Many of you choose to engage on federal issues as well as state or local issues. To help you decide when and how to engage on these issues, and to make sure you understand where your federal delegation has the most significant opportunities to influence legislation affecting children, we hosted a call to share a set of tools that we update annually.

These include:

• A tentative federal timeline
• A list of House and Senate Committees with a summary of their jurisdiction over key children’s programs; we also will include links to the committee membership so that you can see where your members have influence
• A list of federal budget terms
• A list of programs that are up for reauthorization
• A list of national organizations with expertise in various child issues

We walk you through the major Congressional actions affecting children that we anticipate and discuss who is likely to be the determining votes on these bills. We hope this will help you plan your work and make the most of what we know are your limited resources for federal advocacy.