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Children's Health Leadership Network

Children Leadership Logos2

The pas­sage of the Afford­able Care Act and ongo­ing ques­tions about the future of the Children’s Health Insur­ance Pro­gram have dra­mat­i­cal­ly altered the land­scape of pub­lic cov­er­age options for chil­dren and their fam­i­lies. While the nation is mak­ing his­toric progress in reduc­ing the num­ber of unin­sured chil­dren and their par­ents, these enor­mous changes have been accom­pa­nied by incred­i­bly com­plex pol­i­cy chal­lenges and pol­i­tics. Progress for low-income chil­dren and their fam­i­lies varies by state, and more change lies ahead in the next decade. With enor­mous­ly well-fund­ed stake­hold­ers in the health care indus­try and intense par­ti­san con­flicts at work, a robust and net­worked set of voic­es for chil­dren is an essen­tial com­po­nent of future health pol­i­cy dis­cus­sions to ensure that the needs of vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren and fam­i­lies don’t get lost.

Sev­er­al nation­al foun­da­tions have togeth­er over the years sup­port­ed the devel­op­ment of expe­ri­enced and adap­tive lead­ers – and their net­works – to advo­cate on a host of children’s issues in states of vary­ing polit­i­cal hues. To build on this work, the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, the David and Lucile Packard Foun­da­tion and The Atlantic Phil­an­thropies have joined togeth­er to launch the Children’s Health Lead­er­ship Net­work, a lead­er­ship devel­op­ment pro­gram for advanc­ing and net­work­ing lead­ers in the field of children’s health and well-being pol­i­cy. With fund­ing from these three foun­da­tions, this pro­gram will extend over a ten-year peri­od, with the goal to have, by 2025, near­ly 100 advo­cates serv­ing through­out the coun­try in var­i­ous lead­er­ship capac­i­ties in states on behalf of the nation’s chil­dren. This col­lec­tive of strong, adap­tive and diverse lead­ers with expe­ri­ence in pol­i­cy, advo­ca­cy and strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions will be posi­tioned to inform pol­i­cy and imple­men­ta­tion to advance and pro­tect the inter­ests of chil­dren and families. 

The Children’s Health Lead­er­ship Net­work will equip par­tic­i­pants to lever­age data, part­ner­ships, per­son­al pow­er and orga­ni­za­tion­al author­i­ty to strength­en the qual­i­ty and effec­tive­ness of child health pol­i­cy and advo­ca­cy efforts and results; build and increase the pub­lic and polit­i­cal will need­ed to decrease out­come dis­par­i­ties and improve oppor­tu­ni­ty; devel­op stronger orga­ni­za­tion and sys­tem-lev­el con­sen­sus about the path­way to results; bet­ter frame and describe incre­men­tal suc­cess­es, espe­cial­ly when desired pol­i­cy changes may take a long time to achieve; and influ­ence and advance child health pol­i­cy changes that ulti­mate­ly ben­e­fit vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren, their fam­i­lies and communities.

Over a series of nine sem­i­nars, the pro­gram will con­vene up to 15 advo­cates to broad­en their vision, increase their base of knowl­edge, strength­en their exist­ing net­works and expand and refine the adap­tive lead­er­ship skills crit­i­cal to advanc­ing their child health pol­i­cy reform and advo­ca­cy results. Par­tic­i­pants will learn and prac­tice numer­ous lead­er­ship tools to affect sys­tems change, and they will learn from and with a com­mu­ni­ty of peers. 

Par­tic­i­pants will deep­en their capac­i­ty to:

  • be results based and data dri­ven, estab­lish­ing clear goals and using data to assess progress and change course as needed; 
  • bring atten­tion to and act on dis­par­i­ties, rec­og­niz­ing that race, class and cul­ture impact out­comes and oppor­tu­ni­ties for vul­ner­a­ble children;
  • use the self as an instru­ment of change to move a result based on the belief that indi­vid­ual lead­ers are capa­ble of lead­ing from what­ev­er posi­tion they hold; 
  • mas­ter the skills of ​“adap­tive lead­er­ship,” which makes lead­ers aware of the impact of val­ues, habits, beliefs, atti­tudes and behav­iors asso­ci­at­ed with tak­ing action to improve results; and 
  • col­lab­o­rate with oth­ers, under­stand­ing that the capac­i­ty to build con­sen­sus and make group deci­sions enables lead­ers to align their actions and move work for­ward to achieve results. 

As a coun­try we stand at a new start­ing line for pol­i­cy and pro­gram imple­men­ta­tion on a vari­ety of children’s issues – many of them spe­cif­ic to children’s health. This ini­tia­tive is designed to strength­en the skills of mid-lev­el lead­ers and an emerg­ing group of diverse, ener­getic and tech savvy mobi­liz­ers and orga­niz­ers. Inten­tion­al­ly men­tored, sup­port­ed and net­worked, these lead­ers will become the next gen­er­a­tion of pow­er­ful advo­ca­cy voic­es for chil­dren and fam­i­lies. Sup­port­ing emerg­ing child health lead­ers not only increas­es the chances of bet­ter out­comes for kids, but also will be vital­ly impor­tant in mov­ing the divi­sive dis­course around pol­i­tics to more com­mon ground.

Down­load the Chil­dren’s Health Lead­er­ship Net­work flyer

Program Information

  • Program Description
  • Applicant Profile
  • Program Results and Measures
  • Logistics

Apply Now

Applications are due by 5 p.m., September 21, 2015.

Applicants must apply online. To start the application process, click here.

On your first visit to the site, you'll be asked to create a username and password, which will allow you to work on the application over multiple sessions. Once you log into the system, you'll initially need to select the "Children's Health Leadership Network" as your program of interest. When you log into the site in the future, you'll go directly to your application.

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