Mission, Principles & History

Bringing hope and help to children and families for nearly 200 years.

Children’s Friend was founded in Providence in 1834 as a home for abandoned and abused children. Since then, we’ve continuously adapted and expanded our services to answer the challenges of an increasingly complex world. Today, we reach every corner of the state with our comprehensive and integrated advocacy, guidance, assistance, education, prevention, and intervention services. See a complete list and description of our services. In everything we do, our expertise is passionately focused on elevating, empowering, and strengthening children and families — and preparing them to succeed in all facets of life. Our mission is to be the innovative leader in improving the well-being and healthy development of Rhode Island’s most vulnerable young children.

Our unwavering principles help develop unlimited potential.

Our approach is family centered.

  • We discover each child’s and family’s needs, then work collaboratively to best meet the
  • We provide opportunity for families to be meaningfully engaged in the design of services.
  • We are deeply committed to serving all families in an unbiased and nonjudgmental way.

Our services are seamlessly delivered.

  • We coordinate and integrate our services to ensure children and families receive the support they need.
  • We partner with high-quality organizations when children or families face challenges outside our expertise.

Our work is driven by outcomes.

  • We carefully measure the impact and effectiveness of our services.
  • We engage in ongoing learning and innovation to ensure we’re offering the most appropriate services.
  • We identify areas for improvement and measure our performance against national benchmarks.

We are passionate advocates for children and families.

  • We are leaders in educating policymakers and the public about the needs of children and families.
  • We will take risks, if the reward will benefit those we serve.
  • We are vigilant stewards of our resources.
  • We take seriously our responsibility to grow and sustain our human and financial capital.
  • We expect and demonstrate respect and cultural sensitivity for our community, staff, and board.

We’re all-in on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

We foster, cultivate, and preserve a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our employees are the collective sum of individual differences, life experiences, knowledge, skill, self-expression, unique capabilities, and talent that represents not only our culture but our commitment to diversity and inclusion. We embrace and encourage their differences in all areas, and we extend that same welcoming attitude to everyone we serve.