The Brief

As a parent, for me, one of the most continuously mind-boggling aspects of raising young children is how expensive child care is. When I learned that child care providers barely make enough to make ends meet, it kind of made my brain break. It was enough to make me want to yell, “But, WHY?”

You may feel the same way about this. Or there may be another aspect about how our society is set up for raising kids that confuses you or makes you want to lay flat on the floor. There are a lot of things you don’t know you don’t know until you have children or start working with them.

So what can you do to make things better for families with kids under 5?

This guide is for people who want to channel that yelling-into-a-pillow energy into doing something to fix things year-round, particularly by sharing your story or learning to navigate power to change policy — that’s advocacy. We’ve talked with LOTS of people who have made a difference — parents, early childhood advocates, and policymakers. Now we’re sharing back some of the basic first steps you can take if you’re interested in changing local or statewide laws.

Maria Antoinetta Jandres, left, at Stand for Children Day on May 8, 2024.

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Courtesy Parent Voices

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Does my voice even matter?

Yes.

Parents we spoke to talked about a whole range of benefits that they gained from becoming their child’s first advocate. They came away with insider knowledge about issues facing their kids, they built community, and they felt like they were part of something bigger. And, importantly, many shared how joining forces with others helped them achieve things they thought were not possible.

“You do it because it works,” said Mary Ignatius, director of Parent Voices. “Most policy change happens because somebody spoke up about it.”

Parent Maria Antoinetta Jandres still remembers one of the first times she shared her story in front of the San Francisco mayor and Board of Supervisors. “I was super nervous. I didn’t even know what to do or what to say,” she said.

Now, after working to make multiple early childhood policy changes through statewide advocacy organization Parent Voices, she feels a different level of confidence.

“The supervisors need to listen to us,” she said. “Because we are the ones paying for their salary. Now when I go there, I’m like, well, this is what you guys should be working on because you work for us. It’s not the other way around.”

Jandres stumbled upon Parent Voices during a time where she was looking for child care for her young son while experiencing homelessness. She went to the organization looking for a child care spot, but through getting involved, she came out with deep knowledge about the inner workings of the early childhood system and, essentially, a master’s degree in how change works.

She was part of a San Francisco campaign that created a tax to fund child care for middle-class (and upper-middle-class) families and set a minimum wage of $28 for early education teachers. In 2023, she was also part of a campaign that eliminated monthly payments (“family fees”) for low-income families who receive child care subsidies.

Parent Iesha Foster in Sacramento to advocate for expanding child care funding in the 2024 budget.

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Isaac Cox

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Crystal Stairs

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What do parents bring to the table?

Justin Blakely, who leads L.A. County advocacy program Community Voices, part of Crystal Stairs, remembers vividly how one legislator shared that every day he has 15 to 20 meetings, mostly with professional lobbyists or advocates.

He said that’s why when a representative hears from a community member, particularly one who lives in his district, it makes a difference. Hearing a community member’s experience illustrates the real impact of policies out in the world. They put a name and a face to an issue, moving an issue beyond just another data point.

Parent Iesha Foster, parent of nine, first connected with Head Start’s Policy Council and eventually, Community Voices, when her older children were small. A lack of child care had caused her to turn down extra hours at work, and eventually lose her job. The experience made her want to fight for child care, she said.

“Without childcare, you can't go to work,” she said. “Without work, you can't pay your rent, you can't pay your bills.”

Foster traveled with Blakely to Sacramento in 2023 with the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce to advocate for child care. During a meeting with Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D), chair of the Assembly Education Committee, she told her personal story and shared how hard it is for parents to go to work without child care.

Others in the room had also shared their concerns, but Blakely said that when Foster spoke, her story captivated the full attention of everyone in the room. Muratsuchi kept referring back to her throughout the meeting.

“He just was so passionate in his voice and in his words,” Foster said. “He really listened. And you could tell that he really cared.”

Parent Voices director Ignatius said to remember that you don’t need to speak a particular language or have a degree in anything to make your opinions and experience known.

“Trust that you know what you know and that you have expertise and experiences to offer,” she said. “Being a parent qualifies you for so much.”

A voter places his ballot in a mail-in ballot drop box outside of an L.A. library ahead of Election Day in October 2020.

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Mario Tama

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Getty Images

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An official ballot envelope for the 2024 primary election in Los Angeles.

