Advocates for Bartow's Children, Inc.

Advocates for Children was formed in 1983 by local leaders concerned by the lack of resources for abused and neglected children. Our mission is to strengthen our community through education, advocacy, and prevention, empowering families to be free from child abuse. We provide direct care to children who are victims of abuse and neglect, and offer programming that focuses on the prevention of child abuse and on crucial elements of family wellness. There are no other organizations duplicating our services in Bartow County.

Our most recent strategic plan, adopted in 2020, defines strategic goals, objectives, and initiatives for our organization's focus over four years:

Goal 1: Programs break the cycle of abuse through education.
Goal 2: A new home for programs across the organization.
Goal 3: Diversified revenue to support Advocates for Children.
Goal 4: Inspired, staff, board, and volunteers.

The action initiatives and their specific goals are accompanied by details including timelines, costs, status of completion, and accountable persons. The plan will guide the organization through 2023 and is reviewed and updated quarterly.

1. Our first goal focuses on programs that prevent the cycle of abuse through education and training. We want to guarantee that our families have the support they need through increased education for caregivers as well as education and support for youth. To this end, we will increase the number of participants in parenting programs, focus on prevention services across the agency, and become trauma-informed across all programs.

2. After 37 years, our organization has outgrown the facilities that it currently operates from. Our second goal seeks to secure the physical space needed to support Advocates' programmatic needs. We will achieve this endeavor through a fully funded capital campaign based on the goal outlined in the feasibility study.

3. As our organization expands its geographic area of service, we want to ensure that we develop relationships with potential stakeholders in the new communities we serve. Our third strategic goal focuses on identifying and securing multiple revenue streams to support our organization's growth. Strategies to accomplish this goal include building relationships with new and current donors and identifying new donors in the counties that we serve.

4. Advocates for Children has the support available to build and retain the staff, board, leadership, and volunteers needed to support organizational growth. Our last strategic goal seeks to cultivate inspired staff, board, and volunteers. We will focus on creating a cohesive agency-wide culture for our organization, and developing a communication plan to engage the community in volunteer opportunities and needs.

For over 37 years, Advocates has employed evidence-based models and operated programs that are widely recognized as best practices. We have a long history of positive, collaborative relationships with state and social service agencies, and are highly regarded for being good financial stewards. We have extensive experience managing grants, most notably state and federal grants that require monthly reporting and detailed record-keeping, such as ACF Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY), Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF), Victims of Crime Act Assistance (VOCA), and Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV).

Our program directors are highly trained, qualified professionals who hire and manage very capable staff members. Members of Advocates staff at every level have well-defined responsibilities. Everyone is responsible for operations, which is essential for maintaining each of our three physical locations, but program directors have the freedom to manage their programs without focusing on raising funds to support their efforts. We require exceptional record-keeping and donor and volunteer management from all of our staff, and encourage the pursuit of continuing education to continually enhance our mission.

Advocates boasts an engaged Board of Trustees with many active committees and a diverse representation of experiences and expertise.

The number of children we serve annually steadily increases each year, matched by a desire of our referral agencies and collaborative partners to see us offering more resources that are relieving to their programs. Though capable of the task, there will be challenges associated with this organizational growth, and new sources of funding will be vital for an expanding budget.

In 2020, we achieved national accreditation through the Council on Accreditation (COA), demonstrating best-practice standards in the field of human services. The Board of Trustees continues to drive progress toward our long-term goals, focusing on a future vision for programming and the need for capital that would arise.