 VOICES FOR CHILDREN OF SAN
ANTONIO began its work in 1996 under the leadership of
Marian Sokol and ANY BABY CAN. With a small grant from
the U.S. Bureau of Maternal and Child Health to develop
a “children’s agenda” for San Antonio, a series of
‘breakfast briefings’ convened stakeholders to hear
expert testimony in the areas of Abuse & Neglect, Basic
Needs, Early Care & Education, and Health Care.In an
effort to synthesize, prioritize, and address those many
issues, we held our first “Congress on Children” in 1997
with nearly 150 ‘service providers’ and other concerned
citizens attending. From that gathering, Task Forces
were created and victories in those early years included
the passage of the Children’s Health Insurance Program
in Texas and fluoridation of the public water supply in
San Antonio.
In 2001 we incorporated as a 501c3 nonprofit
organization with the mission to make young children’s
issues a priority in the San Antonio community.
Over the years we have built our network of stakeholders
to a database of over a thousand individuals from over
400 organizations who we communicate with regularly.
Many of them participate in ongoing meetings to examine
and prioritize policies and practices and organize
ourselves to advocate for change at many levels.
VOICES’ work centers around three types of activity:
- Research
We convene stakeholders, experts in various arenas
of interest, to identify issues to be addressed to
improve outcomes for children. These may be public
policies or programmatic practices.
- Advocacy
We organize those stakeholders to develop
recommendations that we advance to policy makers. In
the programmatic area, we serve as a catalyst for
collaboration, working for more effective service
delivery.
- Messaging
We work to frame clear and consistent messages that
convey the wisdom of investing early in human
capital development. Research supports that the
pre-school years, birth to about age five, offer the
richest opportunity to lay a positive foundation for
a lifetime of fulfillment.
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