Joyful Noise Community -- Advocacy

The Daycare
The Nanny

• Websites

  • The Alliance For Childhood promotes policies and practices that support children's healthy development, love of learning, and joy in living.  Our public education campaigns bring to light both the promise and the vulnerability of childhood.  They act for the sake of the children themselves and for a more just, democratic, and ecologically responsible future.

  • The Alliance for Human Research Protection (AHRP) is a national network of lay people and professionals dedicated to advancing responsible and ethical medical research practices, to ensure that the human rights, dignity and welfare of human subjects are protected, and to minimize the risks associated with such endeavors.

  • Beverly K. Eakman has been speaking out for children and the wrongs visited upon them by the big business interests for a long time, and her list of credentials is even longer.   Please look at her published articles, especially Making a Killing and The Perfect Crime.   We cannot afford to continue to be so naive and trusting.

  • The Bonkers Institue for Nearly Genuine Research has been advancing in the general direction of bona fide science since last Tuesday afternoon.   Battling pseudoscience with pseudoscience, Dr. M.I. Bonkers' latest research findings and recommendations can all be found here.

  • The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights, a non-profit, tax exempt organization, has a mission to bring fairness and reason into the administration of legal aspects of the mental health system, particularly unwarranted court ordered psychiatric drugging.

  • MindFreedom International, a non-profit organization, unites 100 grassroots groups and thousands of members to win campaigns for human rights of people diagnosed with psychiatric disabilities.  MindFreedom International is where mutual support meets human rights activism... and where democracy meets the mental health system.

  • MomsRising provides grassroots support to leaders and organizations addressing key issues such as paid family leave; flexible work options; after-school programs; healthcare for all kids; excellent childcare; and living wages.  Based in part on the MoveOn.org organizing model (and co-founded by Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn.org), MomsRising offers easy entry into citizen advocacy.   Their website is huge and hugely interesting.   Check them out, get informed and involved.

  • Resources for Child Caring is the best source ever for all information about the business end of running a day care.   A nonprofit organization located in St. Paul, Minnesota, they also embody Redleaf Press which publishes business resources and other materials for child care professionals.   If you have anything to do with child care, either as a provider or a consumer, these links are vital to your understanding of a complicated and serious business.

  • The Southern Poverty Law Center is internationally known for its tolerance education programs, its legal victories against white supremacists and its tracking of hate groups.   Their web project, Teaching Tolerance provides educators with free educational materials that promote respect for differences and appreciation of diversity in the classroom and beyond.   Their magazine and curriculum kits have earned Oscar nominations, an Academy Award, and more than a dozen honors from the Association of Educational Publishers (EdPress) including the Golden Lamp Award.   I recieve their magazine and have used their free resources, then passing them on to our church youth group and library as well as my clients.   Wonderful people really making a difference in the world.