MISSION

The mission of Inner City-Inner Child is to improve the quality of early childhood education for children ages 0 to 5 living in Washington, DC’s most economically disadvantaged communities. We inspire a life-long love of learning and books through arts-based literacy programs for children, their teachers and families.

VISION

Inner City-Inner Child envisions a world in which every child has access to quality early childhood education and enters kindergarten ready to learn.

About Us

For over two decades, Inner City-Inner Child, the arts education/literacy program of Dumbarton Concerts, has provided quality arts integration and early childhood development programs to low-income, community-based early childhood centers throughout Washington, D.C. Dumbarton Concerts began community outreach in 1987 with a program called Live Music Now!, an initiative to bring music out of the concert hall and into isolated neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. Through this work, we discovered that young children had the greatest unmet needs in our community. In response, Inner City-Inner Child was created in 1994 to reach the District’s neediest children. ICIC programs work to create an environment that supports school readiness for the neediest preschool children in our Nation’s Capital by introducing teachers and children to the power of integrating the arts with academics. By helping centers become accredited, and stay accredited by the National Association for the Accreditation Education of Young Children (NAEYC), ICIC improves the quality of early childhood education in DC.