HB694

HB694 tightens notice requirements for children in the Department of Family and Protective Services’ legal care, known as conservatorship. It adds a child’s placement change to the events for which DFPS must make a reasonable effort to notify the parent and, if the parent has one, the parent’s lawyer within 24 hours. It also adds parents’ lawyers to the recipients of the existing notice due at least 48 hours before a change of residential child-care facility. Signed June 20, 2025, it took effect September 1, 2025. Final law; history.

For other covered significant events, DFPS must give notice as soon as possible and no later than 48 hours after becoming aware of the event, replacing the former 10-day deadline. Recipients include the parent and represented parent’s lawyer, the child’s appointed legal representatives and advocate, the placing agency, specified caregivers and others identified by the court. If a hearing occurs within that 48-hour period, notice must be given there. The section’s separate placement-related health-plan notice rule remains; the deadlines should not be treated as one universal 48-hour rule.

DFPS must notify a represented parent’s lawyer even when it cannot locate the parent, or when the child is in permanent state conservatorship and the parent has not participated for at least six months despite efforts to involve the parent. These two protections do not erase every other statutory exception, such as court-restricted information or terminated parental rights. Existing contact-information requirements also remain. DFPS must record all notifications and attempted notifications in the child’s case record. Complete notice section, including definitions and exceptions.