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Brianna Lee

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LAist

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Small ways to make change, beyond voting.

There are many ways to get involved. The first that comes to mind is voting, which helps make sure your representatives actually represent you and that you have a say in which ballot initiatives go into effect. (In fact, LAist has a whole guide about this.)

Patrick MacFarlane, government relations manager of Child Care Resource Center said that one thing that’s important to keep in mind is this: “Voting is a small part of civic participation. You have to be mobilized in every season, not just in election season.”

Here are just a few ways to do that, year-round:

• Get involved in your child’s school.
• Volunteer for an organization you care about.
• Donate to the cause of your choice. 
• Plaster your street with campaign signs. 
• Start a boycott. 
• Make political art. 
• Start your own organization.

The list goes on.

And of course, parents can become advocates, sharing their stories and informing the process of creating and passing laws in California. Let’s dive in.

Find your people

Start with a quick Google search of what you care about.

It’s an easy way to find out if anyone has proposed or advocated for a bill related to this issue.

“You're almost certain to find a group of people who feel really passionately about that issue,” said Sarah Diaz, policy and media coordinator with the California WIC Association. “They’ve spent a lot of energy on it already and maybe they’re reintroducing it or bringing it back again.”

From there, you can reach out to either the legislators who proposed the bill or the community groups (often listed as co-sponsors on a bill) working on the issue.

This is exactly what Diaz did. One issue she cares about as a parent is schools getting funding. She didn’t think it made sense to link school attendance to funding. In her mind, this creates an incentive for sick kids to go to school instead of staying at home to recover.

In her personal time, she reached out to her representative to ask if they were working on this issue. That’s how she found that there was a bill up for consideration about the issue last year and submitted comments and letters. The bill is currently headed for a floor vote and will likely head to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk for a signature.

Parent Maria Antoinetta Jandres speaks into a mic to give public testimony.

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Courtesy Parent Voices

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Find your representatives. And talk to them.

It may at first seem strange to talk to your elected officials, but as Jandres pointed out, they do work for YOU. As your representative, it’s literally their job to listen to you.

First, find your local representatives on Shape your L.A., a tool by the L.A. Times.

Some ways to get your representative’s attention:

1. Tag them on social media.
2. Email or write them letters. When writing, be brief and clear. If you live in their district, tell them. Here are some tips and a template from First 5 Contra Costa County. 
3. Call them. Calling is a great option because the person has to listen. They can’t skim over your words like they might be able to with something written. Here’s a draft script from Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, which also includes instructions if you’re using a text-to-speech device.
4. Visit them. If they are a state representative, find them at their Sacramento office or at their field office, close to where you live. (Tip: Summer is a great time to visit state representatives at their field offices, during the legislative recess.) You can walk into their office or call in advance to set up a meeting.
5. Find them at public meetings.
6. Contact your local media outlet. Your local representative probably reads the news. Read, watch, and listen to what journalists in your area are saying about the issues you care about. Reach out — perhaps to your friendly public media station — to share ideas you think they should cover. Here’s a cheat sheet for how to talk to a journalist.

Ignatius said that having a conversation with an elected official through social media is an easy way to start and it can be effective. Elected officials are often active through social channels, or have staffers monitoring them.

“They will flag it for their member and say, ‘Hey, you know, I just saw this thing. This sounds super compelling,’” she said.

Even better: go up and talk to them. 

Patrick MacFarlane, government relations manager of Child Care Resource Center said: “I would go up to my assembly member and say, ‘This is what I'm interested in. Where do you stand on this issue?’”

He added that it helps to share solutions when you share your story. Oftentimes, they may be familiar with the problem, but don’t know how to fix it.

Don’t be bummed if you can only meet with your representative’s staff members. Talking with staffers can often be just as productive as talking directly with your representative, many of the experts we spoke to said. After all, they are the ones who are advising the representative and helping them prioritize issues.

What changes have people already made in early childhood policy?

It can be helpful to understand what issues people have already worked on to figure out what’s possible and where you want to make an impact.

Some big things that have changed in early childhood over the past few years, including:

• Low-income families no longer have to pay out-of-pocket “family fees” for subsidized child care.
• California workers now have more sick leave (five days).
• California’s family leave program expanded so people receive a higher % of their paycheck.
• Medi-Cal now pays for doulas.
• Hospitals and maternal care facilities must undergo anti-bias training.
• California expanded transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds. 
• Child care providers unionized.

