Advocacy Camp is a three-day, highly interactive training that will equip you with the leadership skills to be an effective child advocate and local leader.
All foster kids should be getting what they need to lead successful adult lives. Today, they aren’t.
Kids in foster care get moved from place to place. They miss classes in school. They don’t get the education support they need. The flaws in our state’s child welfare system fall more heavily on children of color. Clear evidence shows that children in African-American and Native-American families are no more likely than white kids to experience neglect or abuse. However, these kids end up in foster care at a higher rate than white kids and stay longer once they’re there. Overall, children and youth of color in the foster care system end up with worse outcomes in school and health than white kids. We aren’t serving kids equitably.
The Children’s Alliance campaigns for laws, program changes, and funding to reduce the unfair burden children of color bear when they end up in foster care. Our aim is to make sure that every foster child in the state’s care gets a fair shot at life.
Senate and House lawmakers have rightly proposed budgets that raise substantial new revenue to protect some of the vital services that are helping children and families weather this punishing recession. But more revenue is needed to prevent devastating cuts to safety-net programs that, if enacted, would hurt families and pose serious threats to our state’s economic recovery.
January 13, 2010 — Gov. Chris Gregoire’s revised budget rightly protects Apple Health for Kids, Maternity Support Services and some other vital programs that are helping Washington families weather this grueling recession. But many critical investments remain in jeopardy.

Many critical support systems for kids in our state faced potentially devastating cuts when the 2010 legislative session started. We knew that protecting vital services for children and families was not going to be easy.
But we’ve never been ones to shy away from a challenge.
Day in and day out, we worked to make sure that lawmakers did right by kids. In the end, the Children’s Alliance played a pivotal role in the successful push for:
Read our 2010 Legislative Session Review for an in-depth look at all we accomplished for kids, setbacks we fought hard to prevent, and the next steps we’re taking to keep children and families at the top of our lawmakers’ priority lists.
– Liz Gillespie
At a news conference convened by the Rebuilding Our Economic Future Coalition, the Children’s Alliance joined parents and teachers in urging our state lawmakers to raise significant new revenue to protect kids and schools.
Children's Alliance opposes Initiative 1107, an initiative to the state ballot in 2010. 1107 rolls back revenue that is supporting critical health and education services in Washington State. The campaign to oppose Initiative 1107 released this statement in response to the State's analysis of the financial implications of Iniative 1107.
In July 2010 Washington state Governor Gregoire posed 8 questions - including "What services are essential?" Children's Alliance members responded with these stories about why kids are always essential. Click to zoom in on the storybook. You can browse a story – and you can still add your own.