Everyday Advocacy Research Articles

The everyday advocacy work of the baby room leader

There is a growing body of literature on leadership and leadership development across the early years sector. Early years leadership research has so far tended to focus on positional leadership demonstrated by setting managers or preschool room leaders. There is a notable gap in the understanding of the role of the baby room leader, leading practice for children from birth to two, and how leadership can be developed in this specific context. Drawing on a design workshop with baby room leaders and nursery managers, as well as five follow-up semi-structured interviews with baby room leaders, this article offers an insight into the role of the baby room leader, with a particular focus on everyday advocacy. It presents four advocacy themes in baby room leadership: (1) highlighting and understanding the impact of baby room practice; (2) sharing a passion for working with babies; (3) advocating professional development specific to the baby room; and (4) challenging the discourses and stereotypes surrounding those who work in the baby room. These themes represent both current realities in baby room leadership and opportunities for future development and mobilisation.

Social Media as a Means for Everyday Advocacy

Over the past several years, the power of social media to create connections through the pandemic has had both positive and negative impacts. Libraries make use of social media as a marketing tool, a public forum, and as a digital third place for programming and community connection.Most libraries use social media to communicate the needs of the library and patrons, and as a means to connect with community partners and stakeholders. I’ve spent the last eight years working in rural and remote libraries in Wyoming, New Mexico, and Nebraska, and each has used social media to their advantage in community engagement.

Everyday Advocacy: Doing What You Do

Earlier this year, ALSC’s Public Awareness Committee published the Championing Children’s Services toolkit to help libraries expand their advocacy efforts. It features eight program ideas, each centered around a different “Because Statement.” For instance, the first Because Statement is, “Because child readers become grown-up leaders.” The corresponding program suggests, “Invite your stakeholders to attend the Summer Reading/Learning Program kick-off. They can simply attend the event or you can give them a more active role.”

Everyday Advocacy: Tips to Ease a “Terrifying” Congressional Visit

They say that any chance to demonstrate the value of our services to our local congressperson is invaluable and, really, must be taken. They say to always have your “elevator speech” with you, should the need for declaration arise. And they say that as long as you study your talking points and memorize the materials you are leaving behind, you’ll be fine. No pressure. Among other things, that’s what they say, anyway.

Everyday Advocacy: Advocacy and Building Relationships

I’ve worked as a children’s librarian for five years. Over the last two, I’ve served with ALSC’s Advocacy and Legislation Committee. Yet I have to admit, I am still learning the role of a librarian advocate. I’ll be honest, it often feels overwhelming, and I am not sure that feeling will ever dissipate.There is a lot to think about. From local to state and federal stakeholders, I sometimes feel my perch at the kid’s desk isn’t the place where real advocacy happens. How can I rally support for libraries at all levels? It’s not just a question for a librarian who serves on an advocacy committee. I am sure it’s a question we all ask ourselves.

For real people in real places: the Copenhagen school and the other “little security nothings”

ABSTRACTThis article builds on most recent scholarship, increasingly critical of the uncritical, or non-critical in critical security studies. Through the empirical context of migration and the theoretical structure of the Copenhagen School, this inquiry draws attention to the hegemonic dominance of securitisation’s negative logic. With Germany as its case study, this article unpacks why and how the securitisation of migration is already always of a distinctly linear, segregating, violent, hence, negative and undesirable security determinism. More simply put: for decades, security and securitisation in critical security studies scholarship remain conflated into the same conditions and practices, reiterating the same meanings, namely: insecurity. By exploring a more inclusive, progressive type of securitisation framing through the subject rather than the referent object locus, this inquiry directs attention to a different kind of what Jef Huysmans initially termed in 2011 “little security nothings.” These other security “nothings,” also so profoundly infused with power, are found embedded in everyday meso-level practices performed and exercised by pro-migration, non-elite, fringe grassroots securitisation actors and audiences such as Germany’s Green Party and many non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This everyday advocacy on-the-ground in Germany animates and sustains inclusive registers of meanings, which make “real people in real places” feel safe and secure.

Everyday Advocacy: Outreach, Summer Programming, and the Advocacy Feedback Loop

Outreach is AdvocacyThe ALSC Advocacy & Legislation Committee is tasked with finding advocacy resources and sharing them with the rest of the ALSC community. The committee also educates library professionals about what advocacy actually is—ALSC’s Everyday Advocacy initiative defines it as “at its most basic . . . about relationships . . . that have the power to advance or retreat our cause.”

Everyday Advocacy: Advocacy Shade!

For my last haircut, I went to a stylist recommended by a librarian friend.

Advocacy and Legislation: The Importance of Understanding the Difference

This column by the ALSC Advocacy and Legislation Committee replaces the Everyday Advocacy column written by Jenna Nemec-Loise. This committee is focused on empowering and supporting advocacy and legislation efforts on behalf of libraries, children, and families!

Everyday Advocacy as Part of Everyday Professionalism

Everyday Advocacy as Part of Everyday Professionalism

Everyday Advocacy: Are You Ready to Play Outside?

