Child Advocates champions children and families throughout Indiana by advocating for access to justice and equity and fostering well-being for children.
Child Advocates
Child Advocates serves children and youth statewide who have experienced abuse and neglect or children who are facing other life traumas or challenges. We champion and advocate for justice in child welfare, children’s mental health well-being, educational help for children, and racial equity in all communities. Our goal is to help build a better future for every child. Our commitment is to listen to children and be their voice, standing up for their rights and working tirelessly to keep them safe and secure with an opportunity to thrive.
We are also a welcoming agency to the LGBTQ+ community.
Our Programs
Child Advocates offers vital programs and services for vulnerable children and youth across Indiana.
We connect families who have children with serious mental health and behavioral challenges to a state-funded wraparound program for help and hope.
We serve children and youth in the child welfare system in Indiana who have experienced abuse and neglect, including offering older children their own, free attorney.
We offer educational liaisons to help children who are struggling in school.
We advocate for racial equity in child welfare and our communities by interrupting racism for children.
We fight for justice, equity, and well-being for every child and we want to help build them a better future.
We fulfill our mission through six key programs: Statewide Access Site to the Child Mental Health Wraparound program, Direct Representation, Educational Liaison, Legal Services, Mediation and Facilitation, and Interrupting Racism for Children.
And we will do whatever it takes to help them, taking the lead with innovative programs in child welfare and in communities across Indiana that can help transform their lives. So how do we do it? Who better to tell our story than some of the children we serve?
Hear directly from some of them about what it means to have a child advocate give them a voice for their future. And hear how you, too, can join us and be a child advocate from our newly retired CEO, Cindy Booth, and some of our other amazing leaders.
We help children of all ages, races, ethnicities, genders, and socio-economic backgrounds. Children with irresistible grins, vivid imaginations, and incredible potential. A gift to Child Advocates helps protect the rights of our community’s most vulnerable youth.
Child Advocates has served more than 100,000 vulnerable children in Indiana in more than 40 years. Our team of attorneys, family liaisons, educational liaisons, racial equity facilitators, and other child advocates are dedicated to building a better future for every child.
Four is the number of homes a child will likely live in during their first year in foster care.
Some 20,000 children are currently in Indiana’s foster care system.