A Tyler, Texas, contract service has taken on the placement of children into foster families throughout East Texas.
In May, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services awarded 4Kids4Families the contract to become the Single Source Continuum Contractor for all foster services in Region 4, which includes Bowie County.
4Kids4Families is a Tyler- based contractor and a division of Arrow Child and Family Ministries.
The transition is designed to keep foster children in their home communities, said DFPS Commissioner Stephanie Muth.
“This largest expansion to date for Community-Based Care is a real turning point in our state’s intensive effort to move to local control, and a better system overall for the children and youth in our care,” Muth said in a press release. “Those kids belong to their communities, and those communities want the opportunity to make every day better for a child in foster care.” According to DFPS, the aim of community-based care is to increase available capacity, keep foster children closer to home, reduce placement moves and keep siblings together while they remain in the custody of DFPS.
Region 4, or the Piney Woods Region, serves a 23-county area of Northeast Texas which includes Bowie as well as Anderson, Camp, Cass, Cherokee, Delta, Franklin, Gregg, Harrison, Henderson, Hopkins, Lamar, Marion, Morris, Panola, Rains, Red River, Rusk, Smith, Titus, Upshur, Van Zandt and Wood Counties.
4Kids4Families says it is working with the state to “transition the Texas child welfare system from a statewide, ‘one size fits all’ approach to a community- based model designed to meet the individual and unique needs of children, youth and families at the local level.”
According to states from 4Kids4Families, as of early September, there were 1,200 children in foster care in Region 4. More than half of those children were placed in paid placements while the remaining were in kinship or affective kin care.
More than 46% of those children are placed outside of Region 4 due to a lack of foster homes. Excluding kinship or affective kin care, there are only 452 foster homes in Region 4.
Arrow Child and Family Ministries is a christian based non-profit foster care organization which began in 1992. They are located in Spring, Texas.
Their vision is to “become the preferred Christian provider of child welfare and educational services connecting church and government to serve vulnerable children and families.”
