Ending the Foster Care to Dropout Pipeline Instead of ripping children’s lives apart, kinship care creates a more effective support for system for Black students.

In this episode, Dr. Valerie Jackson shares how Monarch Family Services got started as a child placing agency providing specialized support for biological families and kinship (relative) caregivers. We discuss how the needs of kinship families (relative caregivers) differ from typical foster families and why additional support is needed to keep these families intact.

Dr. Jackson gives an amazing overview of Monarch Family Services.

Desdamona Rios PhD, Edna Herrera, Aundrea Enrique, Lluvia Larios, Stephanie Zepeda,
Victoria Palacios DeLeon, Althea Lacewell MSW, and Valerie D Jackson PhD

Monarch Family Services compassionately and professionally delivers services to improve the lives of children and to strengthen families. Our agency is family-focused because we recognize every child and family has a unique path toward healing. MFS provides integrated and comprehensive services across family service spectrum.

Foster Care and Adoption
in the State of Texas

Monarch Family Services is a “Kin First” Child Placement Agency that provides specialized services to assist relatives with being verified as a temporary or permanent caregivers for children who are in the custody of CPS. We also offer supportive services during the placement process as well as after permanency is established.

A University of Houston-Clear Lake student, professor and alumna are combining efforts to improve the lives of over 50,000 Texas children in foster care.

There are currently more than 400,000 children in foster care in the United States. While the pandemic has made life more difficult for these vulnerable kids, many say the foster care system itself has been putting them at risk for decades. Special correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault sat down with one former foster child who is now on a mission to fix the system by helping families stay together.

“The PanAid money I received helped me afford to care for my two young children and pay my bills. Covid had deeply affected my family and had caused me to lose my job. In addition, it has been harder to find consistent work. The PanAid money was also helpful as it allowed me to get my vehicle running again”

-PainAid Family

“Outside of the traditional foster care system exists a shadow system of potentially hundreds of thousands of children removed by CPS to their relatives or family friends—without a court case, monetary support, or due process.”

– Roxanna Asgarian Dec 21, 2020

11th grade students Steven Huffman, Ethan Hart & James Kloss from Cinco Ranch High School in Katy, TX won Honorable Mention in C-SPAN’s 2020 StudentCam competition. Their documentary looked at the foster care system in the United States.

Monarch Family Services has been licensing kinship (relative) families for foster to reunification, foster to adopt, foster to permanency managing conservatorship, and straight adopt for the past eight years. We have been able to provide resources and permanency for hundreds of families.