Ritchie King

Children First was founded over 40 years ago to help improve the lives of children by advocating on their behalf and by being a catalyst for positive change. We help to identify and educate the public about children’s needs, insisting that our children become a priority if we as a society, and they as our future, are to survive. Our goals have always been to increase the awareness of children’s needs; increase the resources for children and families; strengthen families and communities in helping children learn and grow and assure implementation of funding of public policies which promote stable children and families. While we educate and advocate on behalf of children across all issues, we undertake specific-focused efforts to improve the health of our children by maximizing access and availability of health care; improve child welfare by targeting efforts to strengthen families; improve the quality and quantity of child care programs; act earlier rather than later in developing, monitoring and disseminating information about in-home programs that work; and improve the chances for troubled and troubling adolescents by seeking out the causes and responses to truancy or delinquency by building alternative programming in communities and developing more and better after-school programs in neighborhoods