Helping children in the foster care system through outreach and awareness, the Texas Heart Gallery received $12 million from the state’s General Appropriations Bill. The funds will assist with post-adoption support and facilitating Heart Galleries statewide. 

Kori Gough, Heart Galleries of Texas director, said the Heart Gallery raised adoption rates and decreased post-adoption disruptions in Central Texas. The funds will allow them to open 10 more programs across the state. This larger network will operate under the University Heart Gallery in the Steve Hicks School of Social Work’s Center for Societal Impact.

“We are delighted about the funding for the Texas Heart Galleries,” Jeanette R. Davidson, Center for Societal Impact director, said in an email. “Our aim at CSI is to have a positive impact on the lives of people around us. We are just getting started, and what a way to start! Improving opportunities for children and families in Texas is heartwarming, exciting and couldn’t be more important. The positive impact on everyone will last forever.”

The Heart Gallery will collaborate with existing organizations across Texas, and Gough said they hope to open the El Paso Gallery in November for National Adoption Month.

“Every region will be different,” Gough said. “We’ll be providing all of those kinds of support based on what the community has said: ‘this is a gap that we have and a need that we have in our community,’ and then we’ll down grant funding to help them fill those gaps and to ensure that families can be successful, and they have the tools they need to do so.”

Gough said child welfare is tied to challenges in homelessness, incarceration and more. The University’s connections with other organizations and systems will help the Heart Gallery work in different adoption-related areas. 

“The basis of the Heart Gallery program is really community in collaboration,” Gough said. “We’re really trying to tie in all of the different amazing people doing great work and make sure that we’re helping each other and collaborating, and UT is a great vehicle to do that.”