Children's Hospital Association
Speak Now for Kids
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Under the Children's Hospital Association's (CHA) Speak Now for Kids advocacy program, I conducted advocacy communications in support of child health policy issues including Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the Children's Hospital Graduate Medical Education (CHGME) program. My strategic communications plans employed digital media, print collateral material, influencer relations, and paid and earned media. I also managed and coordinated the recruitment and communications of our annual Speak Now for Kids Advocacy Day. Patients from children's hospitals nationwide and their families would attend the event in Washington, DC yearly to meet with their representatives on Capitol Hill and share their health care stories.
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Each year, I was responsible for identifying patient families attending Family Advocacy Day whose experience exemplified the legislative issue that was the focus of the event that year. Those families would have their stories pitched to the media. All child patients in attendance would be profiled in a booklet and on personalized trading cards that were used as ice breakers at their meetings with members of Congress and the media. I was responsible for developing these materials along with the strategic communications plan for the event. Communications efforts, together with the family visits to Congress, often led to favorable policy decisions. As one example, in 2017, the American Health Care Act (AHCA) (H.R. 1628) was defeated shortly after the fly-in event. Introduced in the House of Representatives, the bill threatened children’s health care by proposing cuts to funding, coverage and benefits for kids with significant health care needs.
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Digital Media Strategies
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As social media has evolved from a tool of amplification, to one of influence and action, digital strategy has become an important part of advocacy communications. The Speak Now for Kids online community exemplifies how a digital platform can become an integral part of an advocacy campaign. With nearly 25,000 advocates active on the campaign's website and social media properties, the association has been successful in rallying its supporters to stop policy that threatens funding to Medicaid or graduate medical education funding.
Social media campaigns such as "Medicaid Matters for Kids Month" and "What Matters to You?", where families share stories of how Medicaid and CHIP addresses their children's health care needs, have been effective in raising visibility for child health policies. Recruiting social media influencers such as Jennifer Arnold, MD, one half of TLC's the Little Couple, and Heidi Murkoff, author of the "What to Expect" series, have been helpful in raising awareness of key policy issues by publicly voicing their support for CHA's issues and encouraging their followers to participate in these campaigns.
