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Position Paper

Invest in Children, Invest in Virginia : Universal Pre-Kindergarten

The Right Investment for the Right Reasons

The Commonwealth of Virginia has adopted the goal that all children enter kindergarten healthy and ready to succeed in school. VAECE believes that access to high quality early childhood education will help the Commonwealth to meet that goal.

Please click on the link to access the paper.

UPKInvestinChildren

Advocacy Activities at a Glance

The chart below may assist you and your team in determining where your interests lie and what skills you have to best assist public policy initiatives for Virginia's Children. There is a huge need for active participation at the local level. As early care and education regulations, bills and initiatives are coming to the attention of policy makers, activity at state and national levels is also essential for the good decisions to be made. Sometimes these require travel, most do not. Participation as a local team or committee gives you the ability to compose your group with persons who have different skills and capabilities needed for the different levels of activity – local, state and nationally.

VAECE Advocacy Log
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

1. Do I need to report each conference call or meeting if they are regularly scheduled ones?

No, total the hours and list the dates for one line item. Describe the issues in the Issues and Comments columns.

2. Can affiliates just add the new data for the new quarter on the same form that was used to report to VAECE for the previous quarter?

Since VAECE consolidates the submitted data from all VAECE affiliates, we ask that you submit only the current month's data. This helps us combine all the information that's current without mixing in what's been previously rolled up.

3. Should reported activities include the dates or be categorized?

NAEYC has specified categories of "grassroots" and "direct lobbying" when reporting advocacy activities. For us at the affiliate, this also permits more helps with consolidation on a statewide level. Dates are helpful as well.

4. What's the difference between direct lobbying and grassroots activities?

Generally, direct lobbying is when the purpose of the activity is to influence a member/staff of a legislative body, governor, and the activity refers to and reflects a view on a specific proposal. It also includes ballot initiatives, constitutional amendments, and referenda (because these act like legislation). Grassroots is influencing members of the public to engage in advocacy on specific issues and encouraging your organization members to urge the public to participate in grassroots lobbying. The activity or communication reflects a viewpoint and encourages action.

5. How often will we be asked to submit affiliate advocacy/public policy activities to VAECE?

Affiliates can expect to be requested to provide quarterly activity data, usually by the middle of each month following the quarter's end.

6. If we have affiliate members also who are on the VAECE Executive Board, do we report their activities with the affiliate information or do they go separately?

All members' activities should go through their appropriate affiliate. If they are submitted separately, a copy will be forwarded to their affiliate for reference.

7. Do we need to show costs associated with the different activities? If so, where on the form and to what degree?

If there is associated cost for VAECE, please show the amount in the comments and indicate this has been approved as a VAECE cost item.

8. Is training on a public policy/advocacy-related area, an item that should be reported and if so, how?

Training activities should only be reported if directly related to public policy activities, such as the Fall Public Policy Mini-conference. When reporting training, we ask that the hours be reported as direct (person is in charge of giving out the knowledge) indirect (person has been asked to sit as resource such as on committees or boards, where they might not present most of the time, but are there for their expertise in the ECE field) or participant (person received training to increase their knowledge in the area).

9. What is needed on costs, as reflected for the Comments/Cost column?

Tracking costs is necessary for the affiliates IRS reporting, If you take the election h, there is a formula for determining how much you can spend on advocacy, direct and grassroots.

10. Is there an easy way to put the data together and save time?

Some affiliates make it a practice to collect this at each meeting so that members come with the information and the public policy contact collects it at that time. Those using files on their computer should save the Word document file sent out by Phoebe Meyer for each report and enter the information on it. This can be e-mailed directly to her upon completion. Other affiliates have shared that they use the previous month's report that's already got the affiliate information at the top, but save it as the current month and delete the old information so only the new quarter's information will be submitted.

Directions for Completion, Submission and Use of Advocacy Log

1. Use the example PDF download [click here] as a guide to complete the advocacy log as the Affiliate does advocacy activities. Use the logs in Affiliate board meetings to discuss what has been done and to stimulate future action plans.

2. Affiliate presidents (or other designated Affiliate representative) submit the Advocacy Log to Jean Chase, JeaChs@aol.com or Meg Swell, msewell@betwix.net at requested date on e-mail request or three weeks prior to each quarterly VAECE Board meeting to allow time for the log to be summarized and added to Board Meeting materials.

3. See Policy Manual Section 15, Board Member Forms, BF011, VAECE Advocacy Log for a blank form.

Public Policy General Information
Welcome to the Public Policy Section of the VAECE Policy Manual. In the next section you will find the following resources:

• "Advocacy Activities at a Glance" with ideas for the Local/Community, State and National level activities.
  
• Speaking and Acting on Behalf of Young Children: What Can I Do?
  
• VAECE Advocacy Log
  
• VAECE Advocacy Log Questions and Answers
  
• Example of VAECE Advocacy Log
  
• NAEYC Advocacy Toolkit* -- this is a near-80 page set of materials, following Advocates in Action, with examples from affiliates and other state advocacy organizations on ways to implement advocacy and public communications efforts. HTTP://www.naeyc.org/affiliates/acb/Toolkit.pdf
  Included is the cover page and the first 4 pages of the Advocacy Toolkit.
  
• Do's and Don'ts for Election Year* -- this is the memo we previously sent out on what 501(c)(3) organizations can and cannot do around certain activities, such as candidate questionnaires and forums, awards and honors, etc HTTP://www.naeyc.org/affiliates/acb/guide.pdf
  
• Self-assessment worksheet* for affiliates in their public policy and communications work, first distributed at the NAEYC Institute in Albuquerque two years ago, but a useful refresher on organizing public policy and communications efforts
  HTTP://www.naeyc.org/affiliates/acb/albuque2.pdf
  
• Guide to NonPartisan Voter Registration & G.O.T.V. Drives http://naeyc.org/affiliates/acb/gotv.pdf. Included is the first few pages with the table of contents.
  

*The NAEYC web site now has these materials you can download to help with your advocacy work. You can find these materials under Affiliate Relations -Capacity Building using the links above.

Speaking and Acting on Behalf of Young Children: What Can I Do?
Download a list modeled on an activity on multicultural education from Roots and Wings (York, 1992). Check which actions you are willing to take on (now or at a later date) in support of children and their families. You are an advocate! [click here]