Kimberly Quinley has spent 40 years serving in Thailand with her husband John and their four children (all adults now). Kimberly and John co-founded Step Ahead, an organization committed to seeing all children in Thailand grow up in safe and nurturing families. Currently, Step Ahead is partnering with the Thai government in a pilot project to develop child protection mechanisms. 

Shortly after the 2004 Asian tsunami, Step Ahead built four child development centers in communities ravished by the giant wave and developed a family strengthening program called Keeping Families Together (KFT), partnering with Orphan’s Promise. The KFT curriculum is being used all over the world.  

Kimberly serves as an active, founding member of the UNCRC Alternative Care Thailand (ACT) Coalition and on the Thai government’s Alternative Care Working Group, drafting legislation and implementing policies and procedures. 

Step Ahead partnered with Childline Thailand to pioneer an innovative foster care program as an alternative for asylum-seeker and refugee children living in Bangkok’s notorious and overcrowded Immigration Detention Center. Kimberly served on the government committee that wrote the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the new government’s Memorandum of Understanding to end the detention of children.