About Us
Letter from the Chairperson
Welcome to the Florida Children's Services Council web site. Children’s Services Councils (CSCs) are unique public organizations that focus on primary prevention and early intervention in our individual counties. Through planning, data, research and funding, we support the healthy social, cognitive, emotional, and physical development of our communities’ children. The intended result is children born healthy, who enter school ready to learn, and succeed in school and in life without ever experiencing the child protection or juvenile justice system.
Why prevention? Imagine a mountain village surrounded by steep and jagged cliffs where many children are injured in falls on the treacherous terrain. Town officials have two choices in how to handle this -- pay the growing costs of hospital and emergency care to continue fixing the injuries, or build a fence to keep children from falling in the first place.
CSCs are the fence builders for children and families in our communities.
Each CSC does its work based on the individuality and personality of the county in which they work; however, we all share common principles:
- We are passionate about primary prevention and early intervention.
- We base investments in services and programs on science, data and research that lead to continuous learning, improvement and innovation.,/li>
- We ensure that we, and the organizations we fund, operate using sound business practices.
- We advocate for best practice in programming, public policy and public expenditure of dollars.
It is through our statewide association, the Florida CSC, that we learn from each other, and share our successes, failures, challenges and opportunities. We work together to advance a unified agenda for children and families in the state of Florida.
Read through this web site. Follow links to the individual CSCs, and you will feel as we do – that preventing or intervening early in a child or family’s life is the best investment, offering great savings in both economic and human terms.
Welcome, and join us in our efforts to build those fences.
Tana Ebbole
Florida CSC Chairperson
CEO, CSC of Palm Beach County
