Meet the Starfish Ministries of Cenla Team

Letter from the Director

Starfish Ministries began with a simple but urgent burden: children in foster care needed a safe place to land when they had nowhere to go. That burden led us into the work of housing and emergency placement, and it gave us a front row seat to the realities children in care face every single day.

But the longer we served, the clearer it became that children in foster care need more than a bed for the night. They need support that reaches beyond placement. They need people who see the whole picture. The trauma they carry. The instability they have experienced. The families navigating impossible situations. The future that still deserves to be fought for.

That understanding has shaped who Starfish is today.

As the work grew, so did the vision. Healing Homes of Cenla was born out of the same mission and the same heart behind Starfish. While Starfish serves as the nonprofit arm focused on support, advocacy, programming, and wraparound care for children and families impacted by foster care, Healing Homes was created to carry the residential side of that mission by providing the physical home environment where children can land, stabilize, and begin to heal.

Though the roles are different, the heartbeat is the same. Healing Homes may provide the house, but Starfish is still deeply woven into what happens inside it and beyond it. We are still there in the work of supporting children in foster care, not only by helping meet immediate needs, but by providing the resources, relationships, and programming that help create real change.

We exist to walk alongside children in care and the people caring for them: foster families, kinship families, biological families working toward reunification, and the broader community surrounding them. Our role is to come alongside a child’s story and ask not just, “Where will they sleep tonight?” but “What will help them heal, grow, belong, and build a different future?”

That means Starfish steps into the gaps with intentional support. Mentoring. Life skills. Emotional and relational support. Advocacy. Community connection. Opportunities that remind children they are more than the hardest thing they have been through. It means showing up for foster parents and caregivers who are carrying heavy loads and need support, encouragement, and practical tools to keep going. It means helping create an environment where children are not simply housed, but known, valued, and invested in.

Foster care has a reputation that is often marked by brokenness, mistrust, and pain. We know those realities are there. We also know there are children in the middle of that system who need safe adults, consistent support, and someone willing to believe their future can still look different. That is where Starfish steps in.

We are here to help redefine foster care by helping redefine what support looks like for the children and families living it every day.

Starfish is no longer just about providing a place for children who have nowhere to go. It is about helping create the support system that surrounds them while they are in care and equips them for what comes after. Whether a child is in a Healing Home or living elsewhere in our community, our heart is the same: to make sure they are seen, supported, and given the tools, relationships, and opportunities needed to move toward healing and hope.

Because redefining the future for children in foster care takes more than a house.

It takes people willing to step into the story and stay there.

And the reminder that it matters to the One.