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The Children’s Agenda: At the Intersection of Advocacy and Organizing

Advocacy vs Organizing

Advocates can be seen informing policies – in the media, in policy memos and testimony, in reports, etc. Organizers can be seen in communities providing a platform for people impacted by policies to push for changes themselves.

At The Children’s Agenda (TCA), organizers make parents and caregivers aware of their power, equip them with the necessary tools to advocate, and provide platforms for them to use their power as changemakers and leaders in the community. Advocates at TCA look to these activated and organized parents when developing campaign strategies for local and statewide advocacy campaigns, conducting research, writing testimony, publishing reports, and serving on government-appointed task forces.

The Children’s Agenda exists at the intersection of advocacy and organizing, where there are valuable opportunities to create systemic change that is driven not only by strong research and data, but by empowered people and communities.

The Roles of the Organizer

Midwest Academy is an organization that “trains people in the skills and strategies needed to build powerful organizations and governing majorities that win important victories for their communities and drive forward the movement for justice for all.”

Several TCA staff have graduated from the Midwest Academy’s Organizing for Justice: Direct Action Organizing training over the years, which has been an incredible resource for our team. This Chicago-based organization has provided TCA staff with tools and frameworks that have been tried and tested throughout the history of movement-based work.

The Midwest Academy describes five key roles of an organizer:

BUILDING THE BASE

Going to where parents are and recruiting them into our movement.

DEVELOPING LEADERS

Leadership development must be built into an organization! Leadership development includes workshops and trainings, and organizers rely on relationship building to advance leaders based on their strengths, self-interest, and lived expertise.

Midwest Academy provides the following ladder for leadership development:

RUNNING AND WINNING STRATEGIC CAMPAIGNS

Organize people around issue-based campaigns! Choosing an issue requires asking and listening to people impacted by a specific problem, developing possible solutions to the problem, and strategically selecting a partial set of solutions – also known as priorities – to run and win a strategic campaign.

Some examples of the issue-based campaigns that The Children’s Agenda focuses on include:

  • Kids Can’t Wait Campaign for New York State to invest in the Early Intervention Program and Preschool Special Education so that infants and toddlers with developmental delays and disabilities receive the timely and comprehensive services they are legally entitled to under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA).
  • Solutions Not Suspensions Campaign for New York State to pass the Solutions Not Suspensions bill, which limits the use of exclusionary discipline in all NY schools and promotes restorative policies that are proven to improve school climate and disrupt the school to prison and deportation pipeline.
  • The Empire State Campaign for Child Care for NY to invest in the child care workforce and create a universal child care system in the state so that care is affordable and accessible for ALL families.
  • The NY Can End Child Poverty Campaign for New York State to pass policies that put more money in the pockets of families and strengthen existing programs in ways that are proven to raise children out of poverty and into opportunity.
BUILDING THE ORGANIZATION

Create sustainable containers in which we can build community power. New York is home to a plethora of organizations that can be thought of as sustainable containers for us to build power in our communities. A few examples include:

  • The Children’s Agenda (TCA)
  • Families Together NYS (FTNYS)
  • Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative (RMAPI)
  • Citizens Committee for Children (CCC)
  • VOCAL-NY
  • Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy NY (SCAA)
  • Greater Rochester Parent Leadership Training Institute (PLTI)
  • Advocates For Children (AFC)
  • Alliance for Quality Education (AQE)
  • Children’s Defense Fund (CDF)
  • Adirondack Birth to Three (ADK BT3)
BUILDING THE MOVEMENT

Build alliances, take strategic risks, and grow the movement through coalitions.

To learn more about The Midwest Academy, please visit About Us – Midwest Academy

To see who is on staff at TCA and learn more about our advocacy and organizing work, please visit Our Team – The Children’s Agenda

To get involved with our organizing efforts, please visit Join an Advocacy Group – The Children’s Agenda

Sushmitha Madaboosi is Senior Advocacy Coordinator with The Children’s Agenda