Legislative Policy Day

This conference focuses on the ongoing efforts to address disparities in perinatal health outcomes, to provide needed services such as mental health care and home-based care, and to focus on the well-being and holistic needs of mothers. It focuses on the special efforts, particularly by grassroots organizations and leaders, to frame reproductive health care and wellness as a human right and strengthen the primacy of women guiding the service. We will explore policies that enable or hinder these efforts and opportunities for advocacy.

The 23rd James Stone Legislative Policy Day tells the story of how state, county and local government are working with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and community leaders to create polices that effect positive change for women and their infants and thus, for our whole community. Our speakers – community activists, health care providers, city and county officials, politicians, and others with political, professional and personal experience addressing this issue – will identify and discuss:

• Social, economic, and political forces that affect the availability, structure, and culture of perinatal care. Where are we today and how did we get here?
• Implications of the current state of perinatal care. What are the human costs? What are the long-term gains?
• Ways in which social workers, social work services, public health professionals and policy advocates engage families needing improved access to adequate pre- and postnatal care. What is the response to families that do not have access? Why are there too few therapeutic professionals to care for childbearing persons and their families?
• The efficacy of existing laws, regulations, and programs. Do effective interventions exist? What do the data say?
• Legislation, administrative changes, and advocacy efforts. What is being done?
• In an ideal world, what practical steps can be taken by community activists, local, county and state policymakers, service providers, social workers, and advocates to remediate the disparities in reproductive health care? Where do we go from here? What can we do?

The conference is for School of Social Work students but is open to any Syracuse University faculty and/or student on a space available basis, please register to attend.

Register now

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