ABC's and 123's:

Back in January, Action for Children released an Advocacy Agenda to provide transparency to our community about our priorities. We are dedicated to our three pillars of advocacy: Advancing Children’s Well-Being, Defending Families, and Championing Caregivers. To provide even more openness, we just expanded our agenda to detail how we have been upholding these pillars through our work!

Take a look!

Advancing Children’s Well-Being 

Children are the heartbeat of Action for Children. Our goal is to do everything in our power to help them grow and thrive from their earliest years. 

One thing we actively promote is safe sleep for infants. Each year in the US, around 3,500 infants die each year in their sleep, and we are always striving to lower this number. To help make sure our community is informed about safe sleep, our staff must take a course to be Safe Sleep certified. This way, when we are doing our community work, we are qualified to teach parents and caregivers how to safely put their infants to bed.

We also try to advocate for caregivers and young children through kindergarten readiness. Not every family can afford expensive materials or child care that will properly equip their child to start their educational journey. By distributing school supplies, providing easy and accessible kindergarten readiness lessons, home visiting that ensures healthy development, and more, we try to make sure every family can have tools they need to make sure their child is ready for kindergarten. 

Educating our community and legislators on the issues of children in Ohio is also essential to creating long-term, sustainable change. Action for Children recently spoke at the Hunt Institute’s Ohio Legislative Retreat on the lack of quality and affordable child care in Ohio. Presentations like these help legislators to be aware of the struggles of families and children and are properly educated to make positive legislative changes. 

Defending Families

We know that feeling secure and stable is vital to families being able to thrive. At Action for Children, our advocacy efforts are geared towards building resilient families and ensuring a brighter future for all children.

One way we do this is by hosting an annual Back-to-School event. At our Back to School Family Fair, we provide resources for families that will help their child be ready for the first day of school. Things like new backpacks, supplies, haircuts, sports equipment, community resources and more can help families save money and allow their child to be excited and feel confident for the new school year. 

Similarly, Action for Children routinely provides early learning resources and referrals to families in central Ohio to help them find child care programs that meet their needs. The effectiveness of this referral model led the Ohio to call on Action for Children and other Child Care Resource & Referral agencies to build out the Ohio Children Services Hub to provide resources and agency referrals to prospective foster, adoptive, and kinship care families. Through these services, we can support children whose birth families are either temporarily or permanently unable to care for them and advocate for families willing to foster and adopt throughout the licensing and placement process. 

Finally, we want to make sure families have a seat at the table when legislation or governmental changes are being made. With Ohio’s new Department of Children and Youth, we find it essential that parents and families give their feedback to any changes that may impact them. That’s why in September 2023 and April 2024, we partnered with the Franklin County Board of Developmental Disabilities to host a listening session for the new Department of Children and Youth. At this session, families could hear about any new changes that may come and give their feedback.

Championing Caregivers 

Child care is incredibly important for working families, communities, and young children, and we are committed to providing caregivers the tools they need to be successful as business owners, as educators, and early learning advocates. 

Advocacy is much easier with a team to work with, and that’s why Action for Children created The Village Staffed Family Child Care Network. We wanted a space where Family Child Care professionals who are normally forced to work in silos, can meet each other, talk about challenges they face, and work together. This way, when issues arise personally or in the field, they are not alone trying to create change. 

We recognize that learning how to advocate for yourself and your business isn’t always easy, however. To help the child care professionals we serve, we created our L.E.A.D. Conference. Each year, we set out to host child care educators and enhance their leadership skills. Here, they learn how to better their teaching practices, problem solving skills, and more so that they can strengthen their work and run the best business they can. 

Action for Children also knows how important it is to recognize the success and importance of early learning professionals. In the fall, we host our Early Childhood Educator Awards (this year’s awards will be coming up on October 15^th)! This event is used to showcase caregivers who have been putting in tremendous amounts of hard work. It’s essential that we show caregivers that their work matters and makes a difference for them to keep leading with confidence.  

While these are larger examples of the advocacy work we do at Action for Children, we aim to be advocates every single day.

To help you do the same, we have added another addition to our advocacy page on our website: our Advocacy Toolkit. This toolkit contains resources you can use to help others learn about the struggles facing central Ohio children and families and what we can do to help them.  

There are plenty of other ways you can be an advocate as well! We post weekly videos on our social media regarding different advocacy topics ranging from legislation, parenting help, and community resources. Watch these videos and share them with friends or families who may benefit from them!

You can also support Action for Children and our advocacy efforts by donating. Your donation can help ensure that we continue helping our community stay in the know on what’s going on in Ohio and how they can support themselves.   

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Author: Shea McHugh, Advocacy Associate at Action for Children 

Action for Children is the local child care resource and referral agency for central Ohio, and is committed to assuring quality early learning experiences for all children. Our services focus on transforming the lives of children by supporting the everyday heroes who most influence our children’s early growth; care givers, educators, parents, and guardians. Learn More.