Adoptation, a 501(c)(3) organization, is a community collaborative whose child placement partners include:
Catholic Charities
Founded in 1943, Catholic Charities has served the growing social and health service needs of the Galveston-Houston community by providing programs aimed at promoting and facilitating self-sufficiency. The organization began as an information and referral service but, in response to need, quickly began providing direct social services. Originally focusing on adoption, foster care, services to pregnant teens, family counseling and family assistance, the agency later added programs for the elderly, refugees, immigrants, and those affected by devastating illnesses, including AIDS and cancer. Catholic Charities is fully accredited by the Council on Accreditation of Services for Families and Children, Inc., and its network of 1,400 agencies annually serves more than 12 million people.
DePelchin Children's Center
DePelchin Children's Center has served Houston-area children and families since 1892. The non-profit organization provides comprehensive adoption services, with a concentration on placing children who are in the custody of the state and minority infants. The agency helps families assess their readiness for adoption through orientation, education, training and family interviews. Special care is given to ensure that children and families are appropriately matched. DePelchin provides a full array of support services before, during and after placement. These services include individual, family and group counseling for adopted children, adoptive parents, adopted adults and birth parents. Children, who were in the custody of the State, are eligible for additional services such as case management, therapy, respite care, camps and crisis intervention. DePelchin Children's Center also provides counseling for children, adolescents and parents; therapeutic and basic foster care; home-based therapy; residential services; parent education; prevention programs; and, teen parent services.
Homes4Good
Homes4Good is a non-profit, licensed child placing agency based in Conroe, Texas. With a core value of permanent placement through adoption, the agency provides foster care and family services to abandoned, neglected and abused children who are in the custody of the state. Serving over 450 children and youth in 2005, Homes4Good continues to expand its programs and services while continuing its mission of permanent, loving homes for Texas foster children.
Homes of St. Mark
Homes of St. Mark is a non-profit licensed child placement agency that has been providing adoption services to families in Houston and surrounding counties since 1955. The mission of Homes of St. Mark is to provide children and families with services for family formation, preservation and change. The agency is designed to reach out to the parent before abuse and neglect occur and supports voluntary placement from parents or caretakers who are facing a crisis and need temporary foster care for their child. Homes of St. Mark also provides post adoption services with on-going counseling for adoptive parents, adoptees, and birth parents.
Houston Achievement Place (HAP)
Houston Achievement Place, established in 1974 by a group of concerned Houston citizens, significantly helps children, youth, and families learn skills and develop relationships for a successful life. Houston Achievement Place serves the community through a number of programs that comprise a continuum of youth care and training services, including group homes, therapeutic foster care homes, independent living, innovative school and special classroom programs, model family and parent education classes, and adoption services for waiting children. Houston Achievement Place addresses a critical community need, as many of the youth living in the residential programs have been involved with family violence, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, and victimization. Children and families in the non-residential programs are often at risk to experience these same type of traumatic life experiences.
Lutheran Social Services of the South
Lutheran Social Services of the South (LSS) has been in existence since 1881. LSS annually serves more than 25,000 children, elderly, and poor in Texas and Louisiana regardless of religious beliefs, ethnicity, gender, or age. Its ministry includes domestic and international adoption, therapeutic foster care, children's residential treatment centers, adult day care, independent and assisted living communities for seniors, disaster response, and emergency assistance.
Adoption was one of the first services provided by LSS. Since 1926, LSS has helped find loving homes in Texas for more than 5,500 children ranging in age from infancy to teens. Children united with permanent families include children abused and neglected who are in the conservatorship of the State of Texas, children living in orphanages in Russia and other foreign countries, and infants whose adoption plans were made by their birth parents. Adoption services include the completion of home studies, family preparation, placement, post placement support, and post finalization services.
Spaulding for Children
Spaulding for Children is a non-profit agency dedicated to placing abused and neglected children with permanent adoptive families. The organization provides pre-adoptive education and preparation to help parents meet the children's formidable needs, as well as comprehensive support services after the adoption to ensure the permanence of the adoptive family. The Houston-based agency was established by Christian Child Help Foundation in 1977 and later became an autonomous, secular agency. The agency also offers foster care services to children who will become eligible for adoption. Spaulding for Children's post-adoption program provides information and referral, case management, adoptive family support groups, respite care, 24-hour crisis assistance, therapy, and residential treatment services. There are no fees for the services that Spaulding for Children provides to families.
Texas Department of Family & Protective Services
The mission of the Department of Family & Protective Services is to protect the unprotected. As required by the Social Security Act, the Texas Family Code and the Human Resources Code, the agency receives and investigates reports of suspected child abuse and neglect and takes action to protect abused and neglected children from further harm. DFPS works with children and their families to alleviate crisis situations and provide appropriate treatment and services. Additionally, when appropriate, DFPS removes children from their homes and provides substitute foster care for them until problems are sufficiently resolved. The agency also provides permanent placements for children who cannot safely return to their homes.
The Arrow Project
The Arrow Project, a non-profit Christian human services agency headquartered in Houston, TX operates an integrated network of programs and support services in order to fulfill its mission to "serve and strengthen children, family, and community". The programs include among other things, basic and therapeutic foster care, transitional support, special needs adoption, residential and support services for children and adults with mental retardation, mental health services, residential diagnostic, and special education.
The Arrow Project's Special Needs Adoption Program serves children who have been removed from their families due to abuse or neglect and works towards finding safe, stable, permanent and loving family homes, focusing the supports and services on the entire adoptive family. The Arrow Project works through the entire process beginning with comprehensive assessments and training, adoption preparation for the child and adoptive family and facilitates a proper and careful screening, selection, and matching process prior to placement. Following the placement, the agency continuously monitors and evaluates ongoing needs, providing for all needs through education, advocacy, therapy, and comprehensive case management, and ensures access to any and all necessary post consummation services.