Family first foundation
City of Angels
The program that started it all - Los Angeles, 2001
Trust Is Built
in the spaces
Between Uniforms.
For more than two decades, Family First Foundation has brought students and first responders together where trust can begin naturally, face to face, on school campuses, before a crisis ever puts them in the same room
2001
Est. in Los Angeles
25 years of civic service
The foundation of all that followed
2001
Program founded
25+ YEARS
BUILDING COMMUNITY TRUST
SCHOOL-BASED
WE TAKE THE PROGRAM TO THE STUDENTS
YOUTH + 1st RESPONDERS
ONE SHARED EXPERIENCE
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Our Origin
Twenty-Five Years Ago, We Asked a Different Question.
What happens when a child knows a police officer only from a difficult moment, a siren, a television image, or a story told with fear?
City of Angels was created in 2001 around a simple belief: trust is much easier to build before people meet each other in a crisis.
So Family First began bringing police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and other first responders directly onto school campuses. Students could ask questions, sit inside the vehicles, see the equipment, hear why people chose lives of service, and, most importantly, spend time with the human beings behind the uniforms.
The first responders gain something too. They meet the children behind the statistics, the neighborhoods, and the calls. For a few hours, both sides get to see one another differently.
The Bridge Between
Two Worlds
THE GOAL IS SIMPLE: LET THEM MEET EACH OTHER BEFORE LIFE INTRODUCES THEM UNDER
WORSE CIRCUMSTANCES.
City of Angels is not a lecture about public safety. It is a shared experience.
For students, the uniform becomes a person, someone they can talk to, question, and understand. For first responders, the neighborhood becomes faces, names, personalities, and potential.
That matters because stronger communities are built when contact happens before conflict, and when trust has a chance to exist before it is tested
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WHAT A CITY OF ANGELS DAY LOOKS LIKE
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN CITY OF ANGELS COMES TO SCHOOL?
ARRIVE
First responders come to the school campus. The students do not have to travel to us.
MEET
Students meet officers, firefighters, paramedics, and other public-service professionals as people first.
EXPLORE
They climb into vehicles, see equipment, ask questions, and learn what the work actually looks like.
TALK
Small conversations replace assumptions with real interaction
CONNECT
Students leave with a different frame of reference. First responders leave having met the young people behind the community they serve
WHY SCHOOLS / WHY MIDDLE SCHOOL
WE GO WHERE THE RELATIONSHIPS NEED TO START.
Family First takes City of Angels onto school campuses because that is where young people already have structure, familiarity, and community around them.
Our primary focus is the middle-school years, when perceptions of authority, community, identity, and possibility
are still forming
We do not wait for a difficult encounter to create the first conversation. We create a better first conversation.
COMMUNITY OUTREACH PROGRAMS
CITY OF ANGELS CAN INCLUDE:
FIRST RESPONDER SCHOOL DAYS
Police, fire, paramedic, and public-safety teams spend a structured half day
with students.
CAREER + SERVICE EXPOSURE
Students learn what public-service careers require and what service to a
community can look like
VEHICLE + EQUIPMENT EXPERIENCES
Students explore fire engines, patrol vehicles, rescue equipment, and
the tools of public service
FAMILY / COMMUNITY EVENTS
When appropriate, programs can extend beyond the school day to include
families and community partners.
SMALL-GROUP CONVERSATIONS
Students ask the questions they don't normally get to ask, and first responders have time to answer as people, not just officials.
SPECIAL RESPONSE / COMMUNITY MOMENTS
Family First can activate relationships when local families
and first responders need one another most.
TRUST COMES BEFORE OPPORTUNITY
Family First's broader mission is to help young people stay motivated, become Academic All-Stars, and see college and opportunity as part of their future.
City of Angels builds something even more basic: trust in the community around them.
When students feel seen, supported, and connected to the adults and institutions around them, the path toward learning,
opportunity, and a bigger future becomes easier to walk.
THE UNIFORM IS WHAT THEY SEE FIRST. THE PERSON IS WHAT WE WANT THEM TO
REMEMBER
— Family First Foundation, City of Angels, Est. 2001