fell from 73 percent to 69 percent. The share of cases achieving permanency within 13 to 24 months rose 17 percent to 18 percent, while cases requiring more than 24 months rose from 10 percent to 12 percent.