Policy Recommendations for Positive Family-Child Interactions

A young child’s brain develops through everyday experiences and positive interactions with parents and other caregivers. Yet, the Dashboard data make clear that too few Texas children are receiving the stable, responsive, and positive adult-child interactions they need to be school ready. 

Unfortunately, young children in Texas are more likely to face child abuse or neglect than the national average – with factors such as a caregiver’s untreated substance use, family domestic violence, and unaddressed mental health challenges contributing to child maltreatment. Texas also ranks last in the nation in terms of children under age six whose families read to them daily. Furthermore, very few eligible Texas families with children under age three are served in home visiting programs that can reduce child abuse and give parents and other caregivers the tools to support early childhood brain development and build positive adult-child relationships.

The clearest example of the important role state leaders play in promoting positive adult-child interactions is in their oversight of Child Protective Services and the state’s foster care system, which are responsible for investigating reports of child maltreatment and placing a child who has been abused or neglected in a safe, stable home respectively. Texas also plays a significant role in child abuse prevention by investing in community-based home-visiting programs that prevent child abuse and neglect. Effective state policies on preventing maltreatment, keeping families safely together, and supporting children in foster care have clear implications for early childhood experiences and school readiness: more than 60 percent of children entering the state’s foster care system are under age six.

While parents or other caregivers are a child’s primary teachers, decisions made by state leaders significantly shape how effectively families can overcome challenges that threaten stable, responsive relationships between children and their families.

Fortunately, policymakers have taken recent steps to ensure young children in Texas benefit from positive family interactions. (Learn more here.) Specifically, during the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers made progress on expanding access to mental health services for adults and youth and helping keep kids out of foster care through the following actions:

• A $65 million increase in evidence-based child abuse and neglect prevention programs that will serve an additional 20,000 families with young children through community-based home visiting and other prevention strategies over the next biennium.

• A budget rider (Rider 43 of the Department of Family and Protective Services budget) that invests federal funds to continue the state’s Family First pilots and leverages the federal Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) to connect more families to services that can keep children out of foster care.
• A $33 million increase in funding for community mental health services for children (through Local Mental Health Authorities), for a total of $221 million.

However, there is much more work to do. Policymakers can ensure more parents have the tools and ability to effectively nurture their children’s brain development, focus on engaging activities like reading books together, and better navigate potential stressors in the home. 

State leaders should pursue the recommendations outlined below, which cover three broad strategies.

Increase access to evidence-based home visiting programs that serve families on a voluntary basis:

• Increase state investments in evidence-based programs – including Nurse-Family Partnership, Texas Home Visiting, and HOPES – designed to reduce child abuse and neglect, improve maternal and child health, and promote positive family-child relationships. As noted above, while the Legislature made progress by increasing investments during the 2023 legislative session, Texas could further expand these programs into more areas of Texas, including rural areas, with greater investment.

Improve access to mental health care for parents and children, substance use services, and parent-skill building supports:

• Provide funding for two-generation mental health services, such as Child First, an early childhood initiative that pairs families with a licensed mental health clinician and a care coordinator for home-based mental health services that support pregnant people and new families with children under age six. The initiative is designed to decrease children’s mental health challenges, decrease child abuse or neglect, and promote safe, healthy, and nurturing parent-child relationships.
• Increase children’s mental health funding to Local Mental Health Authorities and Local Behavioral Health Authorities to meet the growing demand for mental health services for children. (Learn more here.) As noted above, the Legislature made progress on this goal during the 2023 legislative session, but additional funding is needed.
• Build on the Family First Pilots (created by HB 3041 in 2021) by investing state dollars in evidence-based services offered through the pilots. These services aim to keep families together safely by improving children’s behavioral and emotional functioning, reducing child abuse and neglect, providing stable housing, and more. The Legislature made progress during the 2023 legislative session by allocating federal funds to continue the Family First Pilots. Still, state investments are needed to continue evidence-based services offered through the pilots once federal funds expire in 2025.
• Improve families’ access to effective family preservation services, and allow the state to begin drawing down federal matching funds for these services, by expanding eligibility for FFPSA-funded family support services to include families in Family-Based Safety Services, children post-adoption, and children who have been reunified with their parents.

Promote initiatives that have been shown to encourage positive family-child interactions and daily reading:

• Promote clinic-based initiatives, such as Reach Out and Read and Healthy Steps, so pediatric providers work more closely with caregivers during well-child check-ups to make reading and storytelling part of their daily routines with their young children. 
• Expand Help Me Grow Texas, which helps local communities connect families with young children to an experienced child development specialist to learn about child development and find local resources and services, including local home visitation programs.
• Support policies that help families access sufficient household resources to overcome economic hardship, a lack of education, or other stressors threatening stable, nurturing relationships between children and their families. (Learn more here.)