I am so pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to the L2FA website and reach out to foster child advocates throughout the community. I am the Executive Director and telephone hotline attorney for Advokids. I co-founded Advokids in 1993 with three child welfare attorneys, a social worker and a child psychologist. We started Advokids in response to the alarming number of infants and small children entering foster care in the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1990’s who were experiencing multiple placements and lingering in temporary care, often for several years. Advokids set out to educate people, both inside and outside of the child welfare system, on the laws designed to get young children out of foster care quickly and to advocate for early placement in stable and permanent homes for those infants and children who cannot not be reunified with their biological families. Since our inception, the laws in dependency court have improved greatly, seeking to drive early permanent placements for our children in foster care. There has also been an explosion of research on early childhood development, confirming the devastating effects that instability and placement disruptions have on the brain development of young children. Unfortunately, despite the law and the science, children continue to wait. Advokids conducts legal educational workshops and seminars for child welfare professionals, including caregivers, social workers, court appointed special advocates, and attorneys. These trainings are designed to arm child advocates with the science and the law that support and require diligent and persistent focus on meeting the psychological and emotional needs of foster children and fulfilling their critical need for stable and permanent homes. Advokids also operates an educational website and a free telephone “hot-line” providing legal information, instruction, and referrals to foster children, their caregivers, and their advocates.