Champions for Children, Inc.
Family Education, Support, & Resources
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Champions for Children envisions a world without child abuse and neglect - where parents have the tools and resources they need to provide a nurturing environment for their children, and where children get the support they need to become productive members of society as adults. In Hillsborough County, where more children are removed from their homes due to child abuse and neglect than anywhere else in Florida, this mission is of paramount importance. Children who suffer repeated abuse, neglect, and other adverse childhood experiences are at a dramatically greater risk for negative outcomes from academic failure to substance abuse. They can also lose up to 20 years of life expectancy due to chronic health conditions and are 3x more likely to continue the cycle of abuse later in life. When children develop to their highest potential, the community benefits from improved economic, civic, and health outcomes. By working together, we can build stronger families with thriving children.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
abcProgram
Comprehensive prenatal education and breastfeeding support services led by certified professionals for families who are expecting or have recently welcomed a child into their lives.
Baby Bungalow
A parent-child together learning and resource center with a series of educational playgroups and developmental screenings available in locations throughout Hillsborough County. Specific offerings are tailored to the developmental stages of participating children.
Family Learning Center
Parenting classes, new mom support groups, visitation playgroups, reflective groups, and child development seminars for mothers undergoing treatment for substance abuse at DACCO Behavioral Health. FLC also serves as an Eckerd Early Head Start and School Readiness Provider, enrolling children from newborn to 3 years old.
Great We Grow in Town N' Country
A parent-child together learning and resource center with workshops promoting strong attachment and healthy childhood development, offered bilingually in English and Spanish in a community-based setting in the Town ‘n’ Country area.
Fathers Resource and Networking Community (FRANC)
Offers fathers and fathers-to-be Nurturing Dads Program, Boot Camp for New Dads, and opportunities to connect with other dads.
Healthy Families
Home visiting program that offers parents information on their child’s development; healthy ways of dealing with everyday stress; help setting and achieving personal and family goals; positive parenting and discipline skills; and connections to community services.
Layla's House
A parent-child together learning and resource center in the heart of Tampa’s Sulphur Springs Community, with services tailored toward parents of children aged birth to 5 years old, as well as expectant mothers.
Kids on the Block
Educational puppetry performances that teach Hillsborough County third and fourth graders how to safely recognize and report child abuse, neglect, and bullying when it happens to them or to their peers.
Parents as Teachers (PAT)
Home visiting program that uses the most current research to promote healthy development and school readiness for children and families, prenatal through kindergarten.
Positive Parenting & Partnerships (P3)
Tailored interventions designed to positively impact parenting skills; healthy relationships among co-parents; marriage and couple stability; financial health; and parenting confidence.
Where we work
Accreditations
Council on Accreditation (COA) 2004
External reviews

Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of clients served
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Caregivers, Parents
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Includes parents, caregivers and children served in all programs.
Number of customers reporting satisfaction with program
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Caregivers, Parents
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
2021 number represents 98% of 2365 total survey participants. Previous year numbers represent 98%, 99%, 98%, and 96% of survey participants in years 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016, respectively.
Percentage of parents who are involved with their child's development after completing our programs.
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Caregivers, Parents
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of participants who would recommend program to others
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Caregivers, Parents
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
2018 number represents 99% of 1936 survey participants
Percentage of parents who increased their parenting skills.
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Caregivers, Parents
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Decreasing
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Champions for Children's mission to prevent child abuse and neglect through family education is operationalized by helping families to accomplish the following key goals:
(1) Develop parenting skills and knowledge that support strong, healthy parent-child attachments.
(2) Strengthen core life skills that contribute to improved family well-being.
(3) Reduce their sources of stress in order to mitigate risk factors for child abuse and neglect.
(4) Increase their knowledge of healthy child development, which is a key protective factor against child abuse and neglect.
In addition to these positive programmatic outcomes, Champions follows a strategic plan developed by the Board of Directors which establishes the following goals for related to organizational operations:
(1) Review and optimize programs to ensure relevance to current issues and demographic needs, as well as efficiency and effectiveness.
(2) Diversify and expand funding to ensure sustainability of programs.
(3) Increase community awareness to ensure strong recruitment of target population and public support.
(4) Maximize organizational capacity to ensure ability to deliver the highest quality programs possible.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Champions for Children accomplishes our programmatic goals by delivering a comprehensive range of science-based programs for families. These programs, which utilize dozens of distinct services offered at numerous locations throughout Hillsborough County, are organized into three core service strategies:
(1) Family Education and Individualized Support:
[a] Classes and Groups rooted in science and designed to help parents develop skills to raise healthy, thriving children.
[b] Individualized supports delivered by experts including professional lactation support for breastfeeding mothers, case management for families with high needs, and phone-based support via our Parent Warm Line.
(2) Parent-Child Educational Programs:
[a] Home visiting services and educational playgroups that utilize research-informed activities to help parents build strong, healthy attachments with their infants and toddlers while learning together.
[b] Developmental screenings for children help parents learn about their child’s progress, what to do when there are concerns, and how best to support them as they grow.
(3) Community Education:
[a] In-school educational puppet shows teaching children to safely recognize and report abuse, neglect, bullying and other personal safety issues.
