Children's Bureau Champion Awards

The Children’s Bureau Champion Awards honor those who have made exceptional contributions to advancing equity, building community capacity, preventing child maltreatment, promoting child and family well-being, and supporting the workforce.  We are proud to announce this 2023 award recipients, each of whom serves as a shining example of leadership, innovation, and service excellence.

For Advancing Equity

Dr. Darcey Merritt

Dr. Merritt is a professor with the University of Chicago and co-Editor in Chief of the journal, Children & Youth Services Review. With her experience as a social worker and supervisor, Dr. Merritt began research into the unheard voices and lived experiences of systems-impacted parents and children from within their own communities and neighborhoods. She has since received a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development-funded grant to develop a new, decision theoretic perspectives on correlates of specific types of child neglect. For her outstanding leadership, research, and teaching, Dr. Merritt received the prestigious 2020 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Faculty Award.

Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition

The Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition (Coalition) strives to create permanency in the life of every child in foster care by recruiting and supporting foster and adoptive families in the St. Louis metropolitan community. For the past 10 years, the Coalition’s programs have reduced the overrepresentation of African American youth in foster care. These programs reduce how long children spend in foster care, increasing their chances to grow into healthy, happy, and productive adults and breaking the cycle of abuse. Programs such as Family Connections, Families United, 30 Days to Family®, RESPOND, and Extreme Recruitment® seek to create meaningful chances for permanency for all children and youth.

For Building Community Capacity

Jacqueline Ford

Jacqueline Ford is a Community Outreach Coordinator for the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF). As a social worker, she has dedicated her 31-year career to serving children and families. She holds a master’s degree in Social Work and is an adjunct professor, inspiring young people to help others.  Her initiatives include the DCF TV show on Nutmeg Television called Doors to Hope with Healing, a community center, and the Olive Branch store where families with active DCF cases can shop for gifts for their children. Additionally, she bridges gaps between the police association, DCF, and the families they serve. She also connects families served by DCF with a sleepaway camp to provide respite.

Arab-American Family Support Center

The Arab-American Family Support Center (AAFSC) is a nonprofit that provides culturally competent, trauma-informed social services to low-income immigrant and refugee communities. Established in 1994, it serves over 10,000 community members throughout New York City. Overall, AAFSC is building a movement of change. It targets financial insecurity, health risks, mental health challenges, and social strains through holistic programs, including adult education, youth enrichment, resource navigation, mental health counseling, emergency financial assistance, and legal services. The AAFSC Research Institute provides high-quality, data-driven information. It also actively participates in 15 coalitions for underserved communities. Additionally, it ensures its communities have a voice in political decisions.

For Preventing Child Maltreatment

Families First DC

Families First DC (FFDC) provides community-based, neighborhood-driven supports to families in the most under-resourced neighborhoods of Washington, DC. FFDC has three goals: empower communities, integrate services, and focus upstream. FFDC programs build upon child and parental strengths and support family well-being. FFDC includes families with lived expertise in DC’s discussions about more thoughtful programming and in neighborhood-led Community Advisory Councils to determine each family success center’s focus and service array. Further, FFDC emphasizes increasing protective factors in the communities and mitigating trauma to build on community and family strengths. Staff partner with other DC agencies to break down barriers.  In 2022, FFDC received an additional $500,000 from local sources to provide food resources and educational programming directly to families.

For Promoting Child and Family Well-Being

Dr. Judy Krysik

Dr. Judy Krysik is a Professor of Social Work and Associate Director of the School of Social Work at Arizona State University. She has created innovative child safety programming and is evaluating the Safe Baby Court Teams program. Additionally, she created the Advanced Child Welfare Training Academy, founded the National Children of Incarcerated Parents annual conference, and is a leader in the Citizen Review Panel Program. She received the 2019 Council on Social Work Education Award and was a 2017 Fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research. Among her many publications is Research for Effective Social Work Practice, now in its fourth edition.

Florence Crittenton Services

Florence Crittenton Services (FloCrit) has been empowering teen families in Denver, CO, for 130 years. FloCrit provides education, health and wellness, and economic and social asset building through partnerships with Denver organizations, and also operates an early childhood education center, a health center, and FloCrit High School. Young parents receiving services through FloCrit’s trauma-informed approach have a high school graduation rate that is more than double the national average for teen mothers, and the programs ensure that their children are kindergarten-ready. In the 2021-2022 school year, FloCrit positively impacted 125 pregnant and parenting teen mothers and 100 infants and toddlers. Of its eligible seniors, 93% graduated and 79% had post-secondary plans.

For Supporting the Workforce

Michelle Lavallee

Michelle Lavallee is the Chief Executive Officer of Children’s Home Society of South Dakota (CHS). The organization’s mission is to prevent, treat and heal trauma for vulnerable and diverse children, families, and individuals across South Dakota. Ms. Lavallee’s commitment to staff has helped build CHS’ strong workforce. She ensures that CHS offers competitive wages and benefits; addresses staff stress and burnout; and fosters diversity, equity, and inclusion. In addition, Ms. Lavallee founded CHS University, an internal leadership development program that helps participants leverage their leadership styles and strengths to increase effectiveness and learn to coach, develop, and retain staff.