About Children First
Children First, formerly Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY), is a dynamic, fast-paced child advocacy organization focused on improving the lives of children by building support and momentum to improve local, state and/or federal policies that can promote racial and economic equity for children as they grow up in southeastern Pennsylvania. Our staff is a group of highly motivated individuals who are passionate about improving the lives of children and youth. Through bipartisan advocacy, we have a record of winning scale level changes that do just that. To be successful at Children First you must enjoy collaborating and helping coworkers do their best and contribute to a respectful workplace that values a commitment to racial diversity, having fun, and making an impact.

Children First has 3 open positions:

1. Fellow, Juvenile Justice-Child Welfare (12 months)
2. Hispanic Child Policy Project Director
3. Digital Content Creator (contract)

Fellow, Juvenile Justice-Child Welfare (12 months)

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Overview

Children First is seeking an outgoing individual with good organizational skills to support a 12-month effort focused on strengthening and expanding our statewide juvenile justice and child welfare advocacy efforts by supporting the organization of a series of convenings across the state of Pennsylvania for stakeholders, and the development of communications materials and proposed policy changes.

Key Duties

• Outreach and Engagement – Organize and execute up to four regional convenings to promote engagement and coordination across the diverse geography of Pennsylvania. Each planned convening will build a vision for the future of juvenile justice in Pennsylvania, both from a statewide and regional lens.

• Relationship Development and Management – Support development of a coalition strategy to build and maintain ongoing relationship with system-impacted youth and parents and youth and parent organizers.

• Communications – Develop and disseminate communications materials, including marketing materials for convenings and broader advocacy materials for use by coalition members to advance 2025-2026 policy goals.

• Facilitation – In collaboration with Policy Director, provide additional convening support to statewide juvenile justice coalition by co-facilitating meetings and other events, supporting development of meeting agendas and minutes, and sending all-member communications.

• Identification of Policy Priorities and Strategy – Partner with stakeholders, including parents, to identify state- and local-level policy changes that will decrease child placements and promote child and family well-being. This includes a focus on foster care prevention, support for children and families impacted by foster care, reduction of congregate care placements, and promoting the safety and well-being of children in residential facilities.

• Policy Brief – Assist in the development of a child welfare policy brief that will contain background information on the current state of child welfare systems, as well as proposed reforms to the child welfare system

Qualifications, Education, Experience & Skills

• Knowledge (to include professional and/or lived expertise) of policy and practices in the child welfare and/or juvenile justice systems, including familiarity with statutes, regulations, practices and operational systems.
• Experience coordinating events, including logistics, development of agendas, engaging dynamic speakers, and conducting marketing and outreach activities.
• Written and oral communication skills, including meeting facilitation and public speaking, and proficiency with social media.
• Experience maintaining and motivating coalitions to achieve high-level goals
• Detail oriented with the ability to collect, interpret, and simplify large datasets
• Advanced degree (MA/MS, JD, Ph.D) preferred, but will consider current graduate students.

Important Skills

• Ability to collaborate with others in a hybrid work environment
• Ability and desire to work in a bi-partisan manner
• Works well under pressure while prioritizing and managing multiple projects
• Willingness and ability to travel around the State to meet with partners and lawmakers
• Ability to participate in events and meetings outside of normal business hours, typically 2-3 times a week in the evening, and 1-2 weekends a month.
• Proficient in Excel, Word, PowerPoint and social media platforms
• Driver’s license and background clearances for working with children

Reports to: Vulnerable Youth Policy Director

Salary: $65,000 with full benefits

Apply: Resume and cover letter to info@childrenfirstpa.org.

Hispanic Child Policy Project Director

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Overview

Children First ambitiously works to remove the obstacles in the way of a great childhood for every child.  We think big, creating new programs or systems at scale that offer children what they need, especially children of color and those growing in families with limited financial means.  For instance, when working class families could not afford health insurance for their children, we led the grassroots campaign to create the PA Children’s Health Insurance Program that now makes it possible for nearly every child to be insured.  Locally, we galvanized Philadelphians to support the sweetened beverage tax that gives 5,000 children free access to great pre-k programs. We are looking to add a leader to our team to work within the Hispanic community to create a shared vision for making the lives of Hispanic children better and uniting behind game changing policies that ensure Philadelphia’s Hispanic children are prepared for a lifetime of success.  While the project we are undertaking is expected to take one year to complete, it will make a lasting contribution to the lives of these children. 

Why you do this

The Hispanic Child Policy Project Director will lead a 12-month community input, data gathering and planning project to construct a preliminary policy and advocacy agenda focused on big system changes that improve the lives of Hispanic children. This is a unique opportunity if you are passionate about our children’s future, experienced in policy and advocacy, and adept at leading teams to get results for these children and pave the way for years of sustained and powerful advocacy to achieve the vision and system changes outline in the agenda.

Candidate profile

The right candidate is a leader with strong strategic thinking skills able to design and lead a 12-month community input, data gathering and planning project to construct a preliminary policy and advocacy agenda and proposed structure for supporting the agenda all aimed at moving Philadelphia closer to meeting the needs of Hispanic children in Philadelphia. We are looking for a leader with keen start-up instincts with a tested set of technical and interpersonal skills that can unify stakeholders.

