Denee Borchardt is working to expand the courts’ concept of family to help foster children.
“Kids need to be with their families unless it’s just absolutely not possible,” said Borchardt, program director at Court Appointed Special Advocates of Tarrant County.
With that mission in mind, she has led the CASA of Tarrant County to adopt a pilot program that creatively connects a child with family members like grandparents or close kinships such as a neighbor, a favorite teacher or any distant relatives. The initiative is called Collaborative Family Engagement.
Although the child may not have a direct family member to offer support, the pilot program’s main focus is to find someone else who can through more nontraditional connections, Borchardt said.
Scope of the problem
As of July 6, the organization has 375 active Collaborative Family Engagement cases involving 627 children; some cases with siblings involve multiple children per case.
In many cases, the children would say that they “don’t have any family,” thinking of immediate family, but these connections can be family friends and extended family. Borchardt said each person can have up to 300 of those connections.
Historically, if family members couldn’t be considered as a foster parent for the child when the case was opened, they were dismissed and forgotten, Borchardt said. That might mean an older sibling who was still a minor or a grandparent with little resources would never again be an option as a foster parent.
The staff’s work
Child advocacy specialist LaZedrick Blackshire coaches volunteers to explain to teenagers in active cases the importance of connecting them to their immediate family. The volunteers talk to the kids about what they want and value when connected to a foster family. These volunteers evaluate all of this information in the cases thoroughly to ensure the child is placed with the best possible caregiver.
“Getting to know the kid helps you know who they would want to depend on in the future,” Blackshire said.
Once the staff members have identified the best options, they ask if the connection can provide care and resources for the child, Borchardt said. There is always the risk that they can’t, but Borchadt said it is always worth trying.
In June, CASA of Tarrant County received a $10,000 grant from the Texas Bar Foundation to boost the pilot program.
Officials plan to use the funding for an intake specialist who reviews removal and decides on the case’s priority or interventions; a coordinator who neutrally handles family meetings because they don’t actively work on the cases; and other tools and supplies to help connect families.
The challenges
The pilot program breaks down the cases into three categories depending on the child’s relationship with a possible connection: connected, somewhat connected and not connected.
While it depends on the cases, CASA of Tarrant County hopes to have potential family members or next of kin within 30 to 60 days since the case was opened, she said.
However, things can be difficult.
Tarrant County had one of the highest numbers of confirmed child abuse and neglect cases in the state
- In 2022, Tarrant County had the third-highest number of confirmed cases of child abuse and neglect in Texas, according to CASA of Tarrant County.
- The county had 5,506 children who were confirmed victims of child abuse.
Some foster children have been in care for a decade, Blackshire said. Cases may take a year, but some, as he described it, take an eternity. Blackshire works with a lot of teens ranging from 13 to 18. Some may stay until they’re 20, although 18 is when they are considered aging out of care.
The older they are and the longer it takes, the children tend to lose hope.
But young adults 18 to 22 may be eligible for extended foster care assistance if they meet all requirements from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Service.
Although they’re allowed to stay in the system care past 18, some want to be on their own, so the organization tries its best to ensure they’re prepared with all available resources and options, Blackshire said. The pilot program revisits those once considered to see if the potential caregiver now has the resources to connect them.
“Sometimes, older kids tend to be forgotten because of how old they are, and we’re focusing on trying to just get them out. But a lot of times, they need that help,” he said.
‘This is my Disney World’
Borchardt remembered a 15-year-old who had been in and out of residential treatment centers since he was an infant.
Once, when an advocate signed in to visit him, she noticed another person’s signature.
The teen told the advocate that it was his older sister. She was too young to be his placement option, so she was marked off. They eventually lived together because of efforts from the advocates through the pilot program.
“We talked to him, and he said, ‘You know, a lot of kids probably want to go to Disneyland or Disney World.’ He said, ‘This is my Disney World — being with my sister and being with my family,” Borchardt said.
“And all it took was our advocate just being aware and seeing someone values this child.”
Dang Le is a reporting fellow for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at dang.le@fortworthreport.org or via Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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