Governor's Conference on Children's Services Transformation
Ralph F. Boyd, Jr.
EVP, Community Relations, Freddie Mac and President and CEO, Freddie Mac Foundation
Richmond, VA
As Prepared
Dec. 17, 2009
Thank you Governor Kaine and First Lady Holton. It’s a privilege for us to receive this award, and to work with you and our partners here in Virginia to make a profound difference in the lives of young people.
I’m honored to share the awards podium with Casey, the leader in the field nationwide on child welfare and reform issues.
We were proud to help launch the First Lady’s For Keeps Initiative nearly two years ago. Since then, significant strides have been made, and the future is really promising.
Although you’ll be stepping down as First Lady, and will be greatly missed, we look forward to building on the improvements we’ve seen and continuing to work on behalf of Virginia’s foster children.
Thank you both for taking on an issue that is complex and challenging, yet critical, and making it a top priority.
All of us here share a common goal: to transform the lives of young people who rely on us for help. But it is the practitioners on the ground, working one on one with children and families, or leading change in our agencies – you are the ones who make the difference.
This issue is very personal for me. My wife and I adopted a brother and sister from foster care, in Boston. So we know first hand how important you are in changing a child’s life.
At the Freddie Mac Foundation, our mission is to make home a place where children and families thrive. And as part of that, we focus on finding homes for young people in foster care and providing them the help they need to succeed. So the “For Keeps” initiative was really a perfect fit for us.
We also work to fulfill our mission through programs like the Freddie Mac Foundation’s Wednesday’s Child and National Adoption Day, which we just celebrated a few weeks ago. Wednesday’s Child helps find adoptive homes for children in foster care, here in Virginia and in other regions nationwide. Both of these efforts increase public awareness of the plight of foster children.
We invest in public and private child welfare agencies, training and development efforts, and partner with nonprofits like FACES to support foster, adoptive and kinship families. Earlier this year we were involved in the Richmond housing summit on youth aging out of foster care.
The lives of these children and their futures are really in the balance. This issue is critical on so many levels – for each and every child, for the families, and for our communities. So I don’t say it lightly when I say how much we value your efforts, and how much it means to us to be a small part of something so important. Thank you.