ADVOCACY CAMP RETURNS! SHARING SKILLS AND BUILDING POWER IN COMMUNITIES ACROSS WA

Children’s Alliance is dedicated to advocating with, not for, communities impacted by the policy solutions we pursue. We aim to empower and partner with people furthest from opportunity, and in doing so, build powerful opportunities for collective action centered on equity and inclusion.  

The last five months have been charged with anxiety as Washingtonians are forced to reconsider and negotiate how to show up and use their voices in policy advocacy spaces. We are committed to combatting this worry by providing training opportunities for child advocates to gain the knowledge, skills and tools they need to drive policy change sustainably and powerfully.  

Advocacy training has been a cornerstone of Children’s Alliance’s work, most notably through our signature program, Advocacy Camp, which ran from 1995 to 2019. At Advocacy Camp, organizations and members from across Washington gathered to learn about our state government and budget, lobbying, mobilizing, communications, and leadership – all through a racial equity lens. The learning objectives were simple: motivate child advocacy, build skills and relationships, and share Children’s Alliance resources with community.  

Advocacy Camp cohort of 2005

The legacy of these events lives on in the advocates who have built impactful careers in the child and family advocacy space, including Children’s Alliance’s executive director, Dr. Stephan Blanford, who participated in the program in 2005. Children’s Alliance partnered with Nancy Amidei, a visionary in political activism in Washington, to develop and facilitate these trainings, and we are grateful beyond words for her incredible contributions to Advocacy Camp.  

We are excited to share our plan to reintroduce Advocacy Camp in the coming years, starting this fall with one-day training events hosted in three different regions of our state. As we rebuild this program, we are committed to working alongside partners to center access and racial equity and continue the program’s legacy of impact and empowerment. Participants will build and strengthen skills through interactive learning to become powerful advocates inspired to create change in their communities. 

We encourage all community members committed to uplifting the voices of those furthest from opportunity to join us at Voices for Children on Thursday, June 12, at the Museum of Flight. This special fundraising event raises vital support for our work to advance antiracist policy solutions that create a better future for every child in Washington and will include more information about the history and future of this impactful program.