Preconference Institutes
Sunday, February 25
1:00 - 5:00 P.M.
P4 Create Change: New Strategies and Lessons Learned
Around Local Level Advocacy
Additional registration fee required: free for state leaders,
$75 for conference attendees,
$100 for stand-alone attendance.
Providing services to children and families is an around-the-clock job,
often jeopardized by hard-to-implement policy and disappearing
resources. This institute is dedicated to identifying and battling these
and other challenges, and arming you with the tools and resources to
make changes. Learn specifics about messaging and strategy, while
networking with others to gain from their experiences. Complete your
conference experience by adding an action-oriented track that provides
you with tools and resources to battle local and national challenges
for years to come. Topics include:
- Polling: America, What Say You?
What do Americans think about child welfare?
How has it shifted and why? How can we influence
what they think? Who are they? The featured
speaker is Celinda Lake, President, Lake
Research Partners, and one of the nation's preeminent
researchers and pollsters on children's
issues, health care, and education. Her firm has
become one of the most respected polling firms
in the country, with its Battleground Poll widely
recognized as one of the leading national issue and election thermometers.
Ms. Lake shares her wealth of experience conducting
research with underrepresented and often hard-to-reach populations.
Hear about the work being done to develop and monitor
broad nationwide support for enhancing the federal and local role
in human services. Get a close-up look at the audience to whom
you should target your message, and how to tailor that message
to fit your target. Learn about the many faces of polling and
how polling information can be utilized effectively to induce
change in policy.
- Messaging: If You Build It, They Will Succumb
What's effective, what works, and how can we change the hearts
and minds of America? This session focuses on developing an
effective message around children's issues-which is key to having
these issues recognized and considered at both the local and
national levels. Phil Sparks, cofounder of the Communications
Consortium Media Center, heads the discussion. He has worked in
family-oriented projects, including the Family and Medical Leave
Coalition, the Act for Better Child Care Coalition, Census 2000, the
Fairness Initiative on Low-Wage Work, the Coordinated Campaign
for Learning Disabilities and the Early Care and Education
Collaborative. Learn from the expert how to build an effective
message around specific issues, and how to get that message
to a targeted audience.
- Advocacy Panel: Lessons Learned, Mistakes Made,
and Successes Hailed!
In the course of our ongoing agency work, we have countless opportunities
to affect public policy. Often agencies miss these opportunities,
partly because they have no framework or process to address the
unpredictability inherent in advocacy, and partly because of uncertainty
around whether and how a service-based agency should be
involved in advocacy. There is a wealth of experience to learn from
our colleagues in the field-don't miss this opportunity to share and
discuss strategies and models, those that have worked and those that
have failed. A panel of agency executives, direct service providers,
and advocacy experts share an array of advocacy experiences and
provide tips on how best to implement a model that works for you.
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