Children/Youth Advocacy

The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) works to build better futures for disadvantaged children and their families in the United States. The primary mission of the Foundation is to foster public policies, human service reforms, and community supports that more effectively meet the needs of today's vulnerable children and families.

American Legion Child Welfare Foundation
The American Legion Child Welfare Foundation works to provide other nonprofit organizations with a means to educate the public about the needs of children by providing grants to nonprofit, youth-serving organizations throughout the United States. The foundation's Web site posts information on grants, including guidelines, limitations, and application procedures, as well as news and details on the Foundation's publications.

America’s Promise
The nation's leading voice for young people.  We know that too many of our children are at risk.  Through partnerships with government, nonprofits, business
and communities, we work together to ensure that ALL children have five essential resources: caring adults, safe places, a healthy start, effective education and opportunities to help others.

Arsalyn – Promoting Youth civic and political engagement
The Arsalyn Program of Ludwick Family Foundation was created to encourage young Americans to become informed and active participants in the electoral process. The Arsalyn Program views the civic and political engagement of young people as beneficial to country, community and character. The Arsalyn Program is firmly committed to a non-partisan, non-issue-based and inclusive approach to ensure that voting becomes a lifetime commitment on the part of our nation's young adults.

Catholic Charities USA
The mission of Catholic Charities USA is to reduce poverty, help families become self-sufficient, build communities, and to advocate for justice in social structures. Some of the youth-related services Catholic Charities provides include after-school programs, youth centers, parenting classes, job training, and technical assistance. The Web site has programs and advocacy information, news releases, conference information, a media page, and a disaster response section. Their monthly newsletter is available to members.

Child Trends
Child Trends is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that studies children, youth, and families through research, data collection, and data analysis. Facts At A Glance is Child Trends' annual statistical portrait of teen childbearing in the United States.

Child Welfare League of America
The Child Welfare League of America is devoted to the well-being of America's children and their families. In addition to an advocacy section, statistics, and information about work the organization is doing, the CWLA Web site offers links to over 1,100 member agencies, listed by region.

Children Now
Children Now is a colorful, well-organized Web site devoted to the nurturing, safety, and rights of children and offers news, job listings, volunteer opportunities, and a wealth of related links, many of which lead to funding opportunities in children's issues.

Children's Charities of America
Children's Charities of America is a coalition of national nonprofit organizations dedicated to meeting the needs of children, through heightened public awareness of children's issues and the solutions to their problems, and by helping raise funds mainly through participation in workplace campaigns. CCA pre-screens and certifies national charities working to protect and assist children in the U.S. and internationally, and then presents this information to potential donors. The Web site provides contact information, mission statements, e-mail, and Web site links for each member organization, with the option of making an online donation.

Children's Defense Fund
A leader in child advocacy, CDF provides a wealth of information and news about children's issues at its Web site. The Web site also offers state-by-state statistics, and the Parents Resource Network, a collection of links to Web sites that offer parents information on caring for their own children and on getting involved in group efforts to help children in their communities or states.

Connect For Kids
Connect For Kids, a project of the Benton Foundation, was developed for parents, educators, and policymakers, and provides solutions-oriented coverage of critical issues for children and families covering more than thirty topics, including arts and youth development, out-of-school time, foster care, welfare reform, and oral health. The Web site has a free weekly e-mail newsletter, a news archive, and a features section that contains highlights of CFK programs. The site's "Reference Room" has information and resources related to children that can be searched by scope of work, and includes reports, public opinion data, and book reviews.

HandsNet
HandsNet has aggregated current human services and community development information important to low-income communities and communities of color. We seek to foster comprehensive thinking on approaches to improving the lives of people living in these communities.

KIDS COUNT
Since 1990 KIDS COUNT has been the cornerstone of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's efforts to increase public awareness of the condition of children and to foster greater public accountability from improving child outcomes. A national and state-by-state effort to track the educational, economic, social, and physical well-being of children in the United States, KIDS COUNT seeks to enrich public discussions about the most promising ways to help children grow up to be healthy, productive adults.

NALP Directory of Pro Bono Children's Law Programs

National Center for Youth Law
NCYL is a California-based private, nonprofit law office serving the legal needs of children and their families. The organization focuses particularly on children living in poverty, advocating for their protection from abuse, for their access to housing, health care, and public benefits, and for improved methods of collecting child support. NCYL works towards these goals by publishing articles, manuals, books, and its bimonthly journal, Youth Law News; providing technical assistance and training; assisting legal advocates who represent poor children; and conducting administrative and legislative advocacy. The Center's Web site includes pertinent news, an overview of the organization, online articles, analyses, and publications as well as links to related resources.

