Angels Foster Care Has New Halo at Its Head 

They may not have wings, a halo, or a million eyes, but foster care workers are something akin to angels. 

Angels Foster Care — which provides homes for infants and toddlers up to age 5 in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties — has a new halo at its head: Jacqueline McDonough, PhD, a Lompoc-raised expert in early childhood education, trauma-informed care, and organizational leadership.

McDonough, 30, first and foremost described herself as a “daughter, sister, auntie, cousin, friend, and advocate.” But otherwise, she holds a bachelor’s degree in child development and a doctorate in organizational leadership from the University of Massachusetts. Before taking on the role of executive director at Angels, she dedicated her early career to similar work in the nonprofit sector. 

Growing up in Lompoc, McDonough did not go through foster care herself but witnessed young family members who did. Her parents created a safe space for her young relatives, including supporting a continued relationship with their birth parents. 

“It really gave me hope for all children to have a safe, stable and loving home,” she said. 

Her personal experience mirrors the mission of Angels. They are not an adoption organization, she stressed. Their priority is always to reunify children with their birth family, but the opportunity for adoption often does arise for Angels parents. 

McDonough particularly emphasized one thing about the process: The children themselves do “nothing wrong” to be placed in foster care.

“They made no choices on their behalf. It was just a result of their caregivers’ choices or the predicaments that they were placed in,” McDonough said. “But currently, only 40 percent of kids in the county are reunified with their birth families. 

Young children are particularly vulnerable to developmental problems when not in a safe, stable environment during their transformative years. 

“That’s our call to action: We really need resource homes so that they can either support the family in reunifying or be able to foster and adopt,” she said.

The goal, she added, is to give a family to the child, not a child to the family. And the families who have fostered through Angels have “so many beautiful stories,” McDonough said. “Angels has made such an impact on our families, beyond what the children already make in the family’s lives.” 

Since its inception in 2006, Angels has placed 330 infants and toddlers in foster homes. Of these children, 168 were adopted by their Angels parents, while the others were reunified with their birth parents or placed with extended family members. 

The organization is currently working with six families across the county, but is always looking for more. There are more than 380 children across the region in need of a foster home due to abuse, abandonment, or neglect — with the highest need in North County — according to Santa Barbara County Social Services. 

When a child is put into foster care, generally, it’s the birth parents’ first child, and they are not prepared to care for them, McDonough said. Child Welfare Services removes the child from the home, and Angels will receive the case if the county is unable to provide a home for them. 

Angels social workers provide training and resources to foster parents. They only allow one foster child or sibling set per home to ensure a stable and attentive environment. 

McDonough’s top priority is to increase the number of available families that can create these loving homes for the children referred to them. 

She is also looking to expand outreach, enhance training for foster parents, grow resources for families, and develop community partnerships, she said. 

“We’ve been serving children for 20 years now, and I want to continue serving children for another 20 years and beyond that,” she said. 

Recently, funding has had its ups and downs, McDonough explained. Their primary sources are donations and grants — “It’s never enough, though,” she said.

The organization just lost a $55,000 grant from the county for their kinship program, as the county grapples with a projected budget deficit. 

“That hit us really hard, and we’re trying to find alternative funding sources, but we’re still continuing the program regardless,” McDonough said. “We’re really trying to build a strong relationship with the county and community partners so that, hopefully, we can get the funding reinstated at some point.” 

Angels provides informational sessions for prospective foster families, who must meet certain eligibility requirements. To learn more about fostering, or to donate to Angels, visit here.