The one thing that got me started wanting to advocate for young children were when a young cousin of mine died from SIDS. After finding out about it and then reading about it in the newspaper it was heartbreaking. The mother was vilified by the community because she let her child die. After learning about SIDS and the causes of it earlier in a previous class, it makes me realize that there needs to be more education about this issue than there has been. My uncle still feels bad about that daughter that died so suddenly. I want to help other parents be able to prevent this from happening to them.
It is important to foster advocacy at both the macro and micro levels because both the small group and individuals as well as the larger group can all benefit from the information that is presented on important early childhood issues. It takes someone who is willing to share information with others when this can help advocacy on either the macro- or micro- level. A community leader can be someone who has a passion to help and is willing to share the resources that are available with other people.
The resources needed to be a state leader in early childhood issues is someone that has been successful at being a community leader with regards to advocating for issues that are important. These resources have to be well established in order for a state leader to be most effective. Someone that has a lot of passion and the ability to lay out the information that can and will help the most people is just as important as being a good leader. When it comes to mobilizing other people, someone who is organized with their information and has all of the facts and evidence laid out is going to have an easier time of getting people to work together on issues that effect the early childhood field than someone who is less likely to be as organized. Another strategy is the ability to build relationships with other early childhood advocates and EC organizations that have the ability to also help with advocacy issues. This and working with people that are good at being able to answer financial questions that come up is another important tactic. Being able to work with people that have the financial backing is also going to help when trying to mobilize people to advocate for other people.
The advice that I would give someone is to persevere. The process is going to be long and take a lot of energy and time. Also gather people around you that you can feed off of and encourage and they can encourage you when things get too difficult. In order to be an effective advocate, having the passion continue even when things get really difficult is going to be the biggest test of whether something is going to get done or not. It is one thing to have the passion, but when you collaborate with other people that have the same passion and perseverance that you do, together the group can continue even after all of the “no’s” that come. Among all of the no’s there will be someone that will listen to what you have to say who will have the power to say yes and can help push the issue along further.