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Some of the most meaningful work begins with a question.

For Samantha "Sami" Andrew, that question was:
 

What if we stopped asking, 'What's wrong with families?' and started asking, 'What happened to them?'
 

That question has guided every step of her career.
 

For more than two decades, Sami has worked alongside children, parents, and families navigating some of life's most difficult circumstances. Her professional journey has included serving as a juvenile detention officer, CPS conservatorship caseworker, special education behavior specialist, registered behavior technician, certified parent coach, and parenting instructor within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. 

Across every role, she noticed the same pattern.
 

Children were carrying the weight of trauma they did not choose. Parents often loved their children deeply but had never experienced healthy, regulated parenting themselves. Families impacted by incarceration were expected to rebuild relationships with very little support, despite carrying generations of adversity, loss, and survival.
 

Rather than seeing "bad parents," Sami saw nervous systems stuck in survival mode, cycles of trauma repeating themselves, and families who deserved evidence-based support instead of judgment.
 

In 2021, she founded Ladybug Lane TX, where she began coaching parents using trauma-informed, neuroscience-based approaches. As a graduate of the Jai Institute for Parenting, she found an approach that aligned with what years of frontline work had already taught her: meaningful change happens through connection, regulation, and relationship—not punishment or shame.
 

While teaching parenting classes inside a Texas men's prison, Sami witnessed something that profoundly shaped the vision for Regulated Roots. Week after week, she watched incarcerated fathers learn to regulate their emotions, practice vulnerability, and reconnect with the kind of parent they wanted to become.
 

Those moments became undeniable proof that healing is possible.

They also revealed a painful gap.

Families affected by incarceration often receive services while someone is incarcerated, but very few trauma-informed supports exist for parents after release, for caregivers raising children during incarceration, or for families working to rebuild relationships once they are back together.
 

Regulated Roots Family Foundation was created to fill that gap.
 

Today, Sami combines her background in criminal justice, child welfare, education, behavior science, and parent coaching to build programs that strengthen families before another generation enters the justice system.
 

The foundation's work is grounded in research, nervous system regulation, attachment science, and practical parenting education.

Every program is designed with one belief at its core:

When we help parents heal, children thrive. When children thrive, communities become stronger.
 

Sami believes breaking generational cycles is not about creating perfect parents. It's about creating supported parents.
 

Because every family deserves the opportunity to grow new roots—roots grounded in safety, connection, resilience, and hope.