Leadership and Communication Skills

When leading policy change there are many important communication skills to consider.  These include but are not limited to: clarity in communication, leading in a collaborative manner, and actively listening to others (Bambacas & Patrickson, 2008).  

Of these, I feel the two most important are clarity and active listening.  In a leadership role, one must be able to send clear messages in order to avoid confusion in the group.  Moreover, being misunderstood can result in wasted time resources due to mismanagement of priorities.  Clarity ensures that everyone involved is on the right track.
Active listening is also critically important as a leader, just as active listening is important in any role.  Active listening models to others that one cares about the other and one is making effort in not just hearing but understanding what the other party is trying to convey.  In addition, it can prevent miscommunication which is important when trying to maintain efficiency and reaching objectives.  Active listening means one is physically focused on the speaker, uses body language to convey one is listening, and ends with the listener repeating back what was heard to ensure understanding (Conflict Research Consortium, 1998).
Upon reflection, I feel that my strongest strength is in modeling active listening through body language.  When listening, my body faces the speaker, and I am often nodding while doing so.  Additionally, I make much eye contact and use facial expression to share my feelings while one is speaking.  Having conference speakers approach me following their presentations and thanking me for showing interest throughout has confirmed for me that I do well in this area, as well as demonstrates that these behaviors are appreciated by speakers, even when one is part of a very large crowd!
An area in which I would like to improve is in clarity.  In my quest to be fully understood, I yield that I may excessively talk out a scenario rather than being both clear, as well as concise.  In a world, and especially a profession in which time is a critical commodity, it is useful to be able to be both clear and concise.  Moreover, one can lose the audience’s attention if over explaining a topic.

References

Bambacas, M., & Patrickson, M. (2008). Interpersonal communication skills that enhance organisational commitment. Journal of Communication Management, 12(1), 51-72. doi:10.1108/13632540810854235

Conflict Research Consortium - University of Colorado. (1998). Active listening. Retrieved from http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/treatment/activel.htm

Social Media in Promoting an Issue

Research indicates that 15 to 17 percent of children should qualify for Early Intervention (Boyle et al., 2011).  However, in 2009 only 2.67 percent of children received services (Macy, Marks, & Towle, 2014).  Rosenberg, Zhang, and Robinson (2008) uncovered racial disparities in which eligible African American children were found to be five times less likely to receive services.  In Addition, they found that children from homeless families are also underserved in Birth to Three programs. Current programs are short of qualified staff, as well as funds, leading to policies in which all children with delays or disabilities are not provided with services (Hebbeler et al., 2007).  Hebbeler et al. (2007) reported that local staff inconsistently utilized the eligibility categories thus resulting in unequal entry into services.  

The Early Intervention program has an important purpose.  Proper execution, can significantly stem and/or reduce the cycle of poverty.  Moreover, it also provides children an equal opportunity to develop the brain architecture needed in order to become an independent and a productive member of society.  Without this service, the cycle of poverty, achievement gap, and limited access to upward mobility will remain stagnant and/or continue to grow. 

In order to provide the funding required to provide mandated services to all families who qualify, the budget for Early Intervention needs to be increased.  Thus, this issue should be sent forth to the appropriate Congressional Budgetary Committee for resolution.  Secondly, as the states have mismanaged the program resulting in not all families gaining access, nor all families qualifying for services, state execution should be revoked with the federal government taking over in supplying services.  Alternatively, state execution of the program could remain in place however program execution should be clearly defined (written by a subcommittee) in order that all families receive equal services despite the state in which they reside. 

Failure to comply with mandated policy should be met with restrictions/forfeitures on state funds in other areas such as highway infrastructure and other state projects fueled with federal dollars.  Those funds will be utilized to bring in a federal task force to implement the state program which adheres to the federal policy.  The federal task force will remain active until personnel in the state program have been properly trained to carry out the requirements of the program at which time the program will then be turned back over to state control.

In order to accomplish these proposals, a committee of early childhood professionals and allies would need to be assembled.  Useful allies would include politicians, accountants, lawyers, and board members or officers of early childhood organizations.  Working together, this partnership can advocate for change to Early Intervention legislation.

To advocate for change, public support would be needed.  For an issue to be seriously considered and taken on by politicians, they need to see that their constituents are aware of and demand action on the issue.  Therefore, a useful social media tool to project this message to the general public would be Facebook.  Facebook has many benefits.  It would be free to use thereby saving important funds for other uses.  Additionally, Facebook messages can spread quickly, with the audience choosing to share posts and spreading the message further and faster.  Another benefit is that Facebook is also interactive in that the audience can comment and ask questions on posts and about the advocacy group.  Ironically, this can also be considered as a challenge as it may be time consuming responding to questions and posts.  Moreover, persons may make inappropriate comments and/or challenge the message.  Lastly, Facebook has an advantage in that it can also have audience with politicians.  Indeed, they are just as likely to see our message as the general public as they benefit in keeping abreast of issue trends.  Moreover, the statistics generated through the Facebook page can be used as evidence of public support to get politicians on board with the cause.

Another useful social media tool would be Twitter.  This tool would also reach the general public and politicians alike.  One downside with Twitter is that to grow in followers, you do need to spend time following others.  This will up the activity level of the account and make one more relevant.  Patel, (2015) warns that if one follows too many people, but only has a few followers, it appears desperate.  Therefore, Patel (2015) recommends having a close number between followers and followed. 

References

Boyle, C. A., Boulet, S., Schieve, L. A., Cohen, R. A., Blumberg, S. J., Yeargin-Allsopp, M., … Kogan, M. D. (2011). Trends in the prevalence of developmental disabilities in US children, 1997-2008. PEDIATRICS, 127(6), 1034-1042. doi:10.1542/peds.2010-2989

Hebbeler, K., Spiker, D., Bailey, D., Scarborough, A., Mallik, S., Simeonsson, R., … Singer, M. (2007). Early intervention for infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families: participants, services, and outcomes. Retrieved from https://www.sri.com/sites/default/files/publications/neils_finalreport_200702.pdf

Macy, M., Marks, K., & Towle, A. (2014). Missed, misused, or mismanaged: Improving early detection systems to optimize child outcomes. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 34(2), 94-105. doi:10.1177/0271121414525997

Patel, N. (n.d.). How to grow your personal brand on twitter in only 10 minutes a day. Retrieved from http://marketingland.com/how-to-grow-your-personal-brand-on-twitter-in-only-10-minutes-a-day-121514

Rosenberg, S. A., Zhang, D., & Robinson, C. C. (2008). Prevalence of developmental delays and participation in early intervention services for young children. PEDIATRICS,121(6), e1503-e1509. doi:10.1542/peds.2007-1680