March 14, 2011

Just over a year and a half ago, Children’s Friend was presented with two notable challenges:  provide WIC services to over 5000 families in Central Falls and Pawtucket, and expand our Early Head Start program for 98 families to include 1100 Head Start children and over 60 more Early Head Start families.  We met these challenges with the same commitment that our founder Harriet Ware had over 175 years ago, when she began educating the children living in poverty in India Point.

 As fate would have it, last week we found ourselves welcoming not only a Federal Head Start review team of 10 members, but also the state WIC audit team and our fiscal audit team: a week that may go down in our history books as the “week of the audit”.   We found our way through each day, with eagerness and enthusiasm.  It is moments like these that you see the true nature of the people with whom you work.  I was struck by the flexibility and team work that took place.  There was an enthusiasm to share what has been accomplished to date and explain the unique ways in which children and families are supported at Children’s Friend

In these 18 months, we have strived toward innovation in our work.  Our goal is to design a system based on the needs of individual children and families: a system that is rigorously examined through a comprehensive analysis of outcomes.  As this week came to a close, I was humbled by all that the staff has accomplished in this short period of time.  For it is one thing to simply provide services, and wholly another thing to accomplish the kind of work that our staff is doing each and every day on behalf of children and families.  I am proud of the work of each and every member of Children’s Friend and I am fortunate to count myself amongst them.