The Office of Child Development is a university-community partnership dedicated to improving the lives of children, youth, and families. Through interdisciplinary collaborations across research, practice, and policy, we strive to turn knowledge into action and respond creatively and collaboratively to challenges facing children in Pittsburgh and around the world. In alignment with the Pitt School of Education's mission-vision, we have created our own specifically for serving children and families.
Vision
Our vision is a just world, rooted in love, where children and families have the resources, support, and relationships needed to thrive.
Mission
- We engage in authentic relationships with children, adults and systems to create socially just and healthy communities.
- We center child, family, and community voices as our primary experts, particularly those who have been marginalized.
- We challenge and disrupt oppression within ourselves, others, and in systems.
- We bridge multiple perspectives and ways of knowing.
- We co-create conditions for children & families to exercise agency over their futures.
Our History
Our Shared Definitions
Justice is a process of repairing harms in a way that is loving, affirming, & community strengthening. Justice addresses the root causes of the issue so it is less likely to happen again. Justice is not retaliation.
Healing is a beautiful, challenging, gradual, & never-ending path. It is a process to recognize harms, make whole, repair, return to health, mend, comfort, & contend with wrongdoings. Healing happens on different levels: personal, familial, communal, national, and global.
Accountability is a consensual & agentic process. It asks each of us to take responsibility for our actions and accept our feelings, regardless of repercussions. One cannot be forced into accountability because it demands honesty, confrontation & confidence & an [often public] assertion of who I am & where I am going. Healing & transformation are not possible without accountability.
Transformation is an active & never-ending change into something fundamentally different. A collection of tiny movements leading to a massive shift. Knowledge & experience are gained.
Freedom is having the capacity to move through every aspect of life unapologetically, authentically & without resistance. This unalienable right reminds us that we each have responsibility for liberating ourselves & others. Freedom is collective.
Love is seeing & embracing humanity in all people, & being committed to achieving justice for everyone, unconditionally. This kind of love challenges, corrects, acknowledges power, & makes space for all. It is because of love, that we hold each other accountable when harm is done.