About UFC
United Friends of the Children is dedicated to the premise that foster youth deserve a successful adulthood.
Through our Housing and Education Programs, foster youth are provided with the opportunity to graduate from high school, attend and graduate from college, get a job, find housing and have a support system that moves them gradually towards independence.
Our goal is that the youth in our programs not only survive, but that they thrive.
History
In 1979, UFC was founded by Nancy M. Daly to respond to the unmet needs of Los Angeles’ most vulnerable and underserved population — foster youth.
Ms. Daly remembers, “Thirty years ago, a group of friends and I were interested in finding ways to help the foster children housed at MacLaren Children’s Center in Los Angeles. I was sick to my stomach because these children were treated like animals, as if they had done something wrong and were living in an environment that felt like a prison.”
Out of that initial response to injustice, United Friends of the Children was born. Since that time, UFC has been instrumental in affecting change in the Los Angeles County foster care system, providing foster youth with the opportunity to graduate from high school, attend college, live in an apartment, find a job and have a support system that moves them gradually towards independence. At the core of each UFC program is the belief that the best way to make a difference in the lives of foster youth is to provide reliable relationships over time. Thus, all of UFC’s programs focus on consistency and commitment.
UFC encourages foster youth to develop vision and initiative and gives them the tools, motivation, support, and opportunities they need to lead independent, fulfilled lives.