About Us
New Milestone Reached
Voices For Children Foundation (Voices) is grateful to many foundations, individuals and corporations for general operating support that benefited those served by the renamed Statewide Judicial Guardian ad Litem Office/Eleventh Circuit (GAL Office) in 2022-2023. With increased public support, too, Voices and the GAL Office achieved a milestone fourth year (since April 2019) of providing 100% of Miami-Dade County’s vulnerable dependent children and youth with continuous advocacy and legal representation. More effective access to health and human services, entitlements, needed and wanted items and new opportunities also benefited children and youth in 2022-2023.
A New Mission and Vision
2022-2023 began with strategic planning through 2027, as initiated by Voices new President and CEO Kadie Black with support from Kira Grossman, Voices new Board Chair beginning July 2022. Engaging Voices’ board and staff members and GAL Office leadership, we expanded Voices mission: “Voices For Children is a beacon of hope for abused, abandoned and neglected children/youth in the Miami-Dade County foster care system. We do this by providing critical support for advocacy, essential needs and positive experiences.” Voices also developed a vision: “Voices For Children believes that support should not be a privilege. Voices’ vision is that every child in the foster care system has quality Guardian ad Litem representation and fully centralized access to services and resources to meet their physical, social and emotional needs.”
Pioneering Child Welfare System Improvements
As leaders within Miami-Dade’s child welfare system, Voices continued its quest to increase capacity towards addressing the need for systemic change. This goal was advanced by securing sufficient unrestricted funding to cover all general operating expenses for FY 2022-2023. This enabled continued funding for the innovative permanency specialist and independent living specialist positions. These new positions brought forth daily changes expected to positively impact children’s and youth’s long-term success. Not only are children and youth and their advocates better informed about available community resources, but these specialists also provide information to ease access. Both positions are expected to significantly impact future systemic change as more dependent children begin to achieve expedited permanency in safe, stable homes and more dependent youth and young adults move towards more successful transitions to adulthood.
In Spring 2023, Voices also added a family intake coordinator to provide dependent children and their kinship caregivers with whom they have been placed, with immediate financial and other assistance plus help in understanding the complex dependency system and the role of GAL advocates. This initiative both stabilizes families most likely to contribute to children’s positive development – extended family members that children already know and who know and care about their child relatives – and helps mitigate children’s and their kinship caregivers’ fear of the unknown child welfare system.
Enhancements for Dependent Children and Youth
With a one-time allocation from the Miami-Dade Mayor and Board of County Commissioners received in January 2023, Voices provided many more essential and fun items for children and youth through its new Comfort Closet, which allowed access to whatever they needed at no cost to them or their caregivers. With this funding, Voices also provided potentially life-changing experiential learning opportunities never provided for Miami-Dade County dependent children and youth served by the GAL Office.
