Child Advocacy Tool
What is child advocacy?
Because children often cannot speak out for their own interests, others must speak on their behalf. The act of speaking out on behalf of a child is known as child advocacy.
While parents are often the best advocates for their own children, some parents are unable to effectively advocate for their children for a variety of reasons including lack of knowledge, lack of expertise, or lack of access to decision makers due to economic, educational or cultural barriers.
Why is knowledge about child advocacy important in pediatrics?
Pediatricians and other physicians who care for children are in a unique position to advocate for the needs of children both in their practice and in the community at large. Physicians are often trusted by children, parents, and others in the community as experts on children’s health. Physicians often can see the impact of health problems on children in the community or society as a whole in a way that parents cannot. However, effective child advocacy requires certain knowledge, skills and attitudes to be done effectively.
Many of the health problems affecting children today are intimately linked to psychosocial factors beyond the control of the individual physician seeing a child in his or her office: Obesity, changes in environmental quality, limited access to high-quality care, injuries, school problems and violence toward children at home and in the community are just a few examples of the kinds of problems that require a coordinated effort outside the walls of the clinician’s office to address effectively.
How can I effectively advocate for the health care needs of children?
Opportunities for child advocacy are everywhere—one simply needs to be looking for them. However, the approach can be conveniently divided into individual, community, and policy levels. Examples of advocacy skills for each level are included below:
Individual (patient or family) advocacy skills:
- Have good cross-cultural communication skills to decrease barriers to access to good care. See Culture in Health Care
- Use advocacy screening tools that can identify developmental and/or social concerns affecting children’s health
- Identify community resources that can address the needs of children and their families. See Community Resources
- Work with community partners (eg teachers, psychologists, social service workers, etc) to further the needs of children
- Identify patient needs by completing a community needs assessment or using other tools within the community in which one practices
- Communicate with community members, including patients and parents, using a variety of media (eg community presentation, editorial, television interview, etc)
- Identify grant funding sources and effectively obtain and use them to develop resources within a community
Legislative/policy advocacy skills:
- Find scientific data to frame a child health issue for policy makers
- Use scientific data in position papers, letter-writing campaigns or fact sheets to communicate child and family concerns to policy makers
- Identify key legislators and/or administrators and effectively advocate for child health concerns.
United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child: www.unicef.org/crc
The cornerstone for those who are interested in children’s rights across the globe.
American Academy of Pediatrics Advocacy Section: www.aap.org/advocacy.html
A wealth of information about resources, opportunities and campaigns related to child advocacy.
Annie E. Casey Foundation: www.aecf.org
Among many other things, publishes the Kids Count Databook—a yearly compilation of statistics related to child health in the United States and used by child advocates everywhere.