Childrens Law Center Incorporated

Healthy together - unsafe housing, inadequate education, exposure to violence, lack of good health care and other problems related to poverty, trauma and racism can harm children's physical and behavioral health. Through our healthy together program, children's law center partners with pediatricians throughout eight community health centers and clinics to find and fix the root causes of a child's health problem such as advocating for landlords to repair water damage that led to mold which exacerbates a child's asthma. And because health and education are inextricably linked, children's law center also ensures children can start school ready to learn by helping infants and toddlers with developmental delays get support early. When children reach school age, children's law center works with parents and schools to get a child's education back on track from ensuring testing for learning disabilities at an early age to making sure students with disabilities or behavioral health issues have an appropriate plan that meets their learning needs.

Systemic advocacy - our systemic advocacy is grounded in our experience working with more than 50,000 district children and families since our founding in 1996. We use this expertise to partner with the mayor, district agencies, the dc council, other advocates, parents, and youth to find and implement city-wide solutions that better serve children's needs. We work to change laws, policies and practice and appellate case law. We also secure media coverage to raise awareness about the district's successes and failures in meeting children's needs. Whether it is ensuring appellate caselaw provides concrete guidance on how to evaluate the harm of removal when determining whether to place a child in foster care, securing historic special education reforms, pressing agencies to better prepare older youth who age out of foster care or improving behavioral health services within dc schools our policy and appellate advocacy delivers real results that have improved hundreds of thousands of children's lives.