Celebrating 40 Years of Effective Child and Youth Advocacy

If you were alive then, think back to 1983.  Ronald Reagan was President and had recently made federal cuts to many human services. Vermont’s population was 523,302 and was 99.1% white.  Richard Snelling was in his fourth term as Governor. Madeleine Kunin was Lt. Governor.  Bernie Sanders was in his second term as mayor of Burlington. The Vermont Senate had five women Senators: four Democrats and one Republican.  The Vermont House had 30 women Representatives: 15 Democrats and 15 Republicans.

In July 1983, Governor Snelling was calling the Vermont Legislature back into emergency session to deal with a serious budget deficit, 8.2% less revenue than expenses for the fiscal year which had just ended. There was a continuing deficit projected for FY’84 which had just begun.  According to a New York Times article from July 4, 1983, “Snelling, a Republican, said he would ask the Legislature to raise several taxes and cut spending across the board.  He suggested increases in taxes on room rentals, meals and cigarettes and called for cuts in all state programs except for state aid to education and aid to programs for the needy.”

Here’s a sample of facts about how kids in Vermont were faring in 1983;

• There was a 35% decrease in state funding for child care since 1980.

• The school lunch program served 22.3% fewer meals to kids in school in 1982  than in 1980.

• 1609 Vermont teenagers became pregnant in 1982.

• Only 5 of 14 Vermont counties had runaway youth programs.

• Kindergarten was not mandatory for public schools to offer.

• 77% of VT students graduated from high school.

There was no unified advocacy voice for children and youth’s needs in Vermont and the budget pie was shrinking.  The data above could not be found in any centralized place and were not being effectively shared with Vermonters.

SO, in the fall of 1983 a group of interested child advocates representing many different subsets of children and youth services came together to learn from each other about salient legislative issues needing action and to develop strategies to move our collective work forward.  Those were challenging times, but the group’s diversity, passion and collective will to make lives better for Vermont’s children and their families propelled us forward in profound ways.  Within months there was common agreement on shared values to undergird our work together:

We Build a Unified Voice for children across ages and domains such as child care, juvenile justice, physical and mental health access, child safety, economic security and more.

We Focus on the Whole Child - Advocates were learning from each other about the holistic needs of children and youth.  We committed to work for cross-cutting solutions, asking questions and creating proposals to address the root issues for child well being.

We Change the Funding Landscape - Advocates didn’t want to fight each other for funding but to instead collectively identify needs and gaps and jointly push for needed services across domains.

We Create Solidarity Among Child Advocates - To effect persistent and collective efforts to create public policies that supported the well being of children and youth, we needed an organized, authoritative, structured voice.

From these values and principles was born the Vermont Children’s Forum (VCF), incorporated as a Vermont non-profit organization on July 24, 1984. Its purposes were:

• To represent, protect, and advance the general interests and needs of children and adolescents in the state of Vermont,

• To research, develop, and disseminate educational policy materials for general use,

• To undertake educational activities designed to promote the social, economic and educational welfare of Vermont’s children, and

• To cooperate with all public and private agencies or organizations to ensure the adoption and maintenance of supportive policies and practices.

But even before VCF was an official organization its volunteer founding members were impacting public policy.  The group published The Kids in our Backyard: Some Facts You Should Know about Vermont Children, from which all the data presented above are taken. This data report was researched and written by Amy Davenport with editorial assistance from Joanne Brookmeyer, Rebecca Davidson, Claudia Jacobs,  Helen Keith, Lee Lauber, Ken Libertoff, Helen McGough, and Jeri Martinez and designed by Maureen O’Conner Burgess.  Attached at the end of this document are the names of 50 individuals and organizations, public and private, local and statewide, which supported the vision of creating a statewide multi-issue child advocacy organization.

The commitment of these diverse entities to collaboration through data sharing, financial support, development and analysis of budget and policy initiatives, and listening and learning from each other – and from the children and families we work to better support – has persisted across the decades.  

VCF also published in January 1984 the first attempt to gather data from all the departments of state government which provided services to children and their families.  State employees at the departments of Social and Rehabilitation Services, Education, Social Welfare, Mental Health, and Health, and the offices of Economic Opportunity and Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs were incredibly helpful in providing details of department budgets which had never been collectively shared with the public before.  Again, Amy Davenport was the main researcher and editor who brought previously disparate information into a coherent whole.

With these powerful foundational tools, and hundreds of others developed over the past 40 years by VCF and its successor organization, Voices for Vermont’s Children, a growing cadre of citizens and organizations have helped create real policy change to positively impact the kids in our backyards.

The FY’85 first policy agenda included the following priority policy actions in the Legislature and Administration:

• Increase the availability of child care via legislation and incentives for employers to promote child care services.

• Funding to support Parent Child Centers throughout Vermont. 

• Support the use of state funds for preventive services to reduce the need for institutional services.

• Develop alternative government structures for responding to the needs of children and families; a Department of Children and Families or some form of interagency cooperation.

• Support the widespread and systematic availability of parent education.

There were initial successes and there were issues that took decades of work before some progress was made.  There were times when our friends in the administration were true partners in advocacy.  At other times there was creative tension between us when administrative or legislative stonewalling hindered VCF from accomplishing its priorities.

Early successes included:

• A new law to establish kindergartens in every Vermont public school district,

• Increased access to health insurance for children and youth,

• Expanded services to runaway and homeless youth,

• Strengthened child abuse prevention laws,

• Enactment of the Early Education Initiative for young children at risk,

• Expansion of subsidized child care for low income working families.

As we celebrate Vermont Children’s Forum/Voices for Vermont’s Children’s 40th anniversary, founders and early members look backward with appreciation for the collective vision and commitment of our early years and look forward with gratitude to the youth and adults who have embraced this vision and carry on this commitment into the future.

-Lee Lauber, Founding Member, Vermont Children’s Forum

Contributors to the first “Kids in Our Backyard” data book:

Addison County Parent/Child Center

Baird Center for Children and      Families

Bennington College Early Childhood Center

Central Vermont Head Start

Child Care Center

Council for Children and Families of Chittenden County

Day Care Center

Delinquency Prevention Coordinating Council Foresight ·

Governor's Commission on the Status of Women

Lamoille Family Center

Lee Lauber

Mary Johnson Day Care Center

New England Resource Center

Northeast Kingdom Community Action, Child and Family Development Program

Northeast Kingdom Youth Services

Norwich University

James and Stephanie O'Rourke

Parents Anonymous of Vermont

Planned Parenthood of Vermont

Sarah Holbrook Community of Vermont

United Church of Christ, Office for Church in Society, Neighbors in Need Block Grant Project

Vermont Academy of Pediatrics

Vermont Assistance, Inc.

Vermont Association for Mental Health

Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children

Vermont Arc

Vermont Child Protection Coalition

Vermont Children's Aid Society

Vermont Coalition Against Domestic Violence