Strategic Framework

Vision

A world in which all children have a strong foundation of family, health and education and are free from poverty, trauma, racism and other forms of oppression.

Mission

Together with DC children and families, Children’s Law Center uses the law to solve children’s urgent problems today, improve the systems that will affect their lives tomorrow and strengthen our community so that change endures.

Strategic Framework (2023-2027)

Since 1996, Children’s Law Center has listened, learned and evolved to meet the changing needs of our clients and community. As we look ahead to the next five years, we will:

Hone our core strengths and deepen our capacity to:

• Advocate tenaciously for individual children and families: Continue to provide legal assistance so that children are safe, healthy and learning.

• Fight for changes to the laws and systems that affect children: Continue to advance policies built on the experience of working with thousands of children and families each year and follow through to ensure change is implemented.

Build on our existing work to:

• Provide legal assistance to parents who are working to improve their children’s lives: Represent parents who are advocating for their children in the face of poverty, intergenerational trauma and oppression when these factors impede their ability to secure their children’s safety, health and education. Read more

• Support community-led advocacy: Work with parents and caregivers who have asked us to provide them with the tools they need to be more effective lay advocates for other parents and caregivers.

• Disrupt racism and other forms of oppression that harm children and families: Challenge and reduce ways in which racism and other biases – structural and interpersonal – prevent each of us, our organization and the systems in which we work from providing children a strong foundation from which to thrive. Read more

• Increase our impact through new legal strategies: Deepen our ability to solve clients’ problems by utilizing a broader array of legal interventions to secure more enduring results. Read more

By focusing on these interconnected strategies in partnership with our clients and community, we aim to create enduring and transformative change that improves children’s lives.

Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism

Children’s Law Center is dedicated to building a world that is inclusive in approach and has equal opportunities and equitable outcomes for all.

Our organization is committed to developing and supporting a robustly diverse, equitable, inclusive and anti-racist community, where all members can create and feel a sense of belonging. Through our collective deliberate efforts, we also work toward racial and social justice for DC children and families.