It is with great enthusiasm that I welcome you to our Web site.  It is an exciting time for our youngest children and for Docs For Tots.  We live in an era of opportunity and knowledge about how positive early experiences add tremendous value to our children and to society at large.  We have the benefit of proven strategies to implement and ensure that each child is ensured a healthy and fair start.  We know some of what it takes to level the playing field for all children.

The challenge is upon us to make it happen.  The challenge is upon us to ensure that public awareness and policy advance in a way that supports healthy child development and that we get the word out around early childhood investments. 

The factors that influence child health and well being are so broad based and so rooted in the social, economic and environmental cultures of which they are a part that to truly impact child health and well being in a meaningful way, it is clear that children’s doctors need to step outside the clinical arena and use their important, respected and powerful voices to advocate for children.  Through the past years, Docs For Tots has gained invaluable experience in providing the technical assistance and expertise to help children’s doctors effectively advocate in a way that is comfortable for them.  We have formed successful relationships with advocacy groups and with media and have learned that there are many tables at which the voice of a children’s doctor is needed and welcomed.  We have learned ways to engage physicians that require very minimal time commitments- literally from minutes to much more involved opportunities.

So we welcome all to explore our Web site and resources, join our network and let us know how we may assist you in creating a country where no young child lives in poverty, no young child suffers from disparities in health and development outcomes due to race, ethnicity or socio-economