What We Do

The Child Protective Investigations (CPI) program investigates reports of child abuse and neglect at home, in child care, and in public schools to protect children from harm now and in the future.

Most of the cases involve children living at home with parents or guardians. We work with parents to help them find the resources they need to resolve their issues and prevent future harm in less serious cases. In more serious cases where we determine a child was abused or neglected at home, we transfer the case to Child Protective Services for ongoing services. If a child is at risk of immediate harm, we remove the child from the home.  CPI also works to recover missing children and combat human trafficking.

For child care and school investigations, our job is to determine what happened and coordinate with other responsible programs or departments. We report our findings on childcare investigations to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services and findings from public school investigations to individual school districts.

Child Protective Investigations has three main divisions: Investigations (INV), Special Investigations (SI), and Child Care Investigations (CCI). Except for CCI, Child Protective Investigations was formerly part of Child Protective Services and still works hand in hand with CPS.