Caseworkers hampered by ’90s-era foster care software that the state hasn’t replaced

A Texas Department of Family and Protective Services employee’s desk at the agency’s Austin office in 2019. The limited functionality of the system DFPS uses to track and manage services for foster care children means caseworkers can’t easily upload or store documents needed to assess a child’s academic and health care needs. (Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune)

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Texas has poured more than $100 million into the state’s aging foster care software known as IMPACT. This one 1990s-era application helps caseworkers keep track of where abused and neglected children are placed, as well as what health care services and schooling they have received.