The Importance of Coalition Building and Political Advocacy

By Ken Berrick

The Alameda County Office of Education is faced with the worst potential budget crisis in recent history. In past years, the Board has not always worked in perfect harmony with the Superintendent and Alameda County school districts. In facing the upcoming crisis, unified advocacy will be an absolute imperative.

I intend to play a role in setting this children's policy agenda. As a member of California's Child Welfare Council, I will have a forum in which I have access to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, key leaders in the State Department of Education, the State Department of Mental Health, the State Department of Social Services, and the State Department of Juvenile Justice. The Child Welfare Council was established through legislation to identify the critical needs of foster children, and to bring together key leaders from across the state, including the legislative, judicial, and executive branches and community leaders to address cross-cutting challenges (for a list of Child Welfare Council members, see: http://www.chhs.ca.gov/initiatives/CAChildWelfareCouncil/Documents/CWC+Members040708.pdf ). Next year I will also serve as President of the California Alliance of Child and Family Services (see: http://www.cacfs.org/) where I will have a central role in shaping the policy agenda for children's agencies across the state. These important leadership positions will allow me to be one among many key leaders in the state who are all doggedly determined to develop a coalition of children's interests and to declare, even in light of the current budget crisis, that it's time for California to put children's issues front and center.

I believe it is a strategic error to focus solely on education as the solution to the problems of the most vulnerable children and youth in the state. Instead, education should be the centerpiece of a broader children's initiative where interest groups across the state focus on a children's agenda, led by Speaker Bass and President Pro-Tem Steinberg, that many of us have been working on for several years. Using the mantle of the Alameda County Board of Education enhances my ability to advocate for a statewide coalition. I seek this office not as a stepping stone to greater political challenges, but in part because the work of the County Office of Education allows me to have broader policy impact on many of the areas which I've been passionate about throughout my professional life. While I wish that local initiatives could provide a durable solution to the problems we face, I am realistic that we must influence the state leadership to make next year and those thereafter not the "Year of Education," but the "Year of the Child."