Finish Line Conference 2008

Getting to the Finish Line Conference

July 16-18, 2008

Conference Materials

Session Slides and Handouts

Day 1: Thursday, July 17, 2008

9:00 to 9:15 Welcome and State of the States

Handout: Recent State Activity on Children’s Coverage

9:15 to 11:00 Finish Line and Narrative: A Quick 13 State Tour

Handout: Narrative and Finish Line Snapshot

Representatives from each Narrative and Finish Line state will update other attendees on their goals, challenges and opportunities, and a notable achievement. Time will be available for questions and discussion.

Moderator: Joe Touschner (CCF)
Presenters: One member from each state

11:15 to 11:30 Maximizing Enrollment for Kids Project

This briefing will provide information on the new initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation designed to help states improve their enrollment and retention of eligible children in Medicaid and SCHIP. National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) is serving as the National Program Office.

Presenter: Alice Weiss (NASHP)

11:30 to 12:30 Looking Forward, Looking Back: An Update on Federal Child Health Issues

Handout: Looking Forward, Looking Back: SCHIP in 2007 and 2008

This workshop will provide an update on federal child health issues. It will review the efforts to reauthorize SCHIP in 2007 and draw on the lessons learned from that debate to discuss the prospects for SCHIP reauthorization and broader federal health reform in 2009. As part of this workshop, we will have an interactive discussion on strategies to ensure that a strong SCHIP bill is acted upon quickly and in a way that strengthens the prospects for broader reform. The workshop will also include a status report on the “August 17th directive” and efforts to impose a moratorium on it.

Presenters: Jocelyn Guyer (CCF), Colleen Chapman (Spitfire)

12:30 to 1:45 Lunch in the Cartier/Tiffany Salon

Speaker:
John E. McDonough, senior health advisor to Senator Edward Kennedy/Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
(Formally executive director for Health Care for All)

1:45 to 2:00Building and Running a Campaign: An Overview

This briefing will provide an overview of the components that make up an advocacy campaign and how they intersect with each other.

Presenter: Liz Arjun (CCF)

2:00 to 3:30 Grassroots and Grasstops

Handout: Relationship Map

This session will provide ideas and strategies to find and engage the people power in your community.

Moderator: Ed Walz (Spitfire)
Presenters: Laura Guerra-Cardus (TX), Mike Kromrey (CO), Amy Rosenthal (NEACH)

3:45 to 5:15 Crisis Communications

This session will provide strategies on preempting, successfully dealing with, and leveraging crisis through communications efforts.

Moderator(s): Colleen Chapman (Spitfire) with Andrea Lynn Hagelgans (Spitfire)
Presenters: Karen Crompton (UT), Carrie Fitzgerald (IA)

Day 2: Friday, July 18, 2008

8:00 to 9:00 Breakfast “Roundtables”

This session will allow participants to meet in informal groups to discuss and share information on a particular policy or strategy topic of interest.

9:00 to 10:00 Financing Child Health Coverage in the Face of a Weakening Economy

Handout: Strategies for Financing State Expansions

Particularly in light of the economic downturn, the goal of this session is to provide state advocacy organizations with concrete strategies for responding to the argument that there simply isn’t money to pay for an expansion of coverage for children (or to sustain an existing initiative). The session will cover communications tools for addressing the “we can’t afford it” argument, a discussion of the strategies that advocates have used to cope with it, and a review of the strongest research available for making the case for investing in children’s coverage.

Moderator: Jocelyn Guyer (CCF)
Presenters: John Bouman (IL), Cathy Hope (CCF), Linda Katz (RI)

10:15 to 11:15 Evaluation of the Insuring America’s Children Project: Helping States Reach the Finish Line

This session will provide information on the evaluation component of the Insuring America’s Children project. It will focus on how states can use evaluations as a tool in advocacy efforts.

Moderator: Joan Alker (CCF) with Gene Lewit (Packard)
Presenters: Christopher Trenholm (Mathematica), Debra Draper (Center for Studying Health Systems Change), Kristen Testa (CA)

11:15 to 12:30 When the Going Gets Tough

Handout: When the Going Gets Tough Scenario

This workshop offers you a chance to test your mettle in a realistic crisis-management scenario. Each state will be given the same challenge and some time to strategize, then asked to share its best strategy with the whole group.

Moderator: Ed Walz

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