National Center for Children in Poverty
The National Center for Children in Poverty works to identify and promote strategies that prevent child poverty in the United States and that improve the lives of low-income children and their families. The Center's Web site provides access to numerous articles on issues including welfare reform, family support, and state and local information. A research forum, online newsletters, and other publications can be downloaded from the Web site.

National Parent Information Network
NPIN, a project of the federal Department of Education's ERIC system, provides access to research-based information for parents and those who work with parents, with a focus on family involvement in education. The "virtual library" includes a search engine to full-text resources, book summaries, descriptions of newsletters and magazines, and a collection of full-text resources for urban/minority families. NPIN features AskERIC, a question and answering service for educators, librarians, and parents. In addition, the site has an Internet discussion group and publishes a bimonthly magazine.

National Youth Advocacy Coalition
A social justice organization that advocates for and with young people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) in an effort to end discrimination against these youth and to ensure their physical and emotional well being.

Save the Children
Save the Children works in nineteen states across the U.S., and in over forty-five developing countries around the world to provide education and aid to communities in need. Areas of focus include health and nutrition, education, economic opportunity, and emergencies.

Social Change Websites – Sites that Change the world
Social Change Websites is a directory of the best nonprofit, grassroots, and advocacy campaign websites dedicated to making a difference in the world.
Look for the link to Children and Youth, 41+ websites listed

Stand for Children
A citizen voice for children. We advocate for improvements to and funding for programs that give every child a fair chance in life. Since 1999, Stand for Children members have won more than 66 state and local victories that are improving the lives of more than 2.5 million children.

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
UNICEF advocates and works for the protection of children's rights by collaborating with other United Nations bodies, governments, and non-governmental organizations to offer community-based services in primary health care, basic education, and sanitation in developing countries. In addition to organizational information, UNICEF's excellent Web site provides program highlights, statistics, and job postings, among many other features.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — Children & Youth Policy
The United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Human Services Policy, has compiled a summary of research currently being conducted in the area of child and youth policy.

Youth Advocate Program International
Promoting and protecting the rights and well-being of the world’s youth, giving particular attention to children victimized by conflict, exploitation and state and personal violence.

Regional Resources

ARIZONA

Arizona Statewide Youth Development Task Force
The Arizona Statewide Youth Development Task Force is working to build a comprehensive framework for youth development that will support the positive development of youth and the successful transition from youth to adulthood. 
This framework will work to bridge the systems that serve youth (government, community-based organizations, philanthropy, business and others) to build a comprehensive continuum of learning opportunities (both in school and out), to identify funding that would support these opportunities, and to focus on the developmental needs of youth.
The following four policy areas will be focused on through this work: education, youth workforce development, youth voice and advocacy, and positive youth development. 

Arizona Governor’s Commission on Service & Volunteerism
The Governor’s Youth Commission (GYC) is intended to be a diverse and representative body of the high school population within the state of Arizona.  The GYC consists of forty members composed of sophomores, juniors and seniors, from across the state. The primary purpose of the Governor’s Youth Commission (GYC) is to advise the Governor and the Governor’s Office for Children, Youth and Families on issues affecting youth in Arizona. 

IDAHO

Idaho CASA Association
Idaho CASA Association advocates for the best interests of abused and neglected children by promoting and supporting the development of quality Guardian ad Litem services and services to benefit children throughout Idaho, such as, education, prevention and addressing emerging public policy issues. 

Idaho CASA Association Volunteers
A CASA volunteer provides a judge with carefully researched background of the child to help the court make a sound decision about that child's future. The CASA volunteer must determine if it is in a child's best interest to stay with his or her parents or guardians, be placed in foster care, be placed with other relatives, or be freed for permanent adoption.  The CASA volunteer follows through on the case until it is permanently resolved.

NEW MEXICO

Legal FACS 24 Hour Advocacy
Services include consultation and information on such issues as divorce, child custody, visitation, child support calculations and property division. We also represent domestic violence victims at hearings for Orders of Protection, and in some cases provide full representation.  Clients must pay any court fees, service costs, discovery and any other expense.

Jobs with Legal FACS 24 Hour Advocacy

NORTH CAROLINA

North Carolina Youth Advocacy and Involvement Office

OREGON

Native American Youth & Family Center
Healing Circle is a domestic violence prevention program providing a wide range of services including immediate crisis intervention services, advocacy and ongoing support and educational services. The goals of Healing Circle are to keep Native American families safe and to educate our people in an effort to end the silence about domestic and sexual violence. Healing Circle works to reinforce the fact is that domestic violence is not, nor ever has been, condoned by the Native community.

Jobs with the Native American Youth & Family Center

TENNESSEE

Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth Advocacy

WYOMING

General resources

Domestic Violence State Resources Wyoming