History

Friends of the Children was founded by entrepreneur Duncan Campbell in 1993, starting with 3 Friends serving 24 children in northeast Portland, Oregon.

Campbell was convinced high-risk children needed help before they were sucked into the juvenile justice system. He was thinking of children who might have a parent in prison, or on welfare, the kind of children who, if not helped when young, would one day end up in prison themselves or would cost society hundreds of thousands of dollars in welfare benefits, not to mention the human tragedy and loss of potential. What they needed, he believed, was just one good adult friend.

For his program, he wanted to avoid volunteers who might quit when the novelty wears off. He planned to hire Friends, to pay them salaries comparable to what a first-year teacher earned. And while most social workers had caseloads of up to 100, Campbell vowed that each of his employees would oversee just eight children.

The Friends would not be substitute parents. A Friend's relationship would be strictly with the child, one-to-one. Each child would get a library card, be taken downtown and shown a world he or she could become part of. The Friend would meet with the children several times a week. They'd go on field trips, do homework together, play in the park, ride bikes, etc.

But most important, the Friend would be someone the child could count on for the next 12 years.

To find children, Campbell turned to first-grade teachers who knew them and their families. He christened his program "Friends of the Children," put up $1.5 million of his own money and in May 1993 hired the first three Friends. By the end of that first school year, 16 boys and 8 girls were assigned to three Friends.

The promise of the original program first conceived more than 10 years ago in Portland now reaches across the nation. Today, Friends serves over 600 children in 9 communities across the United States. The Boston Chapter is proud to be the latest extension of Campbell's vision and looks forward to serving the needs of children in the greater Boston community for years to come.