Professional Characteristics

• Engagement Process Management – Create and facilitate effective processes that identify and recruit key stakeholders, engage individuals in deliberations, track engagement, and pro-actively build sub-networks among those engaged.
• Writing/Presentation Development that Promotes Collaboration – Use technical writing and information presentation skills to create documents that support collaboration and decision-making including clear meeting agendas, meeting summaries, decision-making memos, and briefing documents that effectively present data, context and solutions.
• Strategic Judgement and Action – Understand and manage the nuances associated with unifying disparate stakeholders for the purpose of policy and advocacy, be nimble and respond to needs of those with particular interests, identify and optimize opportunities associated with particularly stakeholder interests or resources, and pro-actively solve substantive conflicts using effective collaboration/mediation techniques.
• Start-up Instincts – Be a risk taker that is comfortable with launching ambiguous processes/ goals, and via effective and thoughtful processes achieve clarity with respect to purpose, goals, objectives, structure and accountability mechanisms.
• Managing Group Processes to Make Decisions – Experience designing effective meeting processes that gather useful data and enable a broad cross section of individuals to reach agreement on processes, problems and solutions.
• Patience and Persistence – Eagerness to spend time in one-to-one conversations with stakeholders to build engagement in policy/advocacy discussions, experience making effective cases for engagement and for policies, capacity to crystalize key points so that engagement is productive and leads to action.

Responsibilities

• Outreach and Engagement – Engage a broad cross section of Hispanic grasstops and emerging leaders and community residents in ongoing discussions about the data in the Pa’lante report with the goal of gathering qualitative data that comports or differs from the known data, identify areas where additional research is needed to inform effective policy solutions.
• Promotion – Inform reporters, columnists and other key media stakeholders about the findings in the Pa’Lante report and work with them to create highly visible venues to increase public discussion of the report findings and need for action. Key outlets include Spanish speaking media, traditional media outlets and social media influencers.
• Relationship Development and Management – Build and maintain ongoing connections with peer organizations, individuals and collaborations conducting research about the Hispanic communities in Philadelphia and those examining the needs of children to discuss areas where more research is needed to either better understand challenges and/or inform policy solutions with the goal of meeting the full range of needs of Hispanic children.
• Organization Building – Develop a proposed structure(s) for consideration among key stakeholders for guiding and advising the processes and approaches for steps 1-3 and manage the operation of the agreed to structure.
• Project Planning – Create and manage a 12-month timeline that supports the relationship management, information sharing and decision-making processes necessary to reach agreement on a preliminary policy agenda and organizational structure to launch the agenda.
  

Location:  Candidates should be local to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area or willing to relocate. This is a hybrid position requiring one full day in the office per week in addition to periodic in-person meetings. 

Reports to: Executive Director

Salary: $90,000 to $110,000 with full benefits depending on experience

Apply: Resume and cover letter to info@childrenfirstpa.org.

Digital Content Creator (contract)

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Scope of Work

Social media is an essential tool for Children First to engage the general public to advance public policy that benefits children and teens. We are seeking to enter into a contract with a digital content creator(s) who will develop video and text for social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok) in order to amplify our advocacy efforts.

The digital content creator will be responsible for the idea, execution, and posting of effective social media content at the direction of Children First. This includes travel throughout southeastern Pennsylvania and Harrisburg to capture footage of Children First events, legislative meetings, and in-person interviews.

Children First covers a range of child policy topics including early education, K-12 education, juvenile justice, health, mental health, and parent and youth engagement. The ideal vendor would have the capacity to generate social media content on these topics and have a proven track record in 1) digital storytelling, 2) hard-hitting political messages, and 3) fun/entertaining content that presents complicated issues in a relatable way.

This scope of work can be broken down in multiple contracts with vendors depending on technical/creative capabilities (digital storytelling, hard-hitting political messages, fun/entertaining content) or issue expertise.

Contract Deliverables

• Develop a clear strategy to increase advocacy engagements, post likes and shares, and social media channel followers.
• Implement the strategy after soliciting feedback from staff.
• Meet weekly for editorial direction.
• Develop storyboards, design, and key messaging before production.
• Optimize posts by using available analytics to continually improve the reach.

Minimum Qualifications

• A person or firm with an established track record of followers and visibility (minimum on 7,000) on Facebook, Instagram, X, and/or TikTok.
• Qualified vendors should be able to demonstrate management of social media accounts with a minimum of 7,000 followers.
• Established social media portfolio.
• Excellent editing, organizational, and time management skills.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively.
• Ability to work quickly without compromising quality or accuracy.
• Ability to travel throughout southeastern Pennsylvania and
• Spanish fluency language a plus.

Reports To: Communications Director

To apply: Send a letter of interest which indicates your area(s) of expertise – digital storytelling, hard-hitting political messages, fun/entertaining content – and link(s) to a related social media portfolio to info@childrenfirstpa.org.

Internships

Children First interns gain knowledge and experience in child advocacy and public policy. Interns participate in all aspects of our work including attending rallies, conducting research on children’s issues and creating materials to support our  mission of providing better lives and life chances for children in southeastern Pennsylvania.  At this time, we are only able to offer unpaid internships that are needed as part of college course requirements.  For more information, contact: info at childrenfirstpa.org

Children First is an inclusive, equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in hiring.