Pacific Palisades-based Everychild Foundation has selected two organizations to share its 2012 $1 million grant: Public Counsel and the Alliance for Children’s Rights. The grant will help create the first large-scale project in the nation to provide comprehensive legal and social services to adoptive and guardianship families.
Called the “Everychild Families Forever Project,” the grant will enable Public Counsel and the Alliance for Children’s Rights to ensure that adopted and guardianship children and their families in Los Angeles can take advantage of numerous services and benefits that will help them thrive.
Public Counsel is the largest pro bono law firm in the country. One of its major goals is to protect the rights of disadvantaged children. The Alliance for Children’s Rights focuses solely on protecting the rights of abused and impoverished children. Although both agencies have worked together for many years to help complete adoptions and guardianships, they realize there is a crisis of poor long-term outcomes for many children adopted from foster care.
The two-year project will provide many services, including early outreach to families, completion of adoptions and guardianships and long-term follow-up. Grant funds will be used for personnel to provide the services and for project implementation. Funds will support four new staff positions and 14 full-time and part-time existing staff.
Over two years, 2,900 adoptions and guardianships will be completed (an increase of 400 over current levels), and of those families, 2,230 will receive a comprehensive needs assessment, 870 children will receive critical services and support for special education needs, 580 will receive support for mental health needs and 725 families will receive additional adoption assistance benefits.
The dream of Everychild Foundation is to have a society where no child suffers from disease, disability, abuse, neglect or poverty. Each year, Everychild awards a single grant of up to $1 million to a nonprofit organization within Los Angeles County that profoundly helps children facing disease, disability, abuse, neglect or poverty. The goal is to launch new prototypes that can inspire replication across the nation and even worldwide.
Palisadian Jacqueline Caster is the founder and president of Everychild. Membership is limited to approximately 200 women, and each donates $5,000 yearly.
Contact: everychildfoundation.org.
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