About Us

The WACF strives to improve practice and connect organizations. It provides agencies with a unified voice by building collaboration and community among its members, working towards the same goal, and offering training and technical assistance to create best practices among private agencies.

The WACF is an association for people and organizations looking to strengthen children, youth, and families in Washington State and champion their cause.

Since 2018, WACF has been managed by Executive Director, Jill May, M.S.W., along with a diverse Board of Directors who are responsible for ensuring that the mission, values, and principles of WACF are carried out in its day-to-day operations. 

WACF informs and engages its members and partners through training and technical assistance.

These efforts aim to create a proactive approach to supporting families no matter how their unique needs evolve.

WACF works with member agencies to support advocacy efforts at an administrative and legislative level.

Each initiative is focused on providing critical services for families and children. Those services can range from preventing family removal to youth who are at risk of and have aged out of foster care. The goal is to ensure children and families' safety, permanency, and well-being.

Dozens of member agencies partner with WACF, demanding an active effort to promote collaboration and communication.

WACF is committed to driving these collaborative efforts. Our goal is to ensure that children and families can rely on the benefits of a network of allies.

The mission... The Washington Association for Children & Families is a non-profit ​​working to ​​strengthen families ​​and ​​champion bright futures​​ for children, youth, and families across Washington State.

We are committed to prioritizing racial equity to prevent families from entering foster care, address the disproportionality of foster families, and reduce the number of children of color in care. These systems often yield unfavorable outcomes for people of color. We work with our agencies to advocate for systemic improvement through administrative and legislative actions, training, and technical support. Our goal is to help organizations operate culturally appropriate, inclusively, and at the highest quality while providing critical services to children, youth, and families.

Founded in 2012, the Washington Association for Children & Families is a non-profit association (Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code) of child welfare providers working to strengthen families and champion bright futures for children across Washington State.

WACF is an organization with a wide range of community-based organizations that provide services across the foster care continuum.

Through collaborative advocacy efforts, training and technical assistance, WACF supports critical services for families so they can lead healthy, happy lives.

The contributions of WACF and its member agencies are divided into four primary groups: Child Placing Agencies (CPAs), Intensive Services, Family Preservation and Support Services (FPSS) and Independent Living Services (IL). 

WACF works with its members to spearhead new initiatives, provide training and technical assistance, coordinate collaboration and conversation between agencies, and speak with a unified voice on the behalf of children, youth, and families. 

Advocacy — In partnership with its members, WACF drives administrative and legislative advocacy efforts to provide critical services to children, youth, and families. Those critical services ensure the safety, permanency, and well-being for children and families. 

Training / Technical Assistance — WACF also informs and engages its members and partners through training specifically aimed at improving the lives of children and families.

Families, of all types and sizes, are the fabric that knit our society together. Nothing is more important than the relationships that bind parents, children, youth, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and everyone in between.

Despite the importance of these unique bonds, some families are forgotten and overlooked. When that happens, the results can be tragic.

We believe Washington State families should always have the support they need to thrive. Families deserve a voice. They deserve an entire network of allies working to create a safer future for them. We’re building that network.

Our Commitment

Diversity & Inclusion

  • Washington State is home to a wide array of unique families from a variety of backgrounds. They represent rural farming towns, sprawling urban hubs, immigrant backgrounds, LGBTQ identities, non-native speakers, and every race and ethnicity.

  • Each family is different, and every one of them deserves the same opportunities. To that end, we are committed to curating a membership that reflects the diversity of the families we support.

  • Our constant effort to broaden advocacy efforts and support service is aimed at creating an alliance of members who benefit all communities, regardless of their economic status, sexual orientation, language, or age.

  • When we celebrate the diversity of our membership, it directly helps to create a safer future for children, youth, and families in  Washington.

Unified Voice

  • A collective voice allows us to focus the strength of our diverse membership on specific initiatives. When faced with important issues and difficult decisions, we take clear and straightforward positions that represent the voices of all members.

  • Whenever we communicate, it is our goal to inspire, educate, and motivate others to take direct action that supports Washington State families.

  • With clear communication and a unified voice, we apply accepted standards of practice across the continuum of care. Aligning in this way allows WACF’s members to work together more effectively.

Collaborative Community

  • Just like the families we support, we thrive when we are working together. Collaboration allows us to utilize the talents and resources of our incredibly diverse community.

  • Bringing these perspectives together to address a problem leads to more innovative solutions that represent all Washington families. WACF relies on lively debate, thoughtful discussion, and clear communication practices to ensure that all agencies are heard and acknowledged.

  • Through this process, we ensure that we are responding to the unique needs of children and families that work directly with specific member agencies.