In June 2001, the Ford Foundation launched a three-year project, the Family Assets Initiative, in 10 states to build the capacity of state-based child-advocacy organizations to analyze the needs of children and low-income and working families and to advance policies supporting those families and children. The initiative assists advocates in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Strategic consultation
Efforts to increase support for low-income children have been stymied by messages suggesting that parents alone are responsible for the well being of their children. Such frames undercut efforts to build public support and funding for essential basic services that stabilize such families and improve child outcomes, such as health care and child-care. In Alabama, for example, we assisted advocates in framing tax reform as a children's issue. Because the state's tax structure is outdated and regressive, advocates realize that other policies for children and families will not have an impact until more dollars are brought into state coffers.
Media advocacy planning
We help advocates develop media plans for supporting specific goals. In Colorado, for example, when the governor pulled support for violence prevention programs that provided recreation activities for youth, we helped advocates plan a year's worth of media events. Every week advocates organized an event that showed the importance of violence prevention programs and called to reinstate them in the budget. Colorado's governor agreed to put half the funding back into the budget, and add the other half when economy improves.
Training
We provide media advocacy training and help the advocates develop skills in interacting with the media. These include intensive sessions on answering hard questions on current policy issues and responding to the challenge that "hard economic times mean there's no money for family programs."
Content analysis
We examine national newspapers to help advocates understand how American values are used to support children's issues in the news.
