Community-Based Care

To bring improvements to the Texas foster care system, ACH received the state contract for “Foster Care Redesign,” now called Community-Based Care, in 2014. ACH created a new division called Our Community Our Kids, or OCOK, to pioneer this innovative approach in seven North Texas counties.

The improvements OCOK delivered, including keeping abused and neglected children safe, quickly finding more placements within their community, and keeping siblings together more often, led to state legislative support in 2017 to expand Community-Based Care statewide. ACH proved nonprofits could take responsibility for managing foster care at the local level.

OCOK has since grown to serve 10 counties and this year, the plan is for OCOK to lead the way as its own agency.