Recap of 82nd legislature by Texan's Care for Children entitled A Session Recap on the Bottom Line - Children and the 82nd Legislature

DCFF will be partnering with the Statewide Family Organization to update our Legislative Training Materials and will link to those resources here as they are completed.

Click this link to look up legislation

Click this link to find out who your Texas legislators are

See the Current NEWS for articles about impacts of budget cuts on Texas kids -The 82nd Texas Legislative Session has taken a toll on Texas kids in education, children's protective services, juvenile justice and mental health resources but DCFF did not begin to have the resources to keep up bill by bill as it has in the past. This presents a serious problem in terms of the absence of deep and authentic family voice to guide Texas policy and legislative work but our voice is not a priority for policy makers at this time.

Children's Mental Health Notes

Please take a moment to read the Texas Family Community Participation Reports for information regarding what families said that they need to be successful in their community.

Texas Family Participation Reports

Texas Children's Mental Health Policy

Resources for staying on top of the 82nd legislature have dwindled as we focus on increased child and family needs with fewer resources. Advocacy Inc. is now Disability Rights Texas.

Click for Disability Rights Texas website

On July 27, 2011 Heidi Riddles, Earlene Chapman and Claudette Fette attended the last Texas Integrated Funding Initiative Meeting in Austin representing Denton.

TIFI has been the collaborative oversight entity responsible for supporting a statewide effort to build systems of care for all Texas Children with mental health needs. They have funded efforts to build a local system of care in Denton that have enabled a readiness that forms a foundation for the next generation of efforts.

We wait to see whether Texas will receive a federal expansion grant to continue the work statewide and representatives from communities and state agencies will meet in September to see where to go from here but the 82nd legislature failed to appropriate funds to support the statewide effort toward systems of care and the governor's required letter of support for the federal grant application expressly refused to commit state resources to our children. We hope that the federal grantors take pity on our children and support us anyway. And we pray that this is all an opportunity that makes us stronger.