What resonates with you about Early Childhood Policy and Advocacy?

I believe this specialization chose me and not so much me choosing this specialization. I am a very outspoken person and have always been on the defensive for the rights of persons. My dream was to become a lawyer but unfortunately my father was totally against me going that route. After high school I ended up in teacher’s college. During and after my internship I was always given the slowest set of children to teach at the secondary level and even in skills training centres. But my passion for early childhood ignited when I had my first child. The birthing process was very difficult because my daughter weighed 9 and half pounds. This affected her speech, hearing and even emotional development. I recognized how dumb I was about child development and even the very doctors, nurses and my parents who had nine of us. Fortunately I landed a job in early childhood that has allowed me to see what is really happening to our children. This sparked my passion even more to create change and to let people know that early childhood is an area of development that should be given greatest attention. Advocates are essential in the field of early childhood because early childhood deals with people. People change, circumstances and life change. Because early childhood ties in with human development we must be knowledgeable and possess the prerequisite skills to deal with people and to convince them that early childhood is a very important aspect of humanity. There is so much I want to learn about public policy and advocacy. I find that many of the persons who make decisions about early childhood are not trained in the field and somehow the field is treated scantily. In order for you to advocate effectively then it is necessary for you know how policies are created. Policies help to form the framework to ensure that early childhood systems are working well. The three goals that I have are (1) To develop the necessary skills to become an effective advocate; (2) To learn more about how develop policies that relates to early childhood development; (3) To effectively mobilize stakeholders without harm or danger that will lead to better conditions for early childhood development.