Many issues continue to affect families with young children, and people are actively working on changing them:

• High cost of child care 
• Lack of subsidized child care slots
• Child care providers — mostly women of color — not getting paid enough
• Poor birth outcomes for Black moms and babies
• Preschool segregation
• Lack of early screening for developmental delays

This list is just the beginning. Do a quick search on the issue you care about to help you find the people working on it. If no one is working on it, it’s still not impossible; it just hasn’t been done yet.

Medi-Cal now covers doulas due to the advocacy of birthworkers and parents across the state. Doula and Birthworkers of Color Collective member Andrea Howard serves Medi-Cal clients.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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California child care providers were able to unionize in 2019 after a years-long campaign of parents and child care providers sharing their stories. Waverly Stone, right, is a family child care provider in Rialto. Shanae Pharaoh, left, sends her two children to Stone's childcare.

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Elly Yu

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LAist

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Be persistent. Enjoy the ride.

Working on changing local and statewide policies takes time. It’s important to buckle up for the long haul, and to be persistent.

When things do start to change, it can be really satisfying.

Parent Iesha Foster said what keeps her motivated to continue the work is being able to share what she has learned with others. She said that she often finds herself giving advice, resources, and information to other parents and even teachers. By getting involved, she’s been able to become the resource for other parents that she wishes she had early on.

“I like to be the voice for the ones who don't know about it,” Foster said. “I can actually help someone that didn't know, so they can have a better understanding.”

This guide was informed by the Hey bb review committee: September Hill, nonprofit advocacy consultant and Ofelia Carrillo, former communications specialist at SEIU-Local 99 / Child Care Providers United.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development cannot impose dramatically different conditions for homelessness programs for now, according to an oral ruling Friday by U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy in Rhode Island.

McElroy granted a preliminary injunction to a group of states, cities and nonprofits who said a last minute overhaul of how to spend $4 billion on homelessness programs was unlawful. She also agreed with their argument that it likely would push many people back onto the streets in the middle of winter, causing irreparable harm.

"Continuity of housing and stability for vulnerable populations is clearly in the public interest," said McElroy, ordering HUD to maintain its previous funding formula.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement the order "means that more than 170,000 people – families, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities — have respite from the government's assault."

HUD has sought to dramatically slash funding for permanent housing and encourage more transitional housing that mandates work and treatment for addiction or mental illness. The overhaul — announced last month — also would allow the agency to deny money to local groups that don't comply with the Trump administration's agenda on things like DEI, the restriction of transgender rights and immigration enforcement.

"HUD will continue working to provide homelessness assistance funding to grantees nationwide," said HUD spokeswoman Kasey Lovett in a statement to NPR. "The Department remains committed to program reforms intended to assist our nation's most vulnerable citizens and will continue to do so in accordance with the law."

'Chaos seems to be the point'

McElroy expressed frustration with a series of HUD actions in recent weeks. Just hours before a Dec. 8 hearing, the agency withdrew its new funding notice, saying it would make changes to address critics' concerns. But on Friday, HUD's attorney said the new version would not be ready until the end of the day.

"The timing seems to be strategic," McElroy said, asserting there was no reason the document could not have been ready before the hearing. "The constant churn and chaos seems to be the point."

In defending the agency, attorney John Bailey said HUD was simply trying to change its policies to reflect President Donald Trump's executive orders, which he called "legal directives." The judge interjected repeatedly to explain that he was conflating things, noting Congress — not the president — makes laws.

'It's kind of shocking'

HUD's changes were announced in November with little notice and only weeks before local homeless service providers must apply for new funding.

"Our agencies are just scrambling right now to try to respond," said Pam Johnson with Minnesota Community Action Partnership, whose members provide housing and other services for homeless people. "It also just reverses 40 years of bipartisan work on proven solutions to homelessness. So it's really, it's kind of shocking."

For decades, U.S. policy favored permanent housing with optional treatment for addiction or mental illness Years of research has found the strategy is effective at keeping people off the streets.

But many conservatives argue it's failed to stop record rates of homelessness.

"What is the root cause of homelessness? Mental illness, drug addiction, drug abuse," HUD Secretary Scottt Turner said recently on Fox Business Network. "During the Biden administration, it was just warehousing. It was a homeless industrial complex."

