This Week’s Nonprofit Spotlight is The Center for Alexandria’s Children

What Is The Center for Alexandria’s Children?

The Center for Alexandria’s Children is a public-private partnership designed to protect children and strengthens families by providing a coordinated, comprehensive and effective approach to the investigation, prosecution, treatment and prevention of child abuse in the City of Alexandria.

What is The Center for Alexandria’ Children Mission?

The mission of The Center for Alexandria’s Children (Center) is to protect children and strengthen families through stronger and better-coordinated child welfare services and collaborative family support programs.  Our goal is to end child abuse in the City of Alexandria. 

Program Highlights

• Children’s Advocacy Center: A safe place for victims and families to receive counseling and where victims can communicate their abuse to a skilled forensic interviewer one time only (live video and recordings allow other support agencies to gather the information they need without further questioning and traumatizing the child).
• Community Based Developmental Playgroups: Provides a social environment for children ages up to age five with developmentally appropriate activities, and provides parents an opportunity to connect with each other and to community resources.
• Child Sexual Abuse Prevention training:  To protect every Alexandria child from sexual abuse, the Center has launched a prevention training initiative, using Darkness2Light’s Stewards of Children program, targeting adults involved in child-serving organizations.
• Family Resource Center: Provides parenting classes, support groups and workshops, referral services, a “clothing closet” and digital identification kits and child safety information for children.
• Bi-lingual services: All programs and services are offered in Spanish as well as English

How you can get involved

• Volunteer your time: The Center for Alexandria’s Children has several recurring and seasonal opportunities for volunteers, and may require background checks. Please contact Susan Britton at (703) 746-6018 or sbritton@centerforalexandriaschildren.org for more information.
• Visit the Wishlist: The wishlist contains items and resources for vulnerable families in the community, including parenting handbooks for vulnerable families, “calm down” bags for children in crisis or a toy for a Developmental Playgroup.