Council for Children’s Rights was officially formed in 2006, after the successful and innovative merger of Council for Children and the Children’s Law Center. Both groups worked tirelessly to advocate for children in crisis, and by merging they created the largest child advocacy agency in the southeast. For over 30 years, the Council for Children’s Rights has ensured that every child has the right to be safe, healthy and educated.
For more details on the history of Council for Children’s Rights, check out our Organizational Timeline.
Until this time, the Council for Children’s Rights focused primarily on individual representation. In 2008, Council for Children’s Rights and a subset of the United Agenda for Children steering committee engaged in a year-long joint planning process to determine the best way to implement and sustain work that would impact all of Charlotte’s children. This initiative represented the culmination of three years of community engagement, collective learning and unprecedented collaboration. In January 2009, the Council for Children’s Rights officially launched this new role in the community and became the local intermediary organization for children’s issues in the Charlotte region. The new endeavor is The Larry King Center for Building Children’s Futures.
Council for Children’s Rights is one of nine agencies housed in the Children and Family Services Center (CFSC). The building allows like-minded agencies that serve children and families to be housed in one location. The collaboration ultimately provides better services to the community.
According to the CFSC website, the nine “agencies reach over 150,000 clients each year and have, combined, revenues of $36 million. The majority of clients of the CFSC are from Mecklenburg County. Six agencies also have clients from Cabarrus, Iredell, Union and/or Gaston counties. Two agencies serve the entire state. The agencies serve the families and children affected by the multiple challenges of poverty, homelessness, child abuse/neglect, lack of school readiness, school dropout, and foster care.”
