The Kempe Mission

The Kempe Center was the first of its kind, established in 1972 to better understand and prevent child maltreatment and to serve affected children and their families. For the past 50 years, Kempe has promoted understanding, knowledge, and best practices to prevent and treat child abuse and neglect locally, nationally, and internationally.

Today we honor our legacy while looking ahead for ways to transform our field. It is our mission to improve the lives of children and families. We believe that abuse and neglect are preventable, and people are resilient. We are curious. We take a stand. We test assumptions. Our leadership in advocacy, research, education, and clinical work drives innovative strategies that transform the field. We ensure the integration of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in all areas of our work by way of discovery, leadership, action, accountability, evaluation, and transformation. In this way and through our work we strengthen families, communities and the systems that serve them. We are a catalyst, connecting people, information, and best practices to translate knowledge into action.

Hear My Voice: The Testimonies of Children Detained at the Southern Border of the United States

This moving picture book for older children and families (written by Professor Warren Binford, Director for Pediatric Law, Ethics & Policy, The Kempe Center and W.H. Lea for Justice Endowed Chair in Pediatric Law, Ethics and Policy, CU Anschutz) introduces a difficult topic, amplifying the voices and experiences of immigrant children detained at the Mexico/US border by using the children's actual words. Every day, children in migration are detained at the US-Mexico border. They are scared, alone, and their lives are in limbo. Hear My Voice/Escucha mi voz shares the stories of 61 these children, from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Ecuador, and Mexico, ranging in age from five to seventeen—in their own words from actual sworn testimonies. Befitting the spirit of the project, the book is in English on one side; then flip it over, and there's a complete Spanish version.