Northwest Austin Edition | April 2025

Development

BY BRITTANY ANDERSON

Foster Village opens new resource center to aid area foster families

A new resource center for Foster Village, a non- prot that provides support to local foster families, opened in early March. The backstory Foster Village began in 2016 as a grassroots project following founder and CEO Chrystal Smith’s experience as a licensed foster home. Its rst resource center opened in Dripping Springs in 2017, providing support for foster families alongside essential items, such as clothes, beds, car seats and toiletries. The center provides caregivers with therapeutic support resources and trauma-informed essentials to help navigate caring for foster children who have “been through a lot,” Smith said. The organization has been replicated nationwide, and now services nearly 80 counties across the United States.

The need Foster Village has about 300 volunteers who sort and stock shelves, deliver items or help with child care. In the last several years, Smith said the organi- zation has experienced a 30% increase in requests. The new center at 10545 Dessau Road, Austin, aims to meet those needs, she said. What they oer The new center features spaces for support gatherings and therapeutic support services, plus walking trails across the property. The organization plans to build a play studio including a sensory room, rock walls, swings and foam pits, with space to host family visitations. “I think just providing a community and a space and people that really get it … has certainly helped,” local foster parent Natalie Riggins said.

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Foster Village’s new resource center is surrounded by trees and has walking trails.

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"I think as a nonprot, especially in the child welfare space, our end goal and vision is to work ourselves out of a job." CHRYSTAL SMITH, CEO OF FOSTER VILLAGE

NORTHWEST AUSTIN EDITION