Mission and Vision
Arms Wide’s mission is to transform the lives of children in Houston and South Texas who are in need of safe and nurturing permanent families.
Our vision is for all children to be loved within a home and all families to feel supported.
About Us
At Arms Wide, we begin with the child in mind. Each child is unique and the journey to finding the right family and home can be unpredictable. We expertly guide Greater Houston and South Texas families through the foster care, adoption, and kinship care processes, connecting each child to the best permanent family to meet the child’s needs. We are the exclusive provider of our Regions’ Post-Adoption and Post-Permanency services, and we are committed to supporting families beyond their adoption and permanency finalization. No matter where the path leads, Arms Wide honors the story of every family and celebrates with a family fulfilled.
Our professional staff embraces each family with warmth and compassion and holds their hand through the process, whether they are coming for foster care, adoption, kinship care or post adoption services.
Arms Wide offers:
- Adoption, foster care, and kinship care services for no fee
- Experience placing more 2,260 children in permanent, loving adoptive homes
- Specialization in placing older children, sibling groups, children of color, and children with physical, mental or emotional disabilities or delays, who often wait longer than their peers to be adopted
- A 46-year history of personalized, honest adoption-competent programming for children and families
- A 36-year history of supportive post placement services to children and families
- Programs in English and Spanish
To learn more about Arms Wide, how to become a foster parent, how to adopt a child, support groups, apply for post adoption services or make a donation, please contact us at our Houston adoption office at 713-681-6991 or at our Corpus Christi office at 361-850-8200.
You can also reach us toll-free at 1-800-460-6298. Arms Wide – Preserving and Fulfilling Families.
History
A non-profit organization with a 46-year history, Arms Wide is deeply committed to transforming the lives of children in need of safe and nurturing permanent families in Houston and South Texas.
Arms Wide was originally established in 1977 in Houston, Texas as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization under its parent organization, the Christian Child Help Foundation. The objective was to launch a program to aid the overwhelming number of children who were removed from their homes due to abuse or neglect and placed in the protective custody of the State of Texas’ foster care system. In 1980, the adoption agency changed its name to Spaulding for Children, received its own Child Placement License and became an autonomous, secular agency with its own Governing Board of Directors. In 2000, Spaulding for Children merged with the Christian Child Help Foundation, absorbing its parent organization.
In 2017, Spaulding for Children rebranded as Arms Wide Adoption Services to build on the reputation we built with the Spaulding for Children name – expertly finding children the right family and permanent home through a personal and honest approach. In 2023, we decided to remove “Adoption Services” from our name. Despite this shift, adoption remains a cornerstone of our programming just as it has been for the past 46 years. But we recognize that while adoption may be the right path for some of the children we serve, the support and care we provide is so much more. Our team embraces each family with warmth and compassion, and we hold their hand through each step of their journey, whether they are coming to us for foster care, foster care adoption, kinship care, or permanency support.
In 2021, Arms Wide launched the It Takes a Village initiative as a response to the overrepresentation of Black children in foster care. It Takes a Village aims to recruit culturally competent families to parent Black children in foster care by fostering or adopting, while also creating a community to educate the public about the need for foster and adoptive families for Black children.
Since its inception, Arms Wide has placed more than 2,260 children in permanent adoptive homes. Foster care, adoption, post adoption and post permanency, and kinship care services originated through the agency’s Houston office, which serves Harris County and the 12 surrounding counties in the Greater Houston area. In 2003, collaborative funding sources allowed Arms Wide to establish its first satellite office in Corpus Christi, Texas. From this base, our South Texas adoption team places children throughout the state’s 19 southernmost counties. Today, Arms Wide’s Houston and South Texas offices serve a combined total of 32 counties, which are home to approximately one third of the state’s population.