Friends, this is my last Everyday Advocacy column for Children and Libraries. (I’m not crying. You’re crying!)It’s been awesome sharing my light-hearted (if not slightly irreverent) take on promoting the purpose and value of strong Youth Services, but it’s time for me to move on so Everyday Advocacy can, too. As I take my leave, I hope you’ll indulge me in a look back on the spark that kindled my advocacy flame—play.

Everyday Advocacy: Spheres of Transformation

Everyday Advocacy empowers ALSC members to embrace their roles as library advocates by focusing on their daily efforts to serve kids and families. Each lighthearted column features easy-to-implement strategies and techniques for asserting the transformative power of libraries both within communities and beyond them. Please contact Jenna Nemec-Loise at jnemecloise@outlook.com with comments and ideas for future topics.

Everyday Advocacy: Lessons from Lititz

If you’ve never been to Lititz, Pennsylvania, you should totally go, and make haste. About ninety minutes from Philadelphia and forty minutes from Harrisburg, Lititz is a not-be-missed treasure of Lancaster (pronounced “LANG-kiss-tur”) County in the heart of Amish country.You’ll want to stay at Lititz House Bed and Breakfast, where innkeepers John and Heidi will welcome you like family. What’s even better than relaxing in a gorgeous room and eating a delicious morning meal, you ask? Playing with John and Heidi’s beagle, Sally. (She’s a charmer—even if you don’t like dogs.)

Everyday Advocacy: 30 Ways in 30 Days: A Month of Entry Points for Living and Loving Advocacy

Thirty days. They’re a pretty good measuring stick for whether or not something works for us, right? At least that’s what all those infomercials would have us believe.I mean, think about it: Everywhere you look there’s a thirty-day risk-free trial or money-back guarantee. If you’re not completely satisfied, simply return your purchase for a full refund (less shipping and handling). There’s no commitment, and you can cancel at any time.

Everyday Advocacy: Top Ten Advocacy Myths–Busted!

This past November, I packed my bags and a big box of ALSC loot so I could take the Everyday Advocacy show on the road. Sure, I’d already presented oodles of times at ALA conferences and the 2014 ALSC Institute, but bringing workshops to front-line youth services librarians in their home states was a new thing for me.

Everyday advocacy

Everyday advocacy

Everyday Advocacy: Finding Fresh Starts

If you’re of a certain age like I am, surely you remember one of the most dashing and debonair gents in all of television history: Ricardo Montalbán’s Mr. Roarke from Fantasy Island. (Just Google “Smiles, everyone! Smiles!” You know you want to.)

Supporting children with disabilities at school: implications for the advocate role in professional practice and education

Purpose: School settings are a common practice context for rehabilitation professionals; health advocacy is a common and challenging practice role for professionals in this context. This study explored how pediatric practitioners advocate for children with disabilities at school. Specifically, we examined everyday advocacy in the context of school-based support for children with disabilities. Method: Our theoretical framework and methodological approach were informed by institutional ethnography, which maps and makes visible hidden social coordinators of work processes with a view to improving processes and outcomes. We included families, educators, and health/rehabilitation practitioners from Ontario. Of the 37 consented informants, 27 were interviewed and 15 observed. Documents and texts were collected from the micro-level (e.g. clinician reports) and the macro-level (e.g. policies). Results: Pediatric practitioners' advocacy work included two main work processes: spotlighting invisible disabilities and orienteering the special education terrain. Practitioners advocated indirectly, by proxy, with common proxies being documents and parents. Unintended consequences of advocacy by proxy included conflict and inefficiency, which were often unknown to the practitioner. Conclusions: The findings of this study provide practice-based knowledge about advocacy for children with disabilities, which may be used to inform further development of competency frameworks and continuing education for pediatric practitioners. The findings also show how everyday practices are influenced by policies and social discourses and how rehabilitation professionals may enact change.Implications for RehabilitationRehabilitation professionals frequently perform advocacy work. They may find it beneficial to perform advocacy work that is informed by overarching professional and ethical guidelines, and a nuanced understanding of local processes and structures.Competency frameworks and education for pediatric rehabilitation professionals may be improved by: encouraging professionals to consider how their practices, including their written documents, may affect parental burden, (mis)interpretation by document recipients, and potential unintended consequences.Policies and texts, e.g. privacy legislation and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), influence rehabilitation professionals' actions and interactions when supporting children with disabilities at school.An awareness of the influence of policies and texts may enable practitioners to work more effectively within current systems when supporting individuals with disabilities.

Everyday Advocacy: Summer Breeze: Top 10 Advocacy Shortcuts for the Time-Pressed

If you’re anything like me, your summer is filled with some pretty intense adjectives and adverbs. You’re not just busy. You’re astonishingly busy. How was your day? Absolutely crazy!I totally get it, and so does anyone who’s ever run a summer library program for youth. With so much to do and only twenty-four hours in the day, who’s got time for advocacy?You do! (Yes, really. You.)

Everyday Advocacy: It’s How You Say It: Using Value-Based Language for Elevator Speech Awesomeness

Everyday Advocacy empowers ALSC members to embrace their roles as library advocates by focusing on their daily efforts to serve youth and families. Each lighthearted column features easy-to-implement strategies and techniques for asserting the transformative power of libraries both within communities and beyond them. Contact Jenna Nemec-Loise at everyday-advocacy @hotmail.com with comments and ideas for future topics.