Program Notes

Samantha Standing is the Development Director for The Children's Agenda (TCA).  TCA's mission:  improve the health, education, and success of children by advocating for effective, equitable policies, especially for families most impacted by poverty, racism, health inequities, and trauma.  They do not provide direct services for the most part, but provide independent, nonpartisan ADVOCACY focused on children based on evidence based research from prenatal to young adulthood.  The group works across New York state to create policies and laws that will impact local communities.  The group is 22 years old and staff of 13 mostly policy and research experts as well as operational personnel.  Simply stated, they try to fix the “system” that will help other agencies do their jobs more efficiently and have more impact.  They focus on preventable problems in the area of economic mobility (ending child poverty), health (universal child care), education (early childhood support) and mental health of children.  They have programs that organize parents to become advocacy leaders in their community.  Lobbying in Albany is also a large effort by this organization.  No funding comes from the government; most funding is from foundations.  Their endowment is not large enough to be self-sustaining.  For more info, see POWERPOINT.