Appeals Court Decision
The appeals court ruled to return the more than 400 children recently placed in foster care from the Yearning For Zion Ranch a few weeks ago. The Texas CPS system has been under attack for some time as a result of the poor treatment of children in its care. This ruling furthers the belief of many that the system is overstepping its bounds and causing more harm than good. In some cases harm has come to the children in care as a direct result of their placement in substandard homes. In other cases, it is more difficult to determine whether CPS is right or wrong. Is it better to leave a child in a possible harmful situation while awaiting proof or to remove them immediately and later return the child to the home when no proof is found? It is easy to say, a child should be left in the home until proof is found, but what happens if the child is further harmed during that time of waiting. In that case, it would have been better for the child to have been removed from their home immediately. The problem is, we do not know always know which is better. CPS is run by humans who have the same problem. They do not always know whether the child is better off being left in the home or removed, so they have to make an educated guess. Sometimes they guess correctly, sometimes they do not. So, is CPS doing more harm or more good for the children in the state of Texas?