Rene Murry Chair of the Board Children’s Campaign Fund
Recently, I was asked how we children’s welfare services advocates stay in the game, when it so often seems as though things never get any better.
There are several reasons for continuing in advocacy.
The top of that list is that children cannot vote. Adults must offer their voices to represent them. We need to be the voice for the young children without food security, a home or safe and healthy place to live and grow.
We need to speak for the foster youth who, through no fault of their own, became dependent on the state and yet when they age out at 18, find that their parent is a bureaucracy.
We need to speak for the children who have disabilities who leave their birth families because their needs for support go beyond what they can provide.
We do need to speak for the youth and young adults who couch surf and have limited access services or adults to provide structure for them.
I was personally touched by the event in North Seattle where a young man, who attended the same school as my daughter, took the life of a man for a cell phone. What should and could we have done to prevent this act?
Our answer is both simple and weighty. We must continue to advocate for all of our children. Because we can and we must. There is no one else. We are their voice.
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