Last week, members of the Child Care Aware® of America Policy and Communications teams hopped in the car bright and early for a trip to West Windsor, NJ for a two-day on-site advocacy training. The team consisted of Jasmine Smith, Senior Policy Advisor; Nick Vucic, Government Affairs Associate; and Sara Miller, Communications and Public Affairs Specialist.
The training began with some ice breakers and an overview of advocacy vs. lobbying followed up with a couple of hours of updates from the federal level. The team talked about CCDBG, the Proposed Rule from HHS, The Affordable Care Act and more. After many questions and answers, the room moved into breakout groups to discuss goals and barriers the state of New Jersey is facing in the early learning sector.
Each group presented their goals and barriers and the group ended the day thinking of ways to take everything to the next level during the following day of training.
The next morning, the group arrived early, with coffee in hand, for another day of learning about advocacy. The day kicked off with a quick recap of federal updates for those not in attendance on day one. Then Jasmine led everyone through the CCAoA website pointing out resources and ways that the organization is here to help members in the states.
Following that, Michelle McCready, Senior State Policy Advisor, joined by phone to discuss state advocacy days and parent engagement, which was a great way to transition into a discussion about social media. We discussed Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and how to make all forms of social media help advocacy efforts.
We were excited to see that many advocates in New Jersey were excited to learn about all of the great movement going on at the federal level and to gain more knowledge about making social media work for them.
