Hillsborough County Roundtable Discussion
Posted on 08/24/2011 @ 02:14 PM
By Becky Newell, Regional Coordinator, West Florida
becky.newell@childrensmovementflorida.org
Hillsborough County Roundtable Discussion
We had a full house at the Hillsborough County Listening Tour meeting at the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County on Tuesday. In addition to a great turnout from Hillsborough, supporters also travelled from surrounding counties, including Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando, and even as far away as Lee County.
Much of Tuesday’s discussion centered around the economic impact – both short term and long term – of taking care of the needs of Florida’s children. Beth Lobdell, Executive Director of Child Care of Southwest Florida, Inc., suggested that when we advocate for making children the top priority in Florida, we need to focus on the fact that “child care keeps Florida working,” on more than one level: child care centers and preschools employ large numbers of people, and parents are able to continue to work when their children have high quality, affordable care.
Leisa Stanley, Associate Executive Director of the Healthy Start Coalition of Hillsborough County, expressed the same sentiments. She emphasized that serving our children helps parents to become self-sufficient, contributing members of our communities in the short term, and also helps to raise children who are prepared to become productive adults in the long term.
When we asked whether the Movement should be more assertive in our advocacy efforts, Jim Farrelly, CEO of the Early Learning Coalition of Pasco/Hernando, summarized the opinions of many in the room when he said that child advocates in Florida need to “stomp our collective feet” loudly enough to be heard across the state.
Hear some of the comments of participants in the videos below:
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