About


Parent Guidance Center is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded in April 2004 to help parents involved in the child welfare system. As the organization grew and took on more parent advocacy cases around the state of Texas, we quickly learned that the problems parents were having in the child welfare system were systemic and the organization could better serve more parents by working to change the system. In 2007, Parent Guidance Center moved to Austin, Texas.

Our motto “Help a parent and you’ve already helped a child” turns the child welfare paradigm upside down. Currently, the system is more focused on serving the child rather than serving the family. Billions of dollars are spent on services to children through foster care and Medicaid while only pennies are spent to help families through prevention, family preservation, and reunification services.

Parent Guidance Center represents the often “forgotten stakeholder” – parents – at legislative hearings, public forums, advisory councils, and many other meetings where a missing parent voice could negatively effect all parents in the state.

We educate elected officials, CPS officials, judges, attorneys, child placing agencies, child advocates, and any other stakeholders involved in the child welfare system about the rights of parents and solutions for changing the system.