Six Steps to Successful Child Advocacy

Amy Conley Wright (MSW, Ph.D, University of California, Berkeley), is an Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Development at San Francisco State University. Her teaching, research, and practice experiences are in the areas of child advocacy, child and family policy, family support, and child maltreatment prevention, both domestically and internationally. She has published a number of peer-reviewed articles in national and international journals, on the topics of birth parent peer support, child maltreatment prevention, child care as a social investment, and strategies for policy advocacy. With James Midgley, she is the co-editor of Developmental Social Work: Investment Strategies and Professional Practice, translated into Japanese, Korean, and Mandarian. Her current research focuses on policy advocacy and advocacy by parents of children with special needs. She is a board member of the International Child Resource Institute, advisory board member and former director of Romanian Children’s Relief, and frequently provides consultation to community organizations.  Kenneth J. Jaffe (M.A., University of California, Berkeley; J.D., John F. Kennedy University) has implemented the Six Steps to Successful Child Advocacy in more than 40 countries. He is the Executive Director of the International Child Resource Institute (ICRI), committed to improving the lives of children and families, with offices and programs worldwide. He is the author of numerous articles on making change for children and co-authored the book Straw into Gold, translated into into Haitian Creole, Nepali and the Ga dialect of Ghana. He has chaired numerous commissions and planning bodies worldwide, including the California Governor′s Advisory Committee on Child Development, and was a founding member of the World Forum on Early Care and Education. He has improved more than 400 children’s programs worldwide and has advised the governments of 15 countries on child and family policy. He has presented hundreds of seminars and keynotes to professionals worldwide and has lectured at universities around the world.

Six Steps for Successful Child Advocacy is an essential guide for advocates throughout the globe.  The tremendous public support that exists for children needs to be harnessed and strategically employed by advocates, and this book provides the blueprint.  The Children’s Movement of California will certainly benefit from the case studies and lessons learned that are so clearly presented in Six Steps.

• ForewordPrefaceChapter 1: IntroductionChapter 2: Parameters of advocacyChapter 3: Planning your project with the six steps to successful child advocacyChapter 4: Step 1--Knowing your issueChapter 5: Step 2, Research for background and impactChapter 6: Step 3--Preparing effective materialsChapter 7: Step 4—Making Meetings That WorkChapter 8: Step 5--Conducting strategic follow-upChapter 9: Step six--Reinforcing successful advocacy outcomesChapter 10: Where do we go from here?