When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott put in motion abuse investigations into the parents of some transgender kids, child welfare supervisor Randa Mulanax said what happened next strayed from normal protocols.
In Texas, fewer than three in 10 child welfare investigations end with findings that harm likely occurred — classified as “reason to believe” — but the changes looked to Mulanax like these cases would be predetermined from the start.
It is unclear how many Texas child welfare investigators — who are tasked with carrying out Abbott's directive — have quit in protest. Mulanax is one of at least two state Child Protective Services workers who are leaving and added their names this week to a court brief that urged Texas' justices to keep the investigations sidelined. Five other investigators who remain at the agency also signed on.
“We’re being so closely monitored on those type of cases that you wouldn’t be able to just say, ‘Oh, nothing to see,’" said Shelby McCowen, a child welfare investigator who called the directive the ‘last straw’ and is quitting after less than a year at the agency. “I don’t know how many times they go into the cases, but we’re told that if we get one of these cases, the documentation has to be almost instant because it’s being monitored," she said.
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