In a Texas CPS case the court, not the caseworker and not the agency, decides whether a child stays in care, where the case is going, and when it has to end. The judge does that through a fixed sequence of hearings, each one with a deadline written into the Texas Family Code: an initial hearing on or before the first business day after an emergency removal, a full adversary hearing within 14 days, a status hearing by day 60, the first permanency hearing by day 180, further permanency hearings every 120 days, and a hard stop one year after the temporary order. This is what happens at each of those hearings, and where a foster parent or a relative caregiver fits into them.
Two chapters carry the whole sequence. Chapter 262 of the Texas Family Code covers the removal and the first two hearings. Chapter 263 covers everything after the court names the Department of Family and Protective Services temporary managing conservator. DFPS reports that 27,343 children were in its legal responsibility during fiscal year 2025, and each of those cases moved through this same calendar.
What happens at the first hearing after a removal?
The court reviews an emergency removal almost immediately. Under Texas Family Code section 262.106, when a child has been taken into possession without a court order, the court must hold an initial hearing on or before the first business day after the date the child is taken into possession. If the court is unavailable that day, the hearing moves to the next available business day, and in no event later than the third business day after the child was taken.
This first hearing is short and it is often one-sided. The statute allows it to be ex parte, with proof by sworn petition or affidavit, when a full adversary hearing is not practicable. The deadline is not a formality: section 262.106 provides that if the initial hearing is not held in time, the child is returned to the parent or other person from whom the child was removed, and the DFPS Child Protective Services Handbook instructs caseworkers to do exactly that.
What is the 14-day adversary hearing for?
The adversary hearing is the first time the parents can contest the removal with a lawyer. Texas Family Code section 262.201 requires a full adversary hearing not later than the 14th day after the date the child was taken into possession, unless the court grants an extension. DFPS states in its Child Protective Services Handbook that the purpose of this hearing is to determine whether the emergency removal was warranted, whether continued placement outside the home is required, and to obtain temporary orders protecting the child while the suit is resolved.
The burden at that hearing sits with the state. DFPS says plainly in the same handbook section that as the party asking to restrict a parent's rights to a child, it has the burden to prove the necessity for the removal and for continued conservatorship. Before the hearing begins, section 262.201 requires the court to tell any parent without an attorney about the right to be represented, and about the right to a court-appointed attorney if the parent is indigent and appears in opposition to the suit.
If the court does continue the removal, it signs a temporary order naming DFPS temporary managing conservator. That order starts every clock that follows. How a child enters foster care in Texas covers the investigation and the removal itself in more detail.
What does the court do at the status hearing?
The status hearing is about the service plan and almost nothing else. Texas Family Code section 263.201 requires the court to hold it not later than the 60th day after the date it rendered the temporary order appointing DFPS temporary managing conservator. Section 263.202 limits the hearing to matters related to the contents and execution of the service plan filed with the court.
At that hearing the judge reads the plan the parents are being asked to complete and tests it. Section 263.202 requires the court to review the plan for reasonableness, accuracy and compliance with court orders, and to find whether the plan is narrowly tailored to the specific issues that brought the family to court. A plan that asks for everything, or that asks for things unconnected to the reason for the removal, is a plan the court can send back.
What is a permanency hearing deciding?
A permanency hearing asks where this child is going to live permanently and whether the plan to get there is working. Section 263.304 requires the court to hold the initial permanency hearing not later than the 180th day after the temporary order. Section 263.305 requires each later hearing before a final order no later than the 120th day after the last one, and DFPS notes in its handbook that the court may shorten that interval but may not extend it.
The court is not reading the file cold. Under section 263.303, DFPS must file a permanency progress report with the court and give it to every party not later than the 10th day before each of these hearings. Section 263.3025 requires the permanency plan to carry concurrent goals, a primary goal and at least one alternate, so the case is worked toward two outcomes at once rather than one.
Section 263.3026 lists the goals a plan may carry: reunification with a parent or other individual the child was removed from, termination of parental rights and adoption by a relative or other suitable individual, permanent managing conservatorship to a relative or other suitable individual, or another planned permanent living arrangement. The last of those is the fallback, and the statute requires DFPS to document a compelling reason why the other goals are not in the child's best interest before it is used.
Those goals are not evenly weighted in practice, and the state's own exit figures show it. Of the 9,876 children who exited DFPS custody in fiscal year 2025, family reunification was the largest single category at 3,223 children. Exits to the custody of relatives accounted for 2,837 more, being 2,375 without a permanency care assistance agreement and 462 with one. Consummated adoptions accounted for 2,942, split between 1,741 non-relative and 1,201 relative adoptions, and 772 young people left through youth emancipation. Reunification first, then relatives, is the shape the system is built to produce.
Can a foster parent or relative caregiver speak at the hearing?
Yes, and the right is written into the statute. Texas Family Code section 263.0021 entitles a foster parent, a preadoptive parent, or a relative of the child providing care to at least 10 days' notice of a hearing under chapter 263, and entitles that person to present evidence and be heard at the hearing. The notice itself must say that the caregiver may, but is not required to, attend, and may request to be heard.
One subsection is worth knowing by heart. Section 263.0021(f) requires the court, in a hearing under that chapter, to determine whether the child's caregiver is present and to allow the caregiver to testify if the caregiver wishes to provide information about the child. The caregiver is often the only person at the hearing who saw the child that morning, and section 263.0021 is written so that the court hears from them.
The child has standing in the room too. A child 10 years of age or older is entitled to notice under section 263.0021, and section 263.302 requires the child to attend each permanency hearing unless the court specifically excuses attendance.
Why does a CPS case have a one-year deadline?
Because the Legislature put one there, to stop children drifting in temporary care. Section 263.401 provides that unless the court has begun the trial on the merits or granted an extension, its jurisdiction ends and the suit is automatically dismissed on the first Monday after the first anniversary of the temporary order appointing DFPS temporary managing conservator. The court must notify all parties of that dismissal date not later than the 60th day before it arrives.
The extension is narrow. Section 263.401 lets the court keep the suit for a period not to exceed 180 days past that date, and only on a finding that extraordinary circumstances require the child to remain in DFPS temporary managing conservatorship and that continuing it is in the child's best interest. It is a finding the court has to make on the record, not a scheduling courtesy.
Do the hearings stop after a final order?
No, not while DFPS is still the child's managing conservator. Section 263.501 requires a permanency hearing not later than the 90th day after a final order that terminates parental rights and names DFPS managing conservator, then further hearings at least once every six months. Where the final order names DFPS managing conservator without terminating parental rights, the hearings run at least once every six months from the start. They continue until DFPS is no longer the managing conservator, which in most cases means until the child is adopted, goes to a relative permanently, or ages out.
Where Angelheart fits in
Angelheart is a licensed child-placing agency, which gives it a named place in this process rather than a seat in the gallery. Section 263.0021 entitles the licensed administrator of the child-placing agency responsible for placing the child, or the administrator's designee, to at least 10 days' notice of a permanency hearing after a final order. In practice the work is earlier and more ordinary than that: making sure a caregiver knows a hearing is coming and that what the court will want to know about the child is written down and accurate before anyone gets to the courthouse.
What a caseworker who knows your household can do is tell you what this particular hearing decides and what it does not, so you can choose whether to speak. That is the same for a foster family and for a grandparent who got the call last week.
Nothing here is legal advice, and no two cases run the same way. For the specifics of a case you are part of, ask your caseworker, ask the court coordinator in the county where the case is filed, or talk to an attorney. If you are weighing whether to foster or to take in a relative's child and you want to understand the process before you decide, Angelheart's team can walk you through it.