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