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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Lynn Hennigan, MSW, MEd, LICSW, Youth and Family Services, Community Healthlink Inc., 275 Belmont St., Worcester, MA 01604, 508-791-3261, lhennigan@communityhealthlink.org

The Together For Kids Project was developed in response to the challenges of child care centers in handling out of control young children. Because of the increasing need to expel children, TFK developed a mental health consultation intervention for child care centers that involved both teacher training and individualized services to children and families. This presentation will focus on how the service delivery community learned to turn this successful demonstration into advocating for public policy for all young children. Thus, “knowing what works” is only part of the answer. Of equal importance is “knowing how to advocate” for the necessary infrastructure to sustain a best practice model of intervention. A successful advocacy campaign involves implementation of an effective strategy across key systems. Important components include: 1) the development of the campaign message; 2) the creation of hero opportunities; 3) the mobilization of a constituency base and 4) the development of important alliances. These select principles, drawn from “Lobbying on a Shoestring” (Judith K. Meredith), will be used to illustrate how child care centers participated with other members of the TFK Coalition to increase statewide support for early childhood mental health services. The presentation will encompass how child care professionals were engaged in developing a local demonstration project that was effective in meeting children's needs, and how they were in turn engaged to participate in assessment and planning of a state-wide public health response to the epidemic of early childhood behavioral issues.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand how child care professionals were engaged in advocacy for children's mental health.
• Know what steps are crucial to turn experience into message.
• Identify essential principles for lobbying 'on a shoestring'

Keywords: Child/Adolescent Mental Health, Advocacy

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation