Armstrong Atlantic State University Child Development Paper
Advocacy is a vital component of the early childhood professional’s role. Advocacy can occur on a daily basis through supportive interactions with children and their families and connecting families to needed resources. At a broader and more public level, advocacy can occur when a specific message is developed and disseminated with the goal of positively impacting the lives of children, families, early childhood professionals, and the field as a whole.
Developing effective advocacy messages requires deep knowledge of a particular topic, an effective means of delivering the message, and the ability to design a research-based message that can serve to motivate others to your cause. Over the next few weeks, you will design three advocacy pieces. Each advocacy piece will use a different format—this week piece will be a speech. Each advocacy message must be on a different topic and related to nurturing young children.
To prepare:
Select from the following topics:
- Attachment
- Self-regulation
- Family cultures
- Resilience
- Risk factors
- Across each of these topics, the information you develop needs to be responsive to the following:
- Audience: For whom is this information being developed? (Families, early childhood coaches, policy makers, educators, etc.)
- Role: Whom are you speaking as? Please select a role that provides your voice for each piece that is meaningful to you (educator, family advocate, administrator, coach, policy maker, researcher).
- Goal: What do you hope to gain by sharing this information? What impact do you want to have on your target audience?
