The OrganizationThe Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) works with communities to promote safe and healthy families and protect children and vulnerable adults from abuse, neglect, and exploitation. We do this through investigations, services and referrals, and prevention programs. Child Protective Services (CPS) becomes involved with children and families when they are referred by the DFPS Investigations division, which investigates allegations of child abuse and neglect. Child Protective Services Responsibilities Include: Providing services to children and families in their own homes, placing children in foster care, providing services to help youth in foster care successfully transition into adulthood, and helping children get adopted.
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Role of the InternVolunteers play an important role in helping DFPS accomplish our mission which is to protect the unprotected. Volunteers contribute thousands of hours each year to benefit the clients that we serve. My role as a Child Protective Services Conservatorship Worker Intern is to shadow a Conservatorship Specialist. When a child must be removed from their home, the court appoints Child Protective Services to be a "Conservator" of the child. That means CPS is legally responsible for the child's welfare and that is when a Conservatorship (CVS) caseworker comes in. A Conservatorship specialist monitors children's care while they are in CPS conservatorship. This means working with the parents, extended family, and legal parties to help children find a permanent, safe place to live. Essential job functions for an intern is to document visits, observe face to face child and parent visits, and to regularly attend court hearings to update the child's permanency plan.
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