What Resonates with you about Early Childhood Public Policy and Advocacy?

Part 1:

I chose the Early Childhood Public Policy and Advocacy specialization because I believe that early childhood is an extremely political field.  When I first selected early childhood as my career I was unaware of that it was such a political field.  All the way back to high school I had aspirations of working in Washington, DC as a Senator or Representative.  I have always gravitated towards politics so it just made sense when I realize that early childhood was so political that I became very engaged in that side of early childhood.  I have served as the Early Childhood Association of Oklahoma, Oklahoma affiliate for National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) as the public policy chairperson for many years.  During the time I served in that role I began attending the NAEYC Policy Institute typically in March of every year.  It was during that time I began to mold my statement of how quality early childhood programs are needed for all children and families.  Additionally, when we have high quality programs children, families and society all benefit and it makes good economic sense to invest in the early years.

Part 2:

The reason it is essential that early childhood professional become advocates is simply because this is a polictial field if we do not inform policymakers someone else will and they might not share the message that we know is best for children and families.  We have the knowledge of the importance of high quality early childhood education and we need to use that knowledge to assist policymakers so that children come first.  The reason we need to be skilled and confident is because we have to be able to stay on track often when speaking with policymakers they work to move you toward their agenda and away from you own so you have be confident enough to keep bringing the topic back to the agenda best for children and families.

Part 3:

The three goals that I hope to gain is as follows:  First, I want to become more skilled at how to analyze data and write briefs that will impact policy.  Second, I want to become more skilled at synthesizing information that shows the impact of early childhood systems.  Lastly, I want to become more skilled at evaluating components of an early childhood system.