Advocacy and Leadership

Why Is Advocacy Important Because public policies at the national, state, and local levels have a tremendous impact on the financing and quality of early childhood education, on reimbursement and compensation of professionals and services providers, and on supporting the system infrastructure needed to deliver quality programs for all children Because early childhood professionals need to be the lead voice on what policies are needed to promote our goal of a well- financed, high quality system of early childhood education for all children. Others will speak for us if we do not use our voices in constructive ways. We can be change agents, or we can be the recipients of changes that we did not influence. Effective public policy advocacy work requires intentionality, which in turn requires organization. If all of us work independently without a well-defined vision and capacity to act and react to changing political, social and economic contexts, we will not make the progress that is needed. If we work together strategically, we can cause the changes that we seek for children, families and the professionals in the field. (NAEYC, 2004)

How To Advocate You are children’s best and most important advocate!

Know Who Represents You District Representative Finder

Leadership: Developing Talent Click on the speaker to listen to a very informative radio broadcast on how leadership can develop talent in the workplace. The speaker is a well-known author with several books on leadership and teamwork.