Frequently Asked Questions

 What is Para Los Niños?
 What is your mission?
 What is your vision?
 What are your values?
 What services does Para Los Niños provide?
 What are Para Los Niños’ objectives?
 How many people does Para Los Niños help?
 What is the history of Para Los Niños?
 Where is Para Los Niños located?
 What population do you serve?
 What else can you tell me about the people Para Los Niños assists?
 How many employees do you have?
 What is Para Los Niños' budget and how much is spent on services?
 What makes Para Los Niños unique?
 Why is accreditation important to donors?
 How can I learn more and get involved?

What is Para Los Niños?
Para Los Niños is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization that serves extremely impoverished children and their families throughout Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties. Para Los Niños’ services include child development and education, a Charter School, child abuse prevention and intervention, after-school enrichment, and youth diversion and delinquency prevention. In addition, we offer comprehensive family support, which includes counseling, parenting classes, English-as-a-second-language classes, mental health counseling, and youth workforce services. All children’s services at Para Los Niños are coordinated with integrated, comprehensive assistance for the entire family. Families are served in the context of their community. Once critical needs for food, clothing and shelter have been met, Para Los Niños works with families to address deeper concerns and underlying issues. By integrating a full range of assistance, we make it possible for families to obtain the help they need without hours of traveling and waiting.

What is your mission?
Our mission is to help children succeed.

What is your vision?
Our vision is to become the leading provider of high quality services for children.

What are your values?
Our values are: Children come first; Excellence in all areas; Respecting and embracing diversity; Responsive, compassionate, and inspiring to those we serve; Highest ethical standards; Transparency and accountability; and Teamwork.

What services does Para Los Niños provide?
Para Los Niños programs include Child Development Centers, Preschool Programs, After-school Programs (for Children and Youth), a Charter School, Youth Workforce Services, a Summer Day Camp Program, Family Resource Centers, a Family Preservation Program, Youth Development Services and Mental Health Services.

What are Para Los Niños’ objectives?
Para Los Niños’ mission and goals promote self-sufficiency and help clients overcome the barriers that prevent them from growing and learning. We strive to  utilize education as a long-term solution to cyclical poverty, promote child safety and preserve families, serve each child in the context of his or her family, create community-based partnerships (responsive to local need) and provide an integrated approach that builds on child and family strengths.

How many people does Para Los Niños help?
Each weekday we assist over 3,500 children and youth, ages 6 weeks through 21 years. Annually we help more than 5,000 families through programs implemented at 26 sites.

What is the history of Para Los Niños?
In October 1979, the Los Angeles Times published an article that galvanized a community. It was the first of many to spotlight the plight of children and families living in the depths of despair in Los Angeles’ inner cities. It spoke of children living in Skid Row, locked in hotel rooms or left alone to wander dangerous neighborhood streets, while their parents worked to survive. At that time, little attention was paid to these forgotten children and few services or safe havens existed for these young boys and girls. Ninety percent did not attend school. Within a year of the Times’ article being published, Para Los Niños organized and responded to the need. A former false eyelash factory came to life with the presence of 45 happy children—eager for a chance to learn and to succeed—greatly improving circumstances for those living in Skid Row. Today, Para Los Niños continues to respond to the ever-growing and ever-changing needs of Los Angeles’ most challenging communities. The agency’s proven approach helps to build stronger, more stable families and brighter futures for the children.

Where is Para Los Niños located?
Our main offices and original site are located within blocks of downtown Los Angeles. Additional programs and services are located in the underserved inner cities of Los Angeles, including Skid Row, Pico-Union, East Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, South El Monte and surrounding communities, as well Ontario, in San Bernardino County.

What population do you serve?
Families who participate in Para Los Niños’ programs have very low incomes — most well below $15,000 per year. Half of the families we serve are headed by single mothers, who typically are more stressed than two-parent families because one person alone bears economic and parenting responsibility. The ethnicity of our clients reflects the population of our service communities. The average family is a single mother with 3-4 children; 88% Latino, 10% African American, and 2% other; 82% of parents are employed, thanks in part to the assistance we provide; 100% of children are at risk of neglect or abuse; Single-parent households, which tend to be much poorer and more stressed, represent more than 50% of our families; With an average annual income between $10,300 and $16,000, depending on program, 98.7% of families we serve live below the federal poverty level.

What else can you tell me about the people Para Los Niños assists?
Living in extreme poverty, the majority of children in the areas we serve are growing up in families and neighborhoods where drug abuse, domestic violence, unemployment, under-education, and crime are prevalent — often to the extent that the children’s physical, emotional, social and cognitive development is impaired. As a result, these children tend to suffer from multiple problems, including academic and vocational disadvantages, low self-esteem, delinquency, and lack of social and life skills. The scarcity of child development services in Los Angeles County represents an enormous crisis for our county and its residents. The Los Angeles County Child Care Planning Commission estimates that approximately 75,000 children from low-income families are on waiting lists for care in the county. The assessment also noted that Latino communities, such as those served by Para Los Niños, have the fewest early care and education resources. A study by advocates for the poor found that of 81,000 Los Angeles families that enrolled for welfare benefits in 1998, less than 12,000 found child care they needed to work. Para Los Niños helps to provide solutions to these problems.

How many employees do you have?
Para Los Niños has 400 employees.

What is Para Los Niños' budget and how much is spent on services?
Para Los Niños has an operating budget of $28 million per year. 90 percent of every dollar raised has a direct impact on the children we serve. The 18-member Board of Directors provides governance and oversight, with responsibility for setting policy and financial goals, and participation in the strategic planning and fund development efforts.

What makes Para Los Niños unique?
Para Los Niños is one of only one percent of family service agencies nationwide to achieve accreditation by the Council on Accreditation of Services for Families and Children. Accreditation verifies that our agency is maintaining the highest national standards in services, as well as ethically and responsibly managing funds. We have gained a reputation for excellence throughout Los Angeles and the nation, receiving numerous honors and awards, most recently the National Council of La Raza/Annie E. Casey Foundation Family Strengthening Award and the Excellence in Education Award from Senator Barbara Boxer.

Why is accreditation important to donors?
COA verifies that Para Los Niños is operating with credibility, integrity, and the highest level of achievement. This is why COA accreditation is so valuable to you as a supporter of Para Los Niños. Internationally respected and recognized, COA accreditation focuses on helping organizations like Para Los Niños grow stronger—stronger in terms of its governance, its management and its services. COA accreditation is an objective and reliable verification that the Para Los Niños qualifies for your confidence and support.

How can I learn more and get involved?
We welcome your questions. To learn more, please call us at 213.250.4800 or e-mail us at info@paralosninos.org .  

 

 

 

Fast Facts

 

Success Stories