Turner and others who support the changes say the goal is to push people towards self-sufficiency.

But local advocates say mental health and substance abuse are not the main factors driving homelessness.

"It's poverty. Poverty, low income and significant lack of affordable housing," says Julie Embree, who heads the Toledo Lucas County Homelessness Board in Ohio.

Many in permanent housing have disabilities that make it hard to work full time, she said. Embree agrees with Trump administration goals like efficiency and saving money, but says pushing people back into homelessness, where they're more likely to land in jail, the courts or a hospital, is not cost-effective.

"One emergency room visit is just as expensive as a month of sustaining this [permanent housing] program," she said.

In Los Angeles, Stephanie Klasky-Gamer with LA Family Housing said there is a need for more transitional housing, but not at the expense of long-term housing. And the idea that programs could simply switch from one to the other is not only unrealistic, it's illegal.

"You cannot take a building that has a 75-year deed restriction and just — ding! — call it interim housing," she said.

Those challenging HUD say providers who own such properties – or states who've invested millions of dollars in permanent housing projects — face "significant financial jeopardy" if their funding is not renewed.

In addition to the legal challenges, members of Congress from both parties have questioned HUD's sudden shift on homelessness. Advocates have lobbied lawmakers to step in and, at the least, push for more time to prepare for such a massive overhaul.

President Donald Trump said the administration has reached agreements with nine more drugmakers to bring their U.S. drug prices more in line with what other wealthy countries pay.

Fourteen companies in total have now reached what the administration calls most-favored-nation pricing deals. The companies that took part in Friday's announcement were: Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck, Novartis and Sanofi.

They agreed to charge the U.S. government no more for new drugs than the prices paid by other well-off countries. The agreements will allow state Medicaid programs to access lower prices from the nine companies. In a statement, the White House said the change will result "in billions of dollars in savings."

The drugmakers also agreed to invest at least $150 billion in manufacturing operations in the U.S. The president is seeking to increase domestic production of pharmaceuticals.

In addition, the companies agreed to make some of their most popular drugs available at lower prices to consumers who pay out of pocket through a government website called TrumpRx.com. The TrumpRx website is expected to launch in early 2026, and would take consumers to pharmaceutical companies' direct-to-consumer websites to fulfill orders.

For example, Merck will reduce the price of Januvia, a medication for Type 2 diabetes, from $330 to $100 for patients purchasing directly through TrumpRx, the White House said. Amgen will reduce the price of Repatha, a cholesterol-lowering drug, from $573 to $239 when purchased through TrumpRx.

In exchange for these concessions, the companies will be exempt from possible administration tariffs for three years.

The extent of savings for consumers under the agreements is unclear. Medicaid and its beneficiaries already pay some of the lowest prices for drugs. And people with health insurance could spend less on copays for their medicines than paying cash for them through the drugmakers.

Separately, Trump said during the press event that he would like to get health insurers to lower their prices, too.

"I'm going to call a meeting of the insurance companies," he said. "I'm going to see if they [will] get their price down, to put it very bluntly."

America's new top health diplomat is Bethany Kozma.

The job she took on this week — leading the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Global Affairs — does not have a high profile. And Kozma herself is not a familiar name in the world of public health.

But it is a position with power — and Kozma has a record of public statements and activism on health issues, equating abortion with "murder" and campaigning against gender-affirming care.

The office sometimes is referred to as the "diplomatic voice" of HHS. As director, Kozma will have considerable influence over how the U.S. shapes health policy in other countries in the wake of the Trump administration's foreign aid cuts and withdrawal from the World Health Organization.

Kozma declined to be interviewed for this story. She doesn't appear to have a background in global health based on publicly available information online. The HHS website offers few details about her professional profile. In response to questions about her qualifications and vision for the role, HHS responded with this statement.

"The Office of Global Affairs (OGA) advances the Trump administration's agenda and priorities by bringing common sense, transparency and gold-standard science to global partners. Under Secretary Kennedy's leadership, OGA is committed to strengthening the United States' position as the global gold-standard for public health and ensuring Americans are protected at home and abroad."

Who is Bethany Kozma?

Kozma began her career in public service during the George W. Bush administration, working at the White House Homeland Security Council. During the Obama years, she re-entered public life as an activist.

