Q: How can advocates promote children's issues during political campaigns?

A: Advocates use a variety of strategies to highlight children's issues in campaigns "whether they are local, statewide, or national," says Laura Cunningham, public policy chair for the California Association for the Education of Young Children.

Make political campaigns a priority

• Overcome your own hesitation. Many nonprofit organizations have the "misguided" idea that they aren't allowed to participate in politics, says Joe Wilson, associate director of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth in San Francisco. It's true that nonprofits are not allowed to endorse candidates, but they are allowed to support legislation. "Non-profits have a significant capacity to bring political pressure to decision-makers," Wilson adds. In fact, "It's our responsibility."
  
  
• Register voters. At Kidango, formerly know as Tri Cities Children's Centers, "we provide mail-in voter-registration forms to parents when they register for child care, and we collect and mail in the forms," says Executive Director Paul Miller. Since Kidango has been doing this for six years, a "large percentage" of parents and staff have registered.
  
  
• Inform your community. Send advocacy alerts. Coleman Advocates sends a weekly fax and email alert to more than 1,000 people and organizations in the Bay Area. "That keeps the children's community informed and encourages [advocates] to communicate with elected officials," says Wilson.
  
  
• Create report cards. The Children's Advocacy Institute (CAI) puts out an annual legislative report card. "It's a great way for the general public to know how people are ranking on children's issues," says Lupe Alonzo-Diaz, senior policy advocate. Every year CAI scores state legislators' votes on 25 bills that are "key to children that year, such as child care, health care, foster care, etc."
  
  
• Conduct workshops. Los Angeles-based Parents for Unity gives parents a 14-week course about community organizing for school reform and educational equity. The workshops, says Director Gabriel Medel, "push parents to understand the political system and their role in it," through discussions on school issues and proposed legislation affecting children.
  
  

Take action

• Form advocacy committees. Parents and staff at Kidango participate in an advocacy committee that chooses issues and plans strategy. Their current effort is to recruit and support candidates from the child care community for elective office.
  
  
• Hold candidates' forums. Candidates' forums allow parents to "hold politicians accountable and educate people about how to get involved in the political system," says Kim Kruckel, organizer for Parent Voices in Alameda County. Forums also allow parents to "educate politicians about what day-to-day issues are." For six years her organization has held candidates' forums during state and local elections. Beforehand, parents review candidates' voting records and come up with questions. If your organization can't sponsor a forum, suggests Cunningham, "work with the League of Women Voters" and bring your questions to their forums.
  
  
• Conduct campaigns. Over the past four years, Parents for Unity has worked with parents in the Los Nietos community in Los Angeles to get community members elected to the school board. In this neighborhood with a large Latino population, residents used to feel the schools had "no programs that fit the needs of minority language students" and "closed doors to parents," says Medel. Now, with three of the five school-board members from Parents for Unity, he says, the schools have new reading programs, a parent center, and students who leave "highly prepared."
  
  

Resources

• Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, 415-239-0161, www.colemanadvocates.org
• Alameda County Parent Voices, 510-658-7101, www.parentvoices.org
• Children's Advocacy Institute, 916-444-3875, http://www.caichildlaw.org
• Kidango, 510-744-9280, www.kidango.org
• Parents for Unity, 323-734-9353