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FROM THE DESK OF ROBERT MCCARTER,
INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Welcoming 2015
January marks the beginning of each new year and with it often comes new aspirations and goals designed to make it better than the year just passed. With that in mind, I'd like to share with you what we at Council for Children's Rights (CFCR) are focusing on in 2015.
In late November, our Board of Directors held a planning retreat. During that time together, we rededicated the focus of CFCR to our direct advocacy for individual children through our Custody, Defense and Individual Teams. Direct advocacy has always been the heart of what we do at the Council and moving forward we are committed to strengthening and improving our service to our clients.
In addition to that work, we will continue to advocate within systems to close gaps and add services to better the lives of all of Mecklenburg County's children. Using our research capabilities and new database system, we will be able to more closely study the cases of the nearly 2,500 children we represent each year, and, through that study, be in a better position than we have ever been to improve our advocacy in all areas.
We are now engaged as a staff in looking at what we do and how we do it to ensure all of our resources are being utilized in the most efficient and effective ways. Through this effort we hope to identify the areas of our community in which our services are most desperately needed.
One such area of need is that of the human trafficking of children; a rapidly growing concern for our community. You can read more about that below. Focusing our efforts on what is most needed, and on what we do best, will increase our effectiveness as an agency and help us to better serve our community. We look forward to meeting the challenges of the new year. With your help and strong support, we know together we can and will make a difference.
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Robert McCarter To Speak at the City Series
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Charlotte is a city full of both challenges and opportunities and the
City Series explores them both each month. On
January 21, 2015, Interim ED Robert McCarter will be the featured speaker at the next
City Series event.
The City Series is a community education and conversation project hosted by Flourish Charlotte, an initiative of Church at Charlotte. This event is open to anyone interested in learning more about the varied influences -- public, private, and social -- that contribute to life here in Charlotte. Past speakers have included Molly Shaw of Communities in Schools and Stephen Smith of Charlotte Family Housing.
We hope you can join us on January 21 to learn more about the Council and its place in the life of our community. Lunch is provided and the event is free but reservations are required. Find out more and make your reservation here.
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Professional Development
Sessions. Register Now!
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We are pleased to announce that the Council has created a series of Professional Development Sessions for Out of School Time (OST) Providers beginning in January and running through May 2015 and developed in partnership with Discovery Place, Mecklenburg Parks and Rec, and Leading To Change
Outlined in the 2013 Expand Learning report, these ten professional development opportunities are meant to support and raise the quality of OST programs in Charlotte. CFCR utilized feedback and input from providers to craft sessions on topics ranging from Volunteer Management to Curriculum Development. While the workshops were developed for OST providers, many of the topics covered are of interest to a wide audience and anyone who could benefit is welcome to register.
The cost for each session is $30. To see a list of all sessions offered in 2015, please click here.
Visit the Events Calendar at
detailed information on each event.
Space is limited so register now! |
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Young Ambassadors Offer
Comfort and Joy
Last spring during the March Madness for Children event the Council's Young Ambassadors Group (YAG) sponsored a Teddy Bear Task Force initiative to collect teddy bears and/or money to purchase them for our younger clients.
This December, YAG members traveled to Alexander Youth Network's psychiatric residential treatment facility to hand out teddy bears to the children there. It was a great evening, handing out candy canes and assisting some of the children in choosing a teddy bear just right for them. Some of the kids even named the bears! It was a great time for everyone involved.
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Giving Tuesday Results
The results are in from our Giving Tuesday efforts in December. Or should we say, your efforts as it was contributions and support from generous donors and friends that made it such a success for CFCR.
Over $25,000 was raised on the office day and as a result we received an additional $650 from the Knight Foundation as our portion of a matching grant they made to local participating organizations.
We are so thankful: not only for financial support, but for the efforts of
Share Charlotte who organized local efforts, the Knight Foundation who offered a $10,000 matching gift and to our partners in the non-profit community, who work with us every day to make Charlotte a cultured, caring and committed community!
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January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month
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January is Human Trafficking Awareness month and the need for that awareness in Charlotte-Mecklenburg is great. Assessing just how widespread the problem is can be difficult. One national tracking source ranks Charlotte-Mecklenburg as high as sixth in the nation; another such source ranks us as ninth. There is no question that no matter what the rank, we are one of the top twenty cities in the nation for this problem.
