Who We Are
Who We Serve and Why
The Alliance for Children’s Rights advocates for thousands of clients each year—including abused, neglected, and vulnerable children and teens in the foster care system, runaway and emancipating youth, children who need guardians, and the families who step up to care for them.
In Los Angeles County:
There are more than
22,000 children in foster care
- 48% of all children in foster care in California reside in Los Angeles County.
- 29% of California children living in poverty are in Los Angeles County.
- 3,335 of these children are awaiting adoptive families.
Only 58% of young people in foster care graduate from high school.
Only 3% graduate from college.
By 11th grade, only 20% of students in foster care are proficient in English.
Only 5% are proficient in math.
Transition Age Youth:
Half of all young adults who age out of foster care
end up homeless or incarcerated.
50% of young men aging out of foster care have become fathers, compared to 19% of their peers who were not in foster care.
Teen girls in foster care are 2.5 times more likely to become pregnant by age 19.
75% of young women in foster care report at least one pregnancy by age 21, compared to only 33% of their peers who are not in foster care.
Every story is different, but each child we help is healing from hardship.
With pro bono partners, the Alliance provides legal representation, supportive services, and policy solutions to help children and young adults access the nurturing conditions they deserve and need to thrive.
Our Impact
In the past year alone:
We finalized over
560 adoptions
We served 112 child victims of sex trafficking.
We advocated to ensure that over
150 children
ages 0-5 accessed critical early intervention services
950 families
received benefits and healthcare for children in foster care
Our attorneys advocated for educational services for more than
700 students in foster care
Spearheaded by the Alliance, the OYC collaborated with partners to support over 1,170 foster youth in accessing workforce training and employment opportunities.
We trained more than 7,600 court, agency, school, and community partners
Our Achievements
- Since 1992, we have served more than 150,000 children.
- Since the inception of our adoption program over twenty years ago, nearly 17,000 adoptions from foster care have been finalized.
- To date, more than 9,700 school-age children have received educational services to overcome trauma, instability, disability, and developmental delays.
- The Alliance has written and sponsored bills that have changed foster care for the better in California, including AB12, extending foster care to age 21.
- For ten consecutive years, the Alliance has received Charity Navigator’s highest four-star rating, a distinction granted to just 2% of charities.
Thanks to generous support from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, the Alliance is also able to partner with the American Indian and Alaskan Native community to better care for American Indian children in foster care.
