|
Who Speaks for America’s Children? The Role of Child Advocates
in Public Policy
Edited by Carol J. De Vita and Rachel Mosher-Williams
Available at www.urban.org
Reviewed
by Michelle Strasz
In
June 1996, hundreds of child advocates, parents, children,
and reporters from Michigan ventured to join 200,000 fellow
citizens at the national Stand for Children in Washington
D.C. According to Stand for Children founder Marian Wright
Edelman, the goal was to create a national movement to put
children’s well-being on the top of the public and political
agenda.
The
movement spread back to Michigan. On October 5, 1996, 3,000
citizens rallied on the State Capitol lawn to Stand for Children.
Michigan communities hosted their own Stand for Children day
as well.
A
new book Who Speaks for America’s Children?
The Role of Child Advocates in Public Policy available
from the Urban Institute (www.urban.org),
states that “most child advocacy organizations in the
United States have yet to mobilize the necessary level of
public interest to make the welfare of children an overriding
concern in every citizen’s life.” This is despite
the fact that researchers estimate there is one nonprofit
service provider and advocacy organization for every 1,300
children in the U.S. (p. 14).
Bruce
Hopkins defines advocacy as “the active espousal of
a position, a point of view, or a course of action.”
(p. 5). Non- profit advocacy includes a variety of activities
including public education, civic participation, lobbying,
litigation, media advocacy, and influencing election campaigns
through the use of PACs and volunteers.
Who
Speaks For America’s Children? examines the
history, experience, and challenges facing child advocacy
organizations as they look to advance the issues and needs
facing America’s children. The book contains research,
case studies, and interviews with advocacy leaders at the
national, state, and local levels. Volume 1 examines the current
infrastructure of the advocacy network, the role of foundation
support for advocacy, and the place that advocacy organizations
have in our democratic society. Volume 2 examines how advocacy
organizations build and support their constituencies currently,
and the opportunities and challenges in shaping a sustained
community-based, parent supported movement in the future.
According
to the essay, “Non-profit Organizations Engaged in Child
Advocacy”, Michigan has 1,242 501c3 and 391 501c4 organizations
registered with the IRS.
Fundamentally,
child advocacy organizations are in the business of selling
solutions to complex policy, social, and economic problems.
This type of business requires “sufficient analytical,
technical, and political skills” (footnote p. 96). Child
advocacy organizations must take advantage of windows of opportunity,
recognize and anticipate the opposition, marshall sufficient
resources and support for their solutions, monitor outcomes,
and most importantly, persevere.
Child
advocacy organizations need the training, funding, and flexibility
to conduct legislative advocacy. The State Legislative Leaders
Foundation (1995) concluded that “charitable foundations’
unwillingness to support legislative advocacy is the biggest
barrier to non-profit organizations’ ability to underwrite
a sustained and aggressive legislative advocacy program for
children.” (p. 68)
How
can child advocates build their collective capacity to become
more effective political players?
1) Engage grassroots constituencies in civic engagement models
of advocacy—for example, get the vote out; public testimony,
and letters or emails to policymakers.
2) Coalesce around a common policy vision and unified agenda
rather than short term single issue agendas.
3) Conduct bi-partisan outreach and support.
4) Develop broad coalitions across public and private sectors.
As a professional child advocate who specializes in community
advocacy, I find Who Speaks for America’s Children?
a useful reference for strategic planning, and a teaching
tool with the community networks and constituencies I work
with. The essay, “Building a Policy Voice for Children”
offers a Practioner’s Checklist: Questions for Building
Advocacy Capacity (p. 61).
There
is no discussion of the impact that technology has on the
advocacy community particularly the use of the Internet as
a tool for mobilization. Nonprofit advocacy organizations
have been slow to embrace technology either because of a lack
of resources or knowledge about what options are available.
However, advocacy organizations must provide timely and reliable
information online to remain on the cutting edge.
The
authors have challenged me to examine my own advocacy, as
well as the organizations with which I work. Our advocacy
must grow and sustain itself amidst the changing nature of
technology, funding limitations, competing interests, and
politics under term limits. While advocacy may be fundamentally
how we negotiate politics and power, it is passion and motivation
that sustains our vision for children’s well-being.
Michele
Strasz is the Director of Community Outreach for the Michigan
Council for Maternal and Child Health and a child advocacy
consultant specializing in
Election and Internet Utilization for Advocacy. She can be
reached at mtstrasz@aol.com.
|
Research, Practice
and Policy for Families and Communities
In
Kids Who Outwit Adults (Sopris West, 2002),
John Seita, assistant professor in the School
of Social Work, presents a practical guide for understanding
and reaching out to today’s troubled youth. Drawing
on personal accounts and his own experience with foster care,
Dr. Seita gives readers a glimpse of what goes on inside defiant
young minds and what intervention techniques have proven most
effective in helping them.
Children
and adults alike will enjoy Anna Celenza’s
The Farewell Symphony (Charlesbridge Publishing,
2000). This colorful picture book tells the tale of composer
Joseph Haydn and his homesick musicians in the court of Prince
Nicholas of Austria. Based on historic facts and sprinkled with
imagination, this book and CD set bring Haydn’s work to
life while fostering music appreciation. An assistant professor
of musicology in the School of Music, Dr. Celenza researches
the intersection of 19th century music, literature and art.