HB2789

HB2789 changes several child-welfare and child-care requirements. Most changes took effect September 1, 2025; the insurance changes took effect January 1, 2026. It is not a blanket exemption from child-safety regulation. Final law

Community-based foster-care contractors: A “single source continuum contractor”—a contractor managing and overseeing foster care and other child-welfare services for DFPS—no longer needs a child-placing agency license solely to fulfill its departmental contract. It may still choose to obtain one. Other applicable laws, rules and child-safety duties remain, and the exemption does not extend to subcontractors or child-placing agencies working under the contractor. The law required implementing rules by December 1, 2025, including safeguards prioritizing foster children’s safety and well-being.

Liability insurance, from January 1, 2026: The required amount for Chapter 42 license/registration holders and listed family homes drops from $300,000 to $100,000 per occurrence of negligence, covering injury to a child on the premises or in the provider’s care. This is a coverage requirement, not a $100,000 ceiling on damages or legal liability. Existing notice-based exceptions for specified inability to obtain coverage or exhausted policy limits remain; parents and the regulator must receive the required notices. Lack of insurance does not excuse negligent harm.

The act also removes the annual proof-of-insurance filing requirement for listed family homes. It does not remove that filing requirement for other license or registration holders under Section 42.049(b). A listed family home is a regulated home-based child-care category, not a general label for every foster home. Insurance provisions; listed-home provision

Health requirements: The act removes the express tuberculosis-testing requirement in Section 42.043(b), while retaining the listed immunization requirements and existing statutory exceptions. It separately repeals Section 42.0431(b), which required individual vision/hearing/special-senses screening records at licensed day-care centers and group day-care homes and authorized related inspection/coordination. Screening itself is not abolished: subsection (a) remains, and separate Health and Safety Code duties still require screening and records for covered preschools/schools. Providers should not read this repeal as permission to discard every screening record. Remaining screening provision; separate health-law records duty

Facility licensing and signs: An initial Chapter 42 license now lasts 12 months rather than six, with the existing option of a further six-month renewal. Residential treatment centers must still display “No Trespassing” notices. The bill removes detailed statutory placement, size, bilingual-text and content specifications, leaving those details to rules. It retains free notices from the commission and the Class C misdemeanor for failing to display supplied notices by the end of the 30th business day after receipt. It does not abolish the posting requirement or every potentially applicable sign rule.

Administrator qualifications and late renewal: Child-care and child-placing-agency administrator applicants may qualify through an experiential or educational equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in social work, child development or a similar field. This replaces the prior specified management-experience and degree/experience combinations. Fingerprints, criminal-history/background requirements and the relevant examination remain. The act does not itself define how many years of experience establish equivalence. For a license expired more than 90 days but less than a year, the renewal payment drops from twice the usual renewal fee to 1.5 times; the prohibition on practicing while the license is expired remains. Administrator provisions