Click here to share this video from YouTube. You can read the full transcript below.
Hey y’all. This is Natasha Kile, your AECA Public Policy Chair, and I’m here to talk with you and start the series about advocacy that’s based all around the alphabet. And so we’re starting today with A is for Advocate.
You chose this field because you believe in children. You show up every day, sometimes exhausted, often underpaid, always committed because you know what happens in the early years matters more than most people realize. And yet, when it comes time to speak up, to sit at the table, to tell a legislator or a school board or a community leader why this work is essential, something holds you back.
Maybe this sounds familiar: ‘Who am I to speak up? I’m just a toddler teacher. I don’t know enough about policy. Someone else will do it.’
Here’s what I want you to know: You are already an expert. Every child you’ve guided, every family you’ve supported, every developmental milestone you’ve celebrated – that is your evidence. That is your credential. That is your advocacy.
Advocacy doesn’t always look like testifying at the Capitol or writing letters to lawmakers – though we need those things too. It looks like correcting a misconception at a family dinner. It looks like sharing a research finding on social media. It looks like staying in the room when the conversation gets hard.
Advocacy is simply using your voice, wherever you are, on behalf of the children and families who need it most.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t always feel qualified to speak up either. It took time, community, and a few people who believed in me before I believed in myself. That’s part of why spaces like AECA matter most. We don’t have to figure this out alone.
This column will spend the next year exploring the landscape of early childhood advocacy, one letter at a time. But we start here with A because nothing else is possible without it. You have knowledge. You have experience. You have a story worth telling. Now it’s time to use it!
Do you have an advocacy story you’d like to share? I would love to feature your voice in a future column. Reach out to me at policy@arkansasearlychildhood.org. Until then, I’ll see you next time.
Natasha Kile
AECA Public Policy Chair
Recent Comments