Recently, Stephanie Klitsch, an IAT staff attorney, and Interim ED Robert
 McCarter were able to attend a best practices presentation in this ever emerging area of need presented by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Human Trafficking Task Force. The training was conducted by Dave Dawson, FBI Special Agent and Kelly Harrison, ICE-Homeland Security. The stories they told from actual cases are horrifying and cry out for help for the victims of these crimes, many of whom are children. Children as young as five years old being are being trafficked for sex or labor.
Local efforts include those of Anne Tompkins, US Attorney, who is aggressively prosecuting trafficking cases and Sarah Byrne who leads Moore & Van Allen's pro bono project in human trafficking. CFCR hopes to join and add to their efforts by providing direct advocacy services to the child victims. We will move into this area in an intentional and deliberate way. By putting together the many resources needed by these young victims, we will ensure that our work will be meaningful in dealing with this very complicated problem. If we can add this critical problem to our areas of advocacy in 2015, it will be a successful year indeed.
Learn More:
Two great resources for learning more about this issue
The Polaris Project
The Trafficking Resource Center - Their hotline for reporting trafficking is 888-373-7888.
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First Wednesday Series Resumes
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Each spring, the Individual Advocacy Team of CFCR offers three free workshops for parents, caretakers and others on the first Wednesday of February, March and April. The First Wednesday series resumes on February 4 with a session on IEP (Individual Education Plan) Meetings.
Held at the Children and Family Services Center at 12:00pm, the sessions run about an hour and half. Lunch is not provided but participants are welcome to bring a sack lunch, an open mind and lots of questions.
Information on all our upcoming spring workshops is available at the events calendar on our web site. Check it out and feel free to pass this information along to anyone who may benefit from these enlightening sessions.
Spring Schedule and Topics:
Tips for a Successful IEP Meeting - Feb 4th
Special Education Conflict Resolutions -Mar 4
Special Education Testing and Accommodations- April 1
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Providence Day and CFCR
Hold Mock Court
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For the second year in a row, Council for Children's Rights was invited to participate in a Mock Court event at Providence Day School. Members of the Council's Defense Team participated along with a local judge and district attorney to simulate a real juvenile court experience for the students.
"..The mock trial afforded this group the opportunity to see the very real situations that so many young people are faced with when living with unfair challenges," said Lee Tappy, Freshman Class Dean at Providence Day. "The decisions that children and teens make, or the decisions that are made for them, as a result of their lives at home, their parents' struggles and the situations that they are faced with in their neighborhoods, often lead them to the courtrooms of Charlotte. I do not think that our students had considered the consequences of those instances and the powerful effect (both negative and positive) that they can have on an individual's life. "In addition, they also got to witness the very valuable work that Council for Children's Rights is doing to support those victims of circumstance, and it introduced them to another avenue on which they could travel to make a difference in the world around them." The project is part of the student's focus on poverty issues. The court simulations are followed by a question and answer session with the students. "I hope that we can continue this partnership with CFCR in educating our students," added Tappy. "I truly believe it will make a difference in their lives and the lives of those who they encounter." |
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Thank You to Our Sponsors!
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A Night For Children's Rights, the Council's largest fundraising event of the year, is coming up soon and we'll be sharing more about our speaker, James Ford in the next issue. The 2014 NC Teacher of the Year is gaining regional and national attention. It is going to be an inspiring evening.
But right now, we want to thank our Title Sponsors -- Bank of America and Wells Fargo -- for their continued commitment to this event and to the Council. Their generous sponsorship makes it possible for us to reach out and share the message of our mission and the needs of so many children in our community. Find out more about this exciting event by clicking here.
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InnovationsWaiver -
Notice of Class Action Settlement
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Disability Rights North Carolina has asked us to post this legal notice concerning the settlement in this class action lawsuit. The lawsuit involves hundreds of plaintiffs who reside all across NC, so getting notice of this settlement out across the state will benefit residents in our community. Because disability-related issues touch and concern so many of our clients, Disability Rights North Carolina approached the Council for Children's Rights as an important and helpful conduit for leverage in reaching hundreds of our community residents. Important news for consumers on the Innovations Waiver concerning your rights can be found here.
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Council for Children's Rights
601 E. Fifth St., Suite 510, Charlotte, NC 28202
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