A Texas foster parent should expect four things from their child-placing agency: a worker who knows the family and visits at least quarterly, a written policy that spells out reimbursement, training and respite, a way to reach someone in an emergency, and training before and after placement. Some of that is required by the state's minimum standards for child-placing agencies. The rest is what separates an agency you can live with from one you cannot. This post sets out what Texas requires, then what Angelheart adds on top.
What is a child-placing agency, and what does it do for you?
DFPS defines a child-placing agency as a private foster or adoption agency that works in partnership with DFPS to train foster and adoptive parents and find homes for children. Every agency operates under the same HHSC minimum standards, 26 TAC chapter 749, and those standards were reorganized by a Texas Register adoption effective August 10, 2026. Section numbers below are quoted as codified on the day this was written; the substance is what to hold your agency to.
What must the agency put in writing?
Its side of the deal. Section 749.121 requires an agency to develop policies clearly stating the rights and responsibilities of the agency and its foster parents, and it lists 12 things those policies must specify. Four of them answer the questions families ask most:
- Respite. The type and amount of support and services available to foster parents, including what the agency will provide for babysitting, overnight care and respite child-care services.
- Reimbursement. The amount of reimbursement the agency will provide and when foster parents will receive it.
- Training. Which part of the training the agency provides, which part the foster parents must acquire on their own, and who pays training fees, travel and the associated child care.
- Communication and appeal. How the agency and foster parents will communicate, the foster parents' right to appeal agency decisions that affect them, and how they may review their own home record.
If an agency cannot hand you those policies before you sign, that tells you something. Respite in particular is regulated on the agency's side too: section 749.2625 requires the agency to share the child's medication instructions, safety plan, sleeping information and emergency contacts with any respite provider before that provider cares for the child.
How often should you see your worker?
At least once a quarter, in your home. Section 749.2815 requires child placement staff to make supervisory visits in the foster home at least quarterly, with both foster parents at least once every six months, and with all household members at least once a year, and at least two visits a year must be unannounced. Each quarterly visit has to evaluate the level of stress the foster family is experiencing, including any significant change in finances, and how the family and agency are responding to each child's challenging behavior. The standard makes the worker ask how you are doing; a good worker would have asked anyway.
Section 749.663 puts the same duty on the staff themselves: 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. DFPS's own foster home development workers carry a parallel list, including regular telephone contact, quarterly home visits, help obtaining needed services, support to foster parents in the event of an investigation, and making sure foster families are treated as members of the foster care team.
What training should you expect?
Before placement, the general pre-service training under section 749.881 must cover trauma-informed care, the different roles of caregivers, preventing and recognizing abuse and neglect, procedures for emergencies such as severe weather or a volatile person, and preventing the spread of communicable diseases. DFPS's steps page adds that prospective families complete the 19-hour NTDC curriculum plus certification in first aid and infant, child and adult CPR, psychotropic medication training, medical consent, sexual abuse prevention and suicide intervention training.
After placement, DFPS says verified foster homes must complete annual in-service training that ranges from 10 hours per family to 30 hours per foster parent depending on the home and the children's needs. Your agency's written policy has to say which parts it provides.
What does the agency ask of you in return?
DFPS's requirements page lists it: keep the caseworker informed about changes at home, school and in the community and any problems that arise; make efforts as a team member toward reunifying children with their birth families; maintain CPR and first aid certification; attend the annual training your agency requires; and keep no more than six children in the home, counting your own. The August 2026 rule change also removed the requirement that a child in care have a tuberculosis test.
Where Angelheart fits in
Everything above is the floor. What Angelheart states on its foster care page is what sits on top of it: case managers kept accessible to foster families and a team approach centered on the family as the unit; an on-call worker available 24 hours a day, with contact information for every administrator in the family's hands; reimbursed respite for a needed break; quarterly advisory meetings between families and administrative staff, so the people setting policy hear from the people living it; mileage reimbursement for travel defined in the foster parent handbook; and trauma-informed training facilitated by our own staff. Our requirements page lists what we ask of a family, and our four offices mean the worker who visits you is local.
None of that is a promise about a child or a timeline. It is a description of how we work, and it is written down, which is what the standard asks. If you want to see it for yourself, start with the inquiry page and we will send you our policies before we ask you for anything.