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.

Foreword Preface Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Parameters of advocacy Chapter 3: Planning your project with the six steps to successful child advocacy Chapter 4: Step 1--Knowing your issue Chapter 5: Step 2, Research for background and impact Chapter 6: Step 3--Preparing effective materials Chapter 7: Step 4-Making Meetings That Work Chapter 8: Step 5--Conducting strategic follow-up Chapter 9: Step six--Reinforcing successful advocacy outcomes Chapter 10: Where do we go from here?

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. -- Ted Lempert - President, Children Now This important text provides useful and timely guidance for anyone interested in improving the lives of children and youth through advocacy. From direct practice to policymaking, the authors' presentation of case examples and tangible step-by-step instructions (from their planning blueprint to the six steps framework) makes advocacy both realistic and doable in a variety of environments and issues. This is a go-to resource for students and practitioners alike! -- Ben Anderson-Nathe, PhD - Associate Professor and Program Director, Child & Family Studies, School of Social Work, Portland State University This book represents a very through understanding of the advocacy process as applied to children's rights and needs. What makes this a particularly important book is that the advocacy process distilled in the book draws on examples from around the world, illustrating that the six steps approach is universal in its application. This book presents a very rich description of ways to engage in advocacy and provides a wide variety of strategies that can be used to successfully advocate on behalf of children and their families. -- Judith Evans - Director Emeritus, Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development Six Steps to Successful Child Advocacy is exactly what I need for my policy class on children, youth, and families! Grounded in theory, research, and practice, the book breaks down advocacy into six manageable steps and provides plenty of case examples, both domestic and global. The writing is very approachable and I can see the book being adopted for undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as being a resource for practitioners. -- Professor Betty Blythe, Boston College Graduate School of Social Work Six Steps is a book that bridges policy, practice and academics in a practical guide with real-world examples. It is useful for advocates, professors, students or anyone interested in the plight of children worldwide and wanting to make a difference. The skills obtained by using the book as a guide will help all of us make the world better for children. -- Victor Groza, PhD, LISW-S - Grace F. Brody Professor of Parent-Child Studies, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University This remarkable work provides a step-by-step guide to child advocacy with a global focus. Packed with examples and pragmatic advice, the book serves as both primer and advanced course in successful advocacy and visionary thinking. -- Gerald P. Koocher, Ph.D., ABPP - Dean, College of Science and Health, DePaul University, Former president, American Psychological Association The best work in virtually every profession and key area of work today is informed by events and lessons from around the world. In that vein, Amy Conley Wright and Kenneth Jaffe present an extensive array of practical concepts, tools, and stories of success about child advocacy-drawn from a broad set of countries. What results is an accessible and engaging resource on child advocacy that will inform the work of diverse child advocates -- be they part-time volunteers, human services staff or professions that have specialty areas devoted to children. -- Peter J. Pecora - Professor, School of Social Work, University of Washington This volume is must reading for anyone involved in child advocacy. It is extraordinarily comprehensive and insightful. There is nothing comparable. -- Michael S. Wald, LLB, Professor of Law Emeritus, Stanford University