Informed Advocacy in Early Childhood Care and Education: Making a Difference for Young Children and Families, 1st edition

Part One, Developing Advocacy Knowledge and Skills: Taking Action in the Field of Early Childhood - lays out a definition and rationale for advocacy as a job responsibility of all early childhood professionals and describes multiple contexts for advocacy action including:

• description of the critical need for advocacy in the field and an analysis of the Code of Ethical Conduct and Statement of Commitment providing an initial rationale for seeing advocacy as an ethical responsibility.
• describes six specific contexts for advocacy include advocacy for the individual child and family, advocacy for the profession, program-based advocacy, private-sector advocacy, political activism, and advocacy in the global arena.
• description of four conditions that require advocacy for individual children and families.

Part II, Developing an Advocacy Agenda, lays out the skills involved in becoming an effective advocate including

• the context for advocacy, stakeholder perspectives,
• strategies useful for developing an advocacy agenda,
• mobilizing strategies for maintaining an advocacy agenda,
• the importance of networking to successful advocacy efforts, 
• a  worksheet for developing the agenda,
• a description of three important contexts for advocacy within the field,  
• and a review of the process of policy development at the state and federal level and description of how advocates can influence this development.