A child-placing agency in Texas is a licensed organisation that verifies foster and adoptive homes, trains and supports the families in them, and places children in those homes under a state contract. The Human Resources Code defines it, HHSC licenses and inspects it, DFPS contracts with it, and nearly every foster home in the state belongs to one. If you are a family in Round Rock, Temple, San Antonio or the Fort Worth area starting to look into fostering, the agency is the organisation you will actually deal with, so it is worth knowing what one is and what the law makes it do.
What does Texas law say a child-placing agency is?
Section 42.002 of the Texas Human Resources Code defines a child-placing agency as a person, including an organization, other than the natural parents or guardian of a child, who plans for the placement of or places a child in a child-care facility, agency foster home, or adoptive home. The same section defines an agency foster home as a facility that provides care for not more than six children for 24 hours a day, is used only by a licensed child-placing agency, and meets department standards.
Those two definitions fit together. A foster family does not hold a licence of its own. Section 42.041 says no person may operate a child-placing agency without a licence, and it exempts an agency foster home from that requirement, because the home operates under the agency's licence. The agency verifies the home, and the agency answers for it.
Who regulates a child-placing agency?
HHSC Child Care Regulation. Section 42.042 of the Human Resources Code directs the executive commissioner to adopt rules and requires a comprehensive review of all rules and standards at least every six years. The rules for agencies are Chapter 749, the Minimum Standards for Child-Placing Agencies. HHSC says the minimum standards mitigate risk for children in out-of-home care by outlining basic requirements to protect the health, safety and well-being of children in care.
The standards are enforced by inspection. HHSC conducts routine inspections at licensed operations at least annually, defines a deficiency as any failure to comply with a statute, rule or minimum standard, and publishes the deficiencies cited for each operation on its Search Texas Child Care site after the operation has had the chance to dispute them. That public record exists for every agency in the state, and a family choosing one should read it.
The chapter was rewritten this summer. The Texas Register records amendments to Chapter 749 effective August 10, 2026, which HHSC says simplify, consolidate and reorganize requirements while maintaining protections for children in care. Two changes worth knowing: an agency's evaluation of each foster home's compliance moved from every two years to annual, and a change in state law under HB 2789 removed the requirement for a child in care to have a tuberculosis test. Section numbers below are quoted as they were codified when read, and some have moved.
What does a child-placing agency actually do?
DFPS puts it in one sentence: a child placing agency is a private foster and adoption agency that works in partnership with DFPS to train foster and adoptive parents and find homes for children. In practice the agency runs the whole family-facing side of foster care. It takes the application, runs the background checks, completes the home study, delivers the pre-service training, verifies the home under Chapter 749, and then stays with the family for as long as a child is placed.
The staying is written into the rules. Under section 749.663, the agency's child placement staff are responsible for maintaining direct contact with the child and the foster parents and for monitoring and providing support services to foster parents. Under section 749.2815, staff must visit the foster home at least quarterly, meet both foster parents at least every six months and all household members at least yearly, and make at least two visits a year unannounced. Under section 749.121, the agency must have written policies stating what support and respite it provides, how much it reimburses and when, how it communicates with foster parents, and how a foster parent can appeal a decision. Ask any agency for those policies before you sign; the rule requires it to have them in writing.
How much of Texas foster care runs through agencies?
Almost all of the family part. On August 31, 2025, according to DFPS placement data on the Texas Open Data Portal, 16,866 Texas children were in substitute care. Of those, 5,872 were living in non-relative foster homes verified by child-placing agencies and 745 in agency-verified relative foster homes, compared with 84 children in DFPS-run non-relative foster homes and 123 in DFPS-run relative homes. Another 6,378 children were in kinship care with relatives, 1,234 were in residential treatment centers and 324 were in emergency shelters.
The state, in other words, does not run foster homes itself in any meaningful number. When a child needs a family rather than a facility, the home that takes that child was verified, trained and is supported by an agency.
What does an agency not do?
It does not decide which children come into care, and in most of Texas it no longer decides where a child is placed. Under Community-Based Care, DFPS states that a Single Source Continuum Contractor is responsible for finding foster homes or other living arrangements for children in state care and providing a full range of services, including case management. The agency's job is to have verified, prepared homes ready when that call comes, and to hold the family up once a child arrives. It does not make the court's decisions, it does not set the case goal, and reunification with the child's parents remains the first goal in every case.
Where Angelheart fits in
Angelheart is a licensed child-placing agency contracted with DFPS, with three programs, foster care, kinship care and adoption, and four offices, in Round Rock, North Richland Hills, Temple and San Antonio. Everything above applies to us: the licence, the Chapter 749 standards, the inspections, the public record, the written policies and the quarterly visits are the floor we work from.
What we add on top is described on our foster care page as steps and support, never as a promise: quarterly advisory meetings between families and administrative staff, an on-call worker available 24 hours a day with contact details for every administrator, reimbursed respite for a needed break, and case managers who stay accessible to the families they serve. If you want to see how that works in practice, the inquiry page is the place to start, and any of our four offices will walk you through it.