Monroe Foster Care Community Meets for Listening Session with DCFS Secretary Harris

Monroe, La. — The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) continued its Foster Care Community Listening Tour in Monroe. The event provided space for foster caregivers, advocates, and community partners to share insights and guide improvements to the child welfare system.

The discussion focused on the challenges children face when living outside their homes. Foster homes provide refuge and stability for children, while parents receive the support they need to safely reunify as a family. For some children, returning home is not possible, and adoption offers the safest and most permanent path forward. Foster families partner with DCFS to help children move toward the permanent homes that are best suited to their needs.

The Monroe region supported 851 children in foster care during 2025, with an average of 523 children in care each month. Local foster caregivers helped 196 children return safely to their families and finalized 53 adoptions. These successes reveal the compassion of the Monroe families who step forward to care for children in their community.

The Monroe region is facing a shortage of foster homes. The current home to child ratio is 0.39 to 1. More foster families are needed across the eleven parishes to meet the DCFS goal of a 1 to 1 ratio of homes to children. The work DCFS is doing in Monroe today is part of Governor Landry’s plan, directed by Executive Order 25-130, to modernize the state’s child welfare system and address needs such as the regional foster home shortage.

“The foster community in the Monroe region continues to inspire and inform our work at DCFS,” said DCFS Secretary Harris. “We are dedicated to change that brings stability for the foster children and the families who support them because every child deserves a safe and stable environment to grow.”

DCFS is committed to building a foster care system that prioritizes stability, family, and the voices of those with lived experience in and around the system. With the support of caregivers and partners, Louisiana can ensure that every child and every family has a path toward healing.

Here is how the community can help support children and families right now:

• Become a foster caregiver or explore other ways to help: http://dcfs.la/lahome 
• Track Louisiana’s progress on foster home availability through the "A Home for Every Child" Meter: http://dcfs.la/fchomes