Leadership Development Program Improving Children’s Health Advocacy

A new video high­lights the Children’s Health Lead­er­ship Net­work, a 16-month lead­er­ship devel­op­ment pro­gram that builds on the strengths of state-based advo­cates for children’s health policy.

Some of the top child health advo­cates from through­out the nation are get­ting inten­sive train­ing in improv­ing health out­comes for chil­dren in this joint effort direct­ed and fund­ed by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, the David and Lucile Packard Foun­da­tion and The Atlantic Philanthropies.

The net­work immers­es par­tic­i­pants in using data to improve results; fos­ter­ing con­nec­tions among advo­cates; advo­cat­ing for more fund­ing for vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren and fam­i­lies; specif­i­cal­ly mea­sur­ing results; and influ­enc­ing health pol­i­cy decisions.

It’s just the pre­scrip­tion for improv­ing health out­comes for chil­dren and their fam­i­lies, says San Diego pedi­a­tri­cian Dr. Pradeep Gid­wani, a mem­ber of the network’s first class.

“There’s com­pe­ti­tion for resources and there’s com­pe­ti­tion for atten­tion, and chil­dren and fam­i­lies need lead­er­ship like this to come togeth­er and to make a life­long com­mit­ment to doing work that makes a dif­fer­ence,” says Gid­wani, also for­mer pres­i­dent of Chap­ter 3 of the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics in South­ern California.

“The indi­vid­ual states will face chal­lenges, as well as oppor­tu­ni­ties, and we’re look­ing to cre­ate and sup­port a nation­al net­work of lead­ers who are vision­ary and com­mit­ted to tak­ing action on behalf of chil­dren and fam­i­lies for the next decade,” says Liane Wong, a pro­gram offi­cer in the Chil­dren, Fam­i­lies and Com­mu­ni­ties Pro­gram Office at the Packard Foundation.

“It’s a real turn­ing point,” Wong says. ​“Who will be the next gen­er­a­tion of children’s health advo­ca­cy lead­ers in the country?”

The first class of 16 advo­cates, from 14 states, includes inno­v­a­tive pub­lic health admin­is­tra­tors, pol­i­cy ana­lysts, pro­gram direc­tors and child health advo­cates work­ing with non­prof­its. Over a series of class­es, the foun­da­tions hope to cre­ate a net­work of about 100 advo­cates. The sem­i­nars are com­ple­ment­ed by indi­vid­u­al­ized coach­ing and tai­lored learn­ing plans, includ­ing assign­ments to enable par­tic­i­pants to apply what they’ve learned in their home orga­ni­za­tions, and each will devel­op and car­ry out a child health policy.

Learn more about the results these children’s health lead­ers want to achieve