In this 45th anniversary year, the NACC board, staff, and National Advisory Council on Children’s Legal Representation (NACCLR) reviewed and updated the organization’s strategic plan to reflect our current values and organizational commitments.
The NACC board adopted a five-year 2019-2023 Strategic Plan in 2018. At the time, the board and staff were primarily focused on NACC’s organizational development, growth, and fiscal sustainability. By the half-way point in our plan, NACC had successfully refocused our core programming, expanded our team, and strengthened our business model. NACC had also engaged in race equity training and launched NACC’s NACCLR, then known as NACC’s National Youth Advisory Board.
As 2020 unfolded, it became mission-critical to us that we needed to formally center race equity and constituent engagement in NACC’s mission, vision, and goals. From November 2021 to March 2022, the board, staff, and advisory council members engaged in a strategic plan refresh with the support of consultants from Community Wealth Partners, funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. NACC’s core programs remain the same, but our goals and purpose have shifted from accelerating growth to ensuring equity and inclusion across all areas of our work.
On April 30, 2022, the Board of Directors unanimously adopted the refreshed strategic plan:
NACC’s Mission
NACC advances children’s and parents’ rights by supporting a diverse, inclusive community of child welfare lawyers to provide zealous legal representation and by advocating for equitable, anti-racist solutions co-designed by people with lived experience.
NACC’s Vision
Every child, parent, and family is well-supported in their community and has equitable access to justice through culturally responsive, client-centered legal representation.
These values and priorities were then woven into revised organizational goals which remain anchored in NACC’s three-part strategy:
Promoting Excellence
Increase and diversify the national community of Child Welfare Law Specialists.
Deliver timely, frequent, responsive, and updated trainings informed by constituent voice, including presenters with lived experience, and with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Publish the Fourth Edition of Child Welfare Law & Practice, the “Red Book,” re-envisioning the content and contributors and focusing on race equity, LGBTQIA justice, balancing new voices with expertise, and contributor diversity.
Building Community
Increase support to a growing membership, with focus on increasing diversity, inclusion, and modernizing membership tools and resources for the field.
Utilize law school, State Coordinator, and board partnerships to expand member diversity and promote pipeline to and tenure in child welfare law profession.
Build a larger and more diverse conference attendance through scholarships and a variety of conference offerings.
Advancing Justice
Collaborate with individuals with lived experience to co-design policies, positions, assessments, and amicus briefs that advance NACC’s policy agenda.
Partner with NACC members and individuals with lived experience to refresh NACC’s policy agenda with a focus on race equity and constituent engagement.
Deploy digital and traditional communications that center the voices of people with lived experience; elevate NACC’s mission, policy positions, and expertise; emphasize equity and justice; and reach practitioners, youth, parents, families, policymakers, and the child welfare community.
With this refreshed plan, the NACC staff and board will hold itself accountable to authentically engaging experts with lived expertise as we work to build a more diverse, inclusive community of advocates advancing justice in the child welfare system. We look forward to sharing more with you as this work continues in the coming years.