My Role as an Advocate

I have spoken about my beginnings in earlier postings.  My motivation began with my parents.  I remember a time when my brother participated in the local Special Olympics and to see the amount of people in the community coming together for one cause.   Ensuring that each child participates in a physical activity (with assistance of course) and having FUN!  That is what it was all about! 

Being a mother of two has brought about feelings that I never experienced.  I have recently assisted with the PTO with my daughter’s middle school and with that in mind I want to close that gap between my child’s teacher and myself.  Building those relationships gives me the ability to learn of needs and wants that they want to improve the educational needs of the children in the community.

It is always essential to know about both micro and macro levels.  Being effective at the micro level requires you to have knowledge of children, families, and the community resources. Being effective at the macro level requires the knowledge of micro level and also the knowledge of the legislative process.  Both are effective and are creating change for the lives of our state and local programs.  We see more and more community leaders including early childhood programs involved in their advocacy plans.  I believe that in order for a community leader that they need to have the experience or an experienced advisor that has worked hand in hand in the early childhood field.  Just as we have in the master’s course, it is easier to advocate because most of us have connections to the early childhood field. 

As I have become more informative with the coming up elections witnessing debates among my state leaders has put a smile and a frown at the same time.  Every politician is going to try to sell you a solution to a problem to get the vote, but I want to see more resources used in their speeches and actual results to be visible.  Our state leaders will need to build those relationships with the community that need to include volunteering their time to meet with the community and finding out what they need. 

I find as an educator to the families I serve, using Parent Advisory Board meetings, newsletters, conferences with their teachers are all ways to mobilize others.  Getting the needs and wants for our children to have in order to keep up with society and to become successful stewards for the future.  Working side by side with other advocates and new educators I believe has only assisted with my ability to push forward with the improvement of my program.  The best advice I could ever give others that are taking a leadership role in advocating would to be to network.  Networking within the community will only validate the subject that needs to be advocated for.  Working among those that have experience and those that are fresh with ideas is needed as well.