About
Heart Galleries of Texas is a statewide collaborative effort to find positive permanency for Texas children and youth.
Each day, more than 6,000 children in the Texas foster care system want to be adopted and find a permanent place to call home. Heart Galleries tell a child’s story through photographs capturing the spirit, individuality, interests, and unique needs of each child. This helps connect them to caring families and community networks.
We’re also increasing community awareness about the needs of families formed through adoption, kinship, and guardianship. Our hope is to decrease the number of children raised in systems by increasing support for families.
Visit the Heart Galleries of Texas official website to learn more.
“The Heart Galleries of Texas is dedicated to enhancing communication with local foster care professionals, a crucial step in the ongoing commitment to improve adoption outcomes. We look forward to the lasting positive impact on adoption outcomes for children and families across the state.”
It starts with one photo ...
Heart Galleries display professionally photographed portraits to connect children and youth whose parental rights have been terminated and who are interested in being adopted. These connections are especially important for teenagers, sibling groups, and children with higher medical needs.
But it’s not just about the photo. This approach only works when our whole community and our whole system comes together to wrap arms around the children and youth in foster care. Building strong community bonds helps connect both kinship and adoptive families to the children and youth who want to be adopted AND supports them as they stay together.
The organizations that received grant funds to do the hard work of creating, managing, and stewarding the Heart Gallery projects in each region are:
Community Partners of Lubbock • 2INgage • Gladney Center for Adoption • 4Familes4Kids • Texas Family Care Network • BEAR- BE a Resource • Partnerships for Children • THRU Project • One Accord for Kids • Paso del Norte Community Foundation • Foster Angels of South Texas
Our Partnership
In 2023, during the 88th legislative session State leaders prioritized establishing the Heart Galleries of Texas by allocating funds to the Moritz Center for Societal Impact at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work, The University of Texas at Austin. The Heart Galleries of Texas partnered with the Texas Center for Family Studies (The Center) to establish and support local heart galleries and provide communities with support for families formed by adoption and kinship.
The Governor’s Commission for Women has also been an ongoing partner in the project, providing funding for the roll out of Heart Gallery programs statewide.
