![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778161636_288_.webp\")
The top three complaints the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council receives are \u201cstandard of care violations, sexual misconduct and unlicensed practice,\u201d according to the executive director. (Abigail Ruhman | KERA)<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\tThe top three complaints the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council receives are \u201cstandard of care violations, sexual misconduct and unlicensed practice,\u201d according to the executive director. (Abigail Ruhman | KERA)<\/p>\n
A state council that helps regulate behavioral health services and social work practice providers says it may need more support from the Texas Legislature to handle an influx of complaints.<\/p>\n
The Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council, or BHEC, leadership said it has about 1,000 \u201cpending\u201d complaints \u2014 hundreds more than it received in past years. The top three complaints the BHEC receives are \u201cstandard of care violations, sexual misconduct and unlicensed practice,\u201d BHEC\u2019s executive director Darrel Spinks told the House Human Services Committee during a public hearing Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are facing a pretty significant increase in the number of complaints we are receiving,\u201d Spinks said. \u201cI will tell you from the get-go, we are not sure why.\u201d<\/p>\n
BHEC oversees regulations of social work practice and behavioral health services within the state \u2013 including marriage and family therapy, psychology and counseling. Investigating and addressing complaints is a critical part of ensuring services are only being provided by \u201cqualified and competent practitioners\u201d that meet professional standards.<\/p>\n
Spinks said the top three categories of complaints make up about half of the complaints the agency receives.<\/p>\n
When state lawmakers asked for a breakdown of how many sexual misconduct complaints involved minors, Spinks said he wasn\u2019t sure if the agency\u2019s database tracks that information but said he might be able to provide the committee with a \u201cgood rough estimate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every year, Spinks said the workforce the agency oversees grows by about 5,000 licenses. He said the agency is doing what it can to increase and improve that workforce \u2013 but the complaints are posing a problem.<\/p>\n
Spinks said it was \u201cnormal\u201d for the council to receive about 600 complaints a year \u2013 until fiscal year 2025, when it received about 800. Now, he said BHEC expects to receive 1,000 complaints \u201cin a given year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is more than what we are used to carrying,\u201d Spinks said. \u201cReally, we should not be carrying that many pending complaints, but the problem is you can only do so much with the 12 investigators and the six attorneys that we\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spinks said BHEC expects to ask for more resources during the 2027 legislative session, mainly focused on hiring more attorneys.<\/p>\n
\u201cCandidly, the legal division is kind of where the bottleneck is,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause things get much slower when the lawyers have to start reviewing the file that the investigators have prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spinks said the agency also wants to mimic other state boards \u2013 like the state medical board \u2013 to address the high number of complaints.<\/p>\n
The state medical board has a medical director and professional reviewers who help determine if complaints have any merit before it gets to the legal team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s one of the things that we\u2019re going to be asking for,\u201d Spinks said, \u201cso that, hopefully, we can keep frivolous complaints from clogging up the pipeline, if you will.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The top three complaints the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council receives are \u201cstandard of care violations, sexual misconduct…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1562,65751,2244,66,2125,7950,223,27,104164,29,293,28,101723],"class_list":["post-282840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-health-care","tag-health-care-workforce","tag-healthcare","tag-local","tag-mental-health","tag-mental-health-care","tag-news","tag-texas","tag-texas-behavioral-health-executive-council","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-news","tag-tx-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}