Our Priorities, Goals

Strategic Priorities

In fulfilling its mission to improve outcomes for children, Voices recognizes three strategic priorities as a fundamental guide for success as well as public understanding and identity.  Initiatives undertaken now and in the future are clearly defined by the following:

A long term policy agenda for children
Effective improvement in overall child well being requires a comprehensive view of children’s outcomes and a commitment to set challenging but reasonable goals.  Our strategy is to set 10-year goals for five indicators of child safety, health, education, connectedness, and employability, backed by thoroughly researched policy and investment recommendations for reaching these goals.

Expanding and educating leadership for children
Voices’ goal is to engage leaders from all sectors who can provide a voice for children.  Consistent outreach through various channels to government officials and key publics is the primary focus.

Building the public will to improve child well being
Voices envisions building grass roots support for children’s issues by increasing the strength and capacity of local organizations throughout the state to involve their boards, clients and members as advocates for children’s issues and by using the media to inform and motivate the public.

Ten-Year Goals for Georgia
Voices made a significant leap in 2006 with the adoption of 10-year objectives for Georgia’s children, effectively mapping a direction for policy recommendations and providing clarity to its long-term mission.   The objectives  measure outcomes in four impact areas – Safety, Health, Education, and Employability, the constant framework that Voices uses to analyze child well being and to communicate the needs of children and youth.  

The table shows selected measures that are easily understood in the public arena and allow us to compare Georgia to the rest of the nation.  The rankings of these four measures are typical of most other measures of Georgia’s children, usually in the bottom third.  Across all aspects of child well being, as reported by KidsCount and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Georgia’s kids ranked 44^th in 2006 but rose to 41^th in 2007.

Nevertheless, the improvement still leaves the state in the bottom ten.  By setting specific goals for change in four critical areas of need, Voices expects Georgia’s national ranking will improve considerably.

Each goal, with the exception of Healthy, is intended to be reached by 2015.  Current state initiatives for providing health insurance to all children have moved up the Healthy timetable considerably.