'You can't just look the other way and say we're not going to consider this abuse and neglect anymore.' 'If you want families to do the best possible job they can raising their kids, you have to give them tools,' Francis said.

Will Francis, who heads the Texas chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, said any changes to CPS' duties should come with funding to support families in need of help. Although some of the bills working their way through committees might ultimately be consolidated, top lawmakers said there is strong momentum to pass significant changes this year.Д¬hild welfare advocacy groups in Texas have broadly endorsed the goal of preventing needless child removals but have also raised concerns about the potential unintended consequence of leaving vulnerable children in homes that turn out to be unsafe. Greg Abbott has signaled support for reforming the child welfare system in this legislative session, but his office has not publicly weighed in on specific legislation. 'You're going to cause trauma when you remove a kid, and is that trauma worth it?'

Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat who has signed on as co-sponsor of Frank's bill. 'One thing we have talked about a lot is 'Are we doing more harm to the child through the removal?'' said state Rep. James Frank, center, is helping lead the legislative effort to overhaul the child welfare system in Texas. Most of the proposals have been introduced by members of the Legislature's Republican majority, but several have the support of Democrats, part of a growing bipartisan movement aimed at preventing traumatic and unnecessary family separations like those highlighted in the NBC News and Chronicle investigation.

James Frank, would amend the definition of physical and medical neglect to prevent CPS from separating families in cases in which there is not evidence that children are in 'immediate danger.' Another bill, introduced by Republican Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, would require a state commission to study the work of state-funded child abuse pediatricians and propose improvements to the process that CPS follows when relying on their medical reports. One of the Texas bills inspired in part by the reporting, introduced by Republican Sen. Stephanie Klick, a Republican, that would require state CPS investigators to consider additional medical opinions before taking children from their parents. She was among several parents who traveled from across Texas to share similar stories and urge lawmakers to pass a bill, introduced by state Rep. 'I stand in front of y'all a mother that suffered the great trauma of having her medically fragile infant ripped from her arms, all because of a single doctor's opinion,' Timmerman told members of the Texas House of Representatives committee that oversees the state's child welfare system.

Ann Marie Timmerman told lawmakers that proposed changes could have prevented her family from being separated in 2016. A child abuse pediatrician told Child Protective Services, or CPS, that the injury could only have been the result of child abuse.Д«ased on that opinion alone - and without considering a report from a pediatric neurosurgeon who disagreed, saying the injury was probably the result of childbirth - CPS took emergency custody of the baby, records show. In 2016, she'd rushed her lethargic 4-month-old son to a Houston hospital, where she learned he had suffered a small amount of bleeding around his brain.

Trauma center second opinion changes