Leadership Program Welcomes New Class of Child Health Advocates - The Annie E. Casey Foundation

Leadership Program Welcomes New Class of Child Health Advocates

Posted July 10, 2018
By the Annie E. Casey Foundation
Improving the health outcomes of children improve overall well-being and support lifelong development.

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, the David and Lucile Packard Foun­da­tion and the Atlantic Phil­an­thropies have announced the next cohort of Children’s Health Lead­er­ship Net­work participants.

This rig­or­ous 12-month lead­er­ship devel­op­ment pro­gram will help teams from the South — specif­i­cal­ly Geor­gia, Ken­tucky, Louisiana and Texas — improve the health and well-being of kids and fam­i­lies in their states. The program’s geo­graph­ic focus is inten­tion­al, as chil­dren from the South con­tin­u­al­ly fall behind their peers nation­al­ly in meet­ing key health milestones.

The 20182019 class includes ana­lysts, pro­gram direc­tors and non­prof­it child advo­cates who are posi­tioned to shape pol­i­cy deci­sions and imple­ment effec­tive strate­gies for last­ing change. These mem­bers will work togeth­er — often across agen­cies and sec­tors — and employ a Results Count™ approach to improve health outcomes.

This pro­gram is about equip­ping lead­ers with the nec­es­sary con­fi­dence, skills and rela­tion­ships to take their work in health pol­i­cy to the next lev­el and become cat­a­lysts for real and sus­tained progress for chil­dren and fam­i­lies,” says Bar­bara Squires, direc­tor of Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment at Casey. We are excit­ed about this class of pro­fes­sion­als who have already demon­strat­ed a com­mit­ment to reduc­ing health inequities and improv­ing the lives of chil­dren and fam­i­lies and who now want to do more to affect poli­cies that broad­ly impact children’s health in their states.”

In July 2018, par­tic­i­pants will begin a six-sem­i­nar series designed to build skills in the areas of child health pol­i­cy, child advo­ca­cy and Results Count. Tar­get­ed coach­ing, site vis­its and learn­ing plans will sup­ple­ment the course­work, and teams will work to apply their new skills in their home orga­ni­za­tions and sys­tems. Beyond receiv­ing tech­ni­cal assis­tance and expo­sure to child health pol­i­cy con­tent from the George­town Uni­ver­si­ty Cen­ter for Chil­dren and Fam­i­lies, each team will also devel­op and exe­cute a pol­i­cy agen­da with defined tar­gets to improve state-lev­el child health outcomes.

I’m thrilled to see such a cre­ative, ener­gized group of lead­ers join the Children’s Health Lead­er­ship Net­work,” says Dr. Kather­ine Beck­mann, a pro­gram offi­cer in the Chil­dren, Fam­i­lies and Com­mu­ni­ties Pro­gram at the David and Lucile Packard Foun­da­tion. Advo­cates like these are cru­cial to ensure that all young chil­dren have access to qual­i­ty health care and arrive to school healthy and ready to learn.”

201819 Children’s Health Lead­er­ship Net­work Participants

Geor­gia

  • Elise Blasingame, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Healthy Moth­ers, Healthy Babies Coali­tion of Georgia
  • Lau­ra Col­bert, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Geor­gians for a Healthy Future
  • Lisa Hayes, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Chatham Coun­ty Safe­ty Net Plan­ning Council
  • LaShun Wright, Direc­tor of Train­ing and Tech­ni­cal Assis­tance, Geor­gia Pri­ma­ry Care Association

Ken­tucky

  • Emi­ly Beau­re­gard, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Ken­tucky Voic­es for Health
  • Adri­enne Bush, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Home­less and Hous­ing Coali­tion of Kentucky
  • Dustin Pugel, Pol­i­cy Ana­lyst, Ken­tucky Cen­ter for Eco­nom­ic Policy
  • Cara Stew­art, Health Pol­i­cy Fel­low, Ken­tucky Equal Jus­tice Center

Louisiana

  • Rae­gan Carter, Senior Man­ag­er, Louisiana Pub­lic Health Institute
  • Jeanie Dono­van, Pol­i­cy Direc­tor, Louisiana Bud­get Project
  • Susan Nel­son, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Louisiana Part­ner­ship for Chil­dren and Families
  • Alma Stew­art, Founder and Direc­tor, Louisiana Cen­ter for Health Equity/​Campaign for Health Care for Everyone

Texas

  • Jen­ny Eyer, Direc­tor for Child Health Research and Pol­i­cy, CHIL­DREN AT RISK
  • Lau­ra Guer­ra-Car­dus, Deputy Direc­tor, Children’s Defense Fund-Texas
  • Adri­ana Kohler, Senior Health Pol­i­cy Asso­ciate, Tex­ans Care for Children
  • Stacey Pogue, Senior Pol­i­cy Ana­lyst, Cen­ter for Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Priorities

About the Children’s Health Lead­er­ship Network

Launched in 2016, the Children’s Health Lead­er­ship Net­work is a lead­er­ship devel­op­ment pro­gram designed to strength­en the field of state-based advo­cates for children’s health policy

With fund­ing from the Casey Foun­da­tion, the David and Lucile Packard Foun­da­tion and the Atlantic Phil­an­thropies, the net­work will devel­op a pool of near­ly 100 health advo­cates in lead­er­ship posi­tions who are dri­ving change and forg­ing part­ner­ships with­in their com­mu­ni­ties. Its first cohort of 16 advo­cates helped shape the pol­i­cy land­scape to improve health out­comes for children.