Advocacy group and community members discuss Wayne CAN
By Joey Pitchford
Published in News on March 29, 2018 5:50 AM
Leaders in education, health care and several other areas across Wayne County came together at WAGES Tuesday evening for an interest meeting for the Wayne Child Advocacy Network, a proposed local advocacy group run by NC Child which works for the protection and advancement of children.
Adam Sotak, Public Engagement Director with NC Child, opened up the presentation by detailing the general goals of NC Child and the potential impact of a countywide advocacy network. NC Child is a statewide nonprofit which advocates for children and tries to change and improve policy to benefit their lives.
"We want to put our money where our mouth is, for lack of a better term, and support advocacy at the local level, knowing that these things take time and resources to accomplish," he said.
According to materials provided by NC Child, 60 percent of children in Wayne County live in a home that is either in poverty or near it, higher than the state average of 46 percent. Twenty-five percent of children in the county live in homes that are food insecure, according to the NC Child data.
After Sotak finished, Dr. David Tayloe, founder of Goldsboro Pediatrics, took the podium to discuss the benefits of working together for political advocacy. He said that the support of the Raleigh-based NC Child would go a long way in helping Wayne County organizations address issues like early childhood literacy.
"I would see us as pulling together a fairly large group -- this is a great turnout -- here in Wayne County that could respond to the needs of a state organization, much as we've done in the pediatric community where we have pretty pervasive contacts in the legislative network," he said.
Next up came a series of presenters from local child health, education and support groups.
Karen Webb, health education coordinator for WATCH, took the podium first, followed by Nola Claiborne, breastfeeding consultant with Goldsboro Pediatrics.
Charlie Ivey, executive director of the Partnership for Children of Wayne County, was third to the podium, followed by Donna Phillips, executive director of the Wayne County Public Library and Patricia Beier, executive director of WAGES.
Each speaker talked briefly about the ways their respective organizations are working to help children in Wayne County, from feeding programs to early childhood education and teen pregnancy prevention. Claiborne said that the audience represented a group of people who have already committed to improving the lives of Wayne County children.
"We're already a couple steps ahead on what you want to do," she said to Sotak. "Because this is a collaborating, cooperating group of people, you will not find any better."
La-Mine Perkins, with NC Child, presented the results of a survey given to the attendees leading up to the meeting. Responders identified three issues -- early learning and access to quality and affordable child care, parent education and access to affordable and safe housing -- as their top three priorities to address, as well as issues like opioid addiction and institutional racism.
Next, the attendees participated in an exercise meant to further prioritize issues. Each person was given three stickers -- blue, green and orange -- which denoted their first, second and third highest priorities, respectively. They then placed those stickers on five sheets of paper taped to the wall, each with a different issue such as early education or access to health care written on it.
The final segment of the meeting was an open discussion on ways the network could hone in on specific issues for advocacy.
Tayloe said that legislators' renewed focus on school security in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting meant that it is important for advocacy groups not wait around to act on that issue.
"We should think sooner rather than later what our ask would be of the legislature," he said.
"You see in the paper people saying we need more guidance counselors and psychologists so you can take care of mental health problems. No, no, no, no, no, that is not how it works, those people are in the education and the testing business. Somebody up there doesn't understand that what you need is more social workers, mental health clinical social workers."
After the meeting concluded, Sotak said that he was happy with how things had gone. The Wayne CAN meeting was the first such local meeting NC Child had held.
"I feel like it went really well, the spirit of collaboration here in Goldsboro and Wayne County really shines through," he said. "It's something that we've been impressed with, and something that has drawn us to do more work in Wayne County. So we're excited about the possibilities for better and stronger advocacy for kids."