Our Story

Therapeutic Family Life has been a Christian-based, family organization since its inception in 1993. Almost 30 years ago, after being in the mental health field for more than 20 years, Leon and Virginia Smith made the collective decision to open a Child Placing Agency. Their focus was to be a part of a solution to help with the growing need for children being removed from their biological families to have the opportunity to experience loving family homes. Leon and Virginia envisioned partnering with families to provide children in foster care with the needed structure, supervision and treatment to equip them with the necessary morals, values and skills to grow and thrive.

In July 1993, Leon and Virginia opened the first office of Therapeutic Family Life in Austin, Texas. About one year later Leon’s oldest son, Jef Smith, joined the TFL team in Austin as the Director of Operations. During the first year of operation, Leon recognized a need for specialized treatment for a hard to place population of youth. With the help of his youngest son, Thad Smith, a specialized treatment program for adolescent teens with backgrounds of sexual misconduct was formalized along with the opening of a branch office in Southeast Texas.

Since then, Therapeutic Family Life has expanded to help provide more homes for children in need of loving families across Texas. From 1993 to now, Therapeutic Family Life has licensed and partnered with more than 1,500 foster and adoptive families and provided services to more than 15,000 children in foster care. Our agency currently has offices operating in Austin, Arlington, Temple, San Antonio, Houston and Southeast Texas.