Foster care in Round Rock works through two organisations a family will actually meet: the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which holds legal responsibility for every child in care, and a licensed child-placing agency, which verifies your home, trains you and supports you once a child arrives. Williamson County sits in DFPS Region 7, which is not yet on the state's list of active Community-Based Care areas. If you live in Round Rock and are wondering how fostering works here, this post explains how the system is organised, how many children it serves, what an agency does for a foster family, and where our Round Rock office fits.
The short version: you do not apply to the county. You choose a licensed agency, the agency walks you through training and a home study, and once your home is verified the agency stays with you for as long as a child is placed with you.
How is foster care organised around Round Rock?
Round Rock is in Williamson County, and DFPS data files both Williamson County and Bell County under Region 7, Austin. That matters because Texas is part of the way through a change in how foster care is run. The DFPS Community-Based Care FAQ explains that in 2017 the Texas Legislature directed DFPS to contract with community-based nonprofit and local governmental entities, with the intent to shift from a state-run child protection system to a community-based system, and that DFPS regions were subdivided into 16 community areas.
The DFPS list of active Community-Based Care areas covers the Panhandle, North Texas, the Metroplex, East Texas, Houston and San Antonio. Region 7 is not on it. For a family in Round Rock that means DFPS caseworkers remain responsible for the children in care here, and the licensed agencies that verify foster homes work with DFPS directly rather than through a regional contractor.
How many children in Williamson County are in foster care?
Fewer than in the big urban counties, but not a small number. DFPS data on the Texas Open Data Portal records 266 Williamson County children in DFPS legal responsibility at some point during fiscal year 2025. Of those, 131 were age five or younger and 55 were age 13 or older. Across Region 7 the same data counts 3,611 children during the year, out of 27,343 in Texas. On August 31, 2025, 2,141 Region 7 children were in DFPS legal responsibility, of 17,623 statewide.
Where those children live explains why agencies look for families here. On August 31, 2025, DFPS counted 151 Williamson County children in substitute care. The largest group, 69, were in kinship care with relatives. Another 42 lived in non-relative foster homes verified by child-placing agencies and 10 in agency-verified relative foster homes. No Williamson County child that day was in a foster home run by DFPS itself. The rest were in facilities, including 13 in residential treatment centers and 12 in other foster care settings.
What happens to children who enter care here?
Most go home or to family. The DFPS exit data for fiscal year 2025 shows 117 Williamson County children leaving state custody. The largest single group, 42, were reunified with their families, and another 33 went to the custody of relatives. Sixteen were adopted by relatives and 17 by non-relatives.
That is the order of priority in every Texas case, and it is worth holding in mind before the first placement call. A foster family in Round Rock is, on the state's own record, more likely to help a child go home or to a relative than to adopt that child.
What does a foster care agency actually do for foster parents?
DFPS describes a child placing agency as 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 is the organisation you deal with from the first phone call: it takes your application, runs the background checks, delivers the training, completes the home study and verifies your home under the state's minimum standards. Our post on what a child-placing agency is in Texas covers the law behind that in more detail.
The support after placement is written into the rules. Under 26 Texas Administrative Code 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 749.121, the agency must have written policies stating the type and amount of support available to foster parents, including babysitting, overnight care and respite, how much it reimburses and when, how it communicates with you, and your right to appeal its decisions. Ask any agency for those policies before you sign. The rule requires them to exist in writing.
What does Texas require of a foster parent?
The DFPS requirements are the same in Round Rock as anywhere in the state. Foster and adoptive parents may be single or married and must be at least 21, financially stable and responsible mature adults. They provide relative and non-relative references, agree to a home study that includes visits with every household member, keep no more than six children in the home counting their own, agree to a nonphysical discipline policy, and hold CPR and first aid certification. DFPS states that it does not charge a home study fee.
Training comes before placement and continues after it. DFPS describes the pre-service course, Texas NTDC, as a 19-hour training program on caring for children in the child welfare system. Once a home is verified, the annual in-service requirement ranges from 10 hours per family to 30 hours per foster parent, depending on the number of foster parents and the needs of the children in the home.
Where Angelheart fits in
Round Rock is Angelheart's home base. Our Round Rock office at 3001 Joe Dimaggio Blvd, Suite 1100, serves families across Round Rock, Austin, Georgetown, Pflugerville, Cedar Park, Leander, Hutto and the surrounding Williamson and Travis County communities. Program Director Lenzy Miller and the Round Rock team guide local families through becoming foster, kinship and adoptive homes, and stay close after placement with case management, training and around-the-clock support.
What we describe on our foster care page is support, not a promise: quarterly meetings between families and administrative staff, an on-call worker available 24 hours a day, a respite policy that reimburses foster parents for a needed break, and case managers who stay accessible. Our own foster parent requirements sit on top of the state's: applicants are 25 or older, Texas residents, with an available bedroom of at least 80 square feet for the foster child and a home that passes a health and fire inspection. If you are in Round Rock and want to talk it through, call (512) 310-9857 or start an inquiry and we will reach out to you.