Florida

• American Heart Association – South Florida
• Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation
• Florida Policy Institute
• Help Me Grow Florida
• Metro Mommy Agency
• MomsRising
• Southern Birth Justice Network
• The Children’s Movement of Florida

What you need to know about our State!

• Diversity is an asset
• Tallahassee is the only state capitol that isn’t a major population center or centrally located within the state, which makes it difficult for community members to come to the capitol.
• Defending policy takes time from being visionary
• Politicizing of DEI terms is a deterrent to policy movement
• Florida is at Least 5 “States” in One!
  • Very different regions within the state – with different cultures, demographics, urban/rural differences, country of origin, age, etc.
  • Some of the Florida counties are larger than states in population.
• Newbie Effect
  • Only about 30% of Florida residents were born in Florida.
  • Large influx of people from other countries.
  • With lots of new folks coming into the state, they do not have inherent Florida pride, they have pride in where they came
    from. Therefore, they do not feel as attached to what happens in Florida and do not engage in advocacy campaigns.

What we are awesome at!

• Advocacy for policies that other states do not have resources for
• Ballot initiative process
• Media
  • Good at getting earned media
  • Many Spanish outlets

What will it take to improve the conditions for advocacy in our state?

• More funding
  • General operational and lobbying dollars
• Building capacity and more education about how different organizations can lobby/advocate
  • Both for-profit and non-profit groups need help
• More grassroots for PN-3.
• More organization around vision and not incremental change

Who else should be at this table: 

• Association of Healthy Start Coalition
• Children’s Hospitals
• Children’s Forum
• Florida’s Alliance of Healthcare and Trust
• Association of Early Learning Coalition
• UnitedWay
• Florida Alliance of YMCA
• Dept of Children and Families
• Florida’s Health Justice Project
• Florida Voices for Health
• Florida Perinatal Quality Colab PQC
• March for Babies, March for Moms
• National Black Midwives Alliance
• Unidos-Florida
• Pediatrix
• NECTFC
• Alliance for Early Learning
• Managed Care Organization
• Child Welfare Advocates etc.

Next steps that would keep momentum up after this event:

• Follow up to Florida early care and education partner mapping with Santi
• Recruitment materials for other Florida organizations
• Infrastructure to keep state meetings goings

In addition to the organizations that were together in Arkansas, here is a list of additional Florida NCIT members:

• 211 Palm Beach Treasure Coast
• Catalyst Miami
• Children’s Trust of Alachua County
• Early Learning Coalition of Northwest Florida
• Empowering Early Learning Educators
• First 1000 Days Florida
• Florida Association for Infant Mental Health
• Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics
• Florida Head Start Association
• Florida Impact
• Healthy Start Coalition of Southwest Florida, Inc,
• Heart of Florida United Way, Help Me Grow Program
• The Women’s Fund of Miami-Dade
• Urban Health Partnerships

• Help removing barriers to grassroots participation: childcare, stipends, language justice, etc.
• Many issue-specific asks:
  • Lobbying dollars for Medicaid expansion
  • Help getting and staying in the room for the Doula bill.
  • Leave behind one-pagers on Summer EBT
• The group had a lot of questions about what they could request.
• These are the asks that were made in AR, but there are a lot of additional needs in Florida. The group is happy to compile a more complete list.

coming soon