Ian Forber-Pratt is many things, but what’s immediately, indelibly, evident is that he is a man of focus. Though his route has been circuitous, he’s been guided by an unwavering and intensely personal mission. “It was very clear to me that I needed to be connected to India, since I was born there, and give back in some way.”

An adoptee from India who earned a graduate degree in sociology, Forber-Pratt combined the macro and the micro, infusing his policy understanding with a personal drive to provide a better future for Indian children less fortunate than he. “I sold everything and moved to India with the idea of starting the first foster care organization in India.”

His persistence paid off, and Forber-Pratt made history, founding Foster Care India (now called the Indian Foster Care Society). Recognizing the need for governmental policy to protect and buttress his organization’s work, Forber-Pratt soon found himself writing and lobbying for child protection legislation in India, and later, for Sri Lanka and other countries. 

However, this much needed and life-saving work put him in the crosshairs of child-trafficking crime rings. Turning that focus to the safety of his own burgeoning family, Forber-Pratt relocated to the United States and put his policy experience to work again, founding the Institute for Child Welfare Innovation. 

Ian Forber-Pratt has since sold the Institute for Child Welfare Innovation and is working to create systemic, holistic protections in place for children around the globe, as the deputy executive director of Chidren’s Emergency Relief International, or CERI. 

“The India abroad at Principia College changed my life,” recalls Forber-Pratt. “Principia and Christian Science gave me the tools I needed to figure out right and wrong in real time, and not see myself as limited.”