Child Advocates Seek Reforms-Texas

Child Advocates Seek Reforms - News - The Austin Chronicle

On an average day in 2009, there were 187 reported cases of child abuse and neglect in Texas. If lawmakers make planned cuts to the Department of Family and Protective Services budget, charities statewide fear those numbers will get worse.
At a Jan. 19 press conference in the Lieutenant Governor's Office, the Child Protection Roundtable – a coalition of about 30 child advocate organizations – laid out its legislative agenda, which seeks to avoid the casualties that come from dramatic budget cuts. Surrounded by 187 children's handprints and 187 stuffed toys – one for each endangered child – Madeline McClure, executive director of TexProtects (shorthand for the Texas Association for the Protection of Children), called for legislators to protect "our state's most precious resource, and it's not water."