Texas has adopted a new, more personalized approach to foster care called the Texas Child-Centered Care Model, or T3C. The model, which fundamentally changes the foster care system, prioritizes trauma-informed practices, individualized care plans, and better long-term outcomes for children in foster care The Texas Association for Children and Family Services calls T3C “a transformative project that better defines the foster care service continuum, modernizes the methodology that goes into calculating the cost of foster care, and collectively establishes a new foster care system in Texas.”
The change is intended to support an improved experience for all children, youth, and young adults in foster care by:
- Increasing the percentage of children, youth, and young adults who remain safe in care.
- Placing children, youth, and young adults closer to their community of origin.
- Supporting healthy sibling, parental, familial and Kinship Caregiver connections.
- Improving services and processes to better match children, youth, or young adults with their Caregiver, further reducing the average number of placement changes needed to obtain appropriate care.
- Supporting improved service and care planning between child welfare and STAR Health (Medicaid) providers.
- Identifying and expediting the provision of appropriate treatment services to support healing, improved well-being and permanency outcomes.
- Reducing the percentage of out of state, child-specific, and exceptional care services necessary to meet the child’s treatment needs.
What does this mean for Casa de Esperanza?
The transition to the T3C model directly impacts Casa de Esperanza, as ALL foster care agencies in the state of Texas must earn the T3C credential by August 2027 in order to take foster care placements.
The Casa staff are currently in the process of complying with the credentialing requirement, which requires significant investment in staff time, training, and capacity, enhanced therapeutic services, and more intensive case management, all of which stretch an already limited budget. We believe the transition is a good one for children in Texas and prompts us to solidify what we’ve been doing for 43 years with your support– provide trauma-informed care to our children and families.