In a 2016 commentary for The Daily Signal, a conservative news website founded by the Heritage Foundation, she argued against the Obama administration's guidance that public schools should allow children to use the bathroom that comports with their identity.

"This radical agenda of subjective 'gender fluidity' and unrestricted shower and bathroom access actually endangers all," she stated, noting that "predators" could abuse the policy.

In 2017, she joined the Trump administration as senior adviser for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in the United States Agency for International Development, eventually being promoted to deputy chief of staff. In videos obtained and released by ProPublica, Kozma recalls calling the U.S. a "pro-life" country in a closed-door U.N. meeting about women's rights in 2018, when access to abortion still was protected nationally by Roe v. Wade.

In August 2020, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., and four other Democratic senators issued a letter labeling Kozma and several other political appointees at USAID as "prejudiced" and called for them to be removed from their posts. Kozma has "spoken extensively and derisively of trans people and trans issues," the senators wrote.

During the Biden administration, she also was involved in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's "blueprint" for a new Republican administration. She played a prominent role in Project 2025 training videos, obtained and published by ProPublica.

In one nearly 50-minute training video focused on left-wing language, she called for a Republican administration to "eradicate 'climate change' references from absolutely everywhere," and said that concerns over climate change are efforts at "population control." She also called gender-affirming care "absolutely infuriating" and said "the idea that gender is fluid is evil." Overall, she argued that changing language around these policies should be a priority for political appointees.

Kozma joined the second Trump administration as a chief adviser at the HHS Office of Global Affairs. In September, she spoke at a U.N. event commemorating the 30th anniversary of the declaration that denying women's rights is a human rights violation.

"While many may celebrate so-called successes gained for women over the last 30 years, one must ask what defines true success for women?" she began, adding that "biological reality is rooted in scientific truth and is confirmed by the universal truths that we are endowed by our creator who made us 'male and female.'"

Those views can be divisive but have garnered some support for Kozma's promotion.

"Bethany is an excellent pick for global affairs at HHS," says Roger Servino, vice president of domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation. "She was an early champion of protecting children from gender ideology back when the medical establishment was able to silence voices of reason and dissent and she is perfectly placed to help push back on global health bodies trying to impose left wing pseudoscience on the American people and the world."

What will her goals be at the Office of Global Affairs?

Kozma is taking over as director of the HHS Office of Global Affairs at a time of drastic change for global health.

In previous administrations, a main focus of the office was dealing with the World Health Organization. Typically, the director, who usually has a background in public health, is involved in negotiations on sharing data for pathogen surveillance or developing vaccine policy, for example.

After President Trump withdrew the U.S. from WHO, the administration has started a new strategy: striking deals with individual countries to give health aid in exchange for their meeting certain policy prescriptions. Kozma has been involved in some of those negotiations, but the details aren't quite finalized.

Some reproductive rights advocates believe Kozma will use her new position to insert anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ policies into these agreements.

"[Kozma] is vehemently anti-trans, anti-LGBTQI+, anti-abortion," says Keifer Buckingham, managing director at the Council on Global Equality, a coalition of advocacy organizations that focuses on LGBTQ issues. "For those of us who want to ensure that the provision of U.S. foreign assistance and health doesn't discriminate against people based on who they are, [Kozma's appointment] raises a lot of red flags."

One particular worry is about the Helms Amendment, a U.S. policy that prohibits foreign aid being used to fund abortion services.

"There's been speculation that there's an intention by the U.S. government to expand the Helms Amendment beyond abortion to include LGBTQ's as well," says Musoba Kitui, director of Ipas Africa Alliance, a non-profit that works to provide access to abortion and contraception. He's concerned that health groups that serve those populations could lose funding. That speculation is backed up by reporting from The Daily Signal that the administration is planning to prohibit U.S. aid funding for "gender ideology and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives."

Given LGBTQ people are often at higher risk for diseases like HIV, such policies could make these communities even more vulnerable, says Kitui.

"We could see more marginalization, inequality, spikes of infection," he says. While many African governments signing these deals understand those dynamics, Kitui says they may still agree to more restrictive conditions as aid cuts have "starved health systems to a point of desperation."

Have information you want to share about ongoing changes at federal health and development agencies? Reach out to Jonathan Lambert via encrypted communications on Signal: @jonlambert.12