[b] Public awareness activities designed to educate our community about issues affecting children and families and the opportunities to address them.
Strategies for achieving our operational goals regularly evolve according to ever-changing circumstances and needs. However, examples of recent strategies can be found under the "progress" section below.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Founded in 1977, Champions for Children has grown in the Tampa Bay area's leading agency dedicated exclusively to the prevention of child abuse and neglect through family education. Champions' programs and services have been nationally accredited by the Council on Accreditation of Children and Family Service Organizations (COA) since 2004. We have also been designated as Champions for Children Brazelton Touchpoints ™ Site of Tampa Bay and serve as the local anchor agency for the Tampa Bay arm of the nationally recognized Talk Read Sing Community Campaign.
Champions for Children is led by a Board of Directors composed of up to 30 members representing a broad cross-section of the Tampa Bay business, philanthropic, and social service communities. Day to day management of the organization is overseen by senior staff who are highly credentialed and experienced in their areas of work. In total, Champions employs a diverse team of approximately 120 full- and part-time employees who complete rigorous and ongoing training to ensure the highest possible quality, effectiveness, and cultural competency of services for the families who participate in our programs. More than a third of our staff are bilingual and a majority are people of color, reflecting the community we serve.
Every year, Champions undergoes an independent financial audit and consistently receives a clean report verifying strong financial position and practices. As a long-time recipient in good standing of federal, local, and private grant funding, Champions has a long and successful history of meeting or exceeding our programmatic outcomes and a demonstrated commitment to transparency, as exemplified both by quality contractual reporting and voluntary publication of results across diverse media.
Additionally our COA accreditation is renewed every four years, requiring a rigorous peer-driven process that ensures our services are well-coordinated, culturally competent, evidence-based, outcomes-oriented, and provided by a skilled and supported workforce. Over 2,000 organizations — voluntary, public, and proprietary; local and statewide; large and small — have either successfully achieved, or are in the process of, accreditation. Achieving COA accreditation means our organization is among the best in the field. We are proud to be a part of this community of excellence.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
The following examples demonstrate Champions' progress during 2020 toward our programmatic outcomes. These examples are organized under the goals to which they correspond. After participating in our programs:
(1) Develop parenting skills and knowledge that support strong, healthy parent-child attachments.
[a] 96% of parents are active in supporting their child's healthy development
[b] 77% of parents increased their parenting skills
(2) Strengthen core life skills that contribute to improved family well-being.
[a] 73% of families experienced overall improved well-being
[b] 90% of parents reported increased social supports
(3) Reduce their sources of stress in order to mitigate risk factors for child abuse and neglect.
[a] 82% of parents reported fewer symptoms of depression
[b] 100% of parents reported increased connection to concrete supports
(4) Increase their knowledge of healthy child development, which is a key protective factor against child abuse and neglect.
[a] 94% of parents increased their knowledge of healthy and safety topics
[b] 88% of children increased their school readiness skills
Additionally, 87% of children who participated in our Kids on the Block educational puppetry performances increased their knowledge about topics including child abuse, neglect, bullying, and stereotyping.
With respect to our operational goals, here are just a few examples of progress we made in 2019, organized according to the goals with which they correspond:
(1) Review and optimize programs to ensure relevance to current issues and demographic needs, as well as efficiency and effectiveness.
- Completed a rigorous, expert-led examination of the effectiveness and value of every one of our program activities, which was reviewed and analyzed by staff leadership and the Board of Directors in order to support informed decision-making about program strategies.
- Identified and addressed a need for trauma-informed practices and training across all programs to ensure our staff are best equipped to serve families with high levels of trauma and need.
(2) Diversify and expand funding to ensure sustainability of programs.
- Secured 100% funding for our newest program via a multi-funder collaborative in which no single funder contributes a majority of revenue.
- Pursued funding for new or expanded programs primarily through new source.
(3) Increase community awareness to ensure strong recruitment of target population and public support.
- Grew social media viewership and engagement by more than 500%.
- Increased engagement with traditional press to promote the availability of our services to families who need them.
(4) Maximize organizational capacity to ensure ability to deliver highest quality programs possible.
- Leveraged new technology to increase efficiency of remote work and availability of "virtual
programming."
- Increased the % of our employees who are "moderately, very, or extremely satisfied" with their employment to 100%.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Champions for Children, Inc.
Board of directorsas of 01/31/2022
Dianne Jacob
PNC Bank
Term: 2022 - 2024
Richard Nielsen
13th Judicial Circuit Court
Laura-Elizabeth Ware
Oracle
Willisha Williams
TECO
Joan Zinober
Kimberly Renfroe
Tampa Bay Wallstreet
Parker Rabow
Florida Fantasy Fishing Camp
Kay Wilson
Dianne Jacob
PNC Bank
Lara Fernandez
Trenam
Ann Gormly
Marian Winters
Malcolm Harris
Greg Hargrove
Raymond James
Bonnie Saks
Private Practice
Moira Burke
Alexis Deveaux
Keith Fakhoury
Kathleen Heide
Kristi Irwin-Newberry
Selena Majeed
Mark Stoker
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? GuideStar partnered on this section with CHANGE Philanthropy and Equity in the Center.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
No data
No data
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 01/31/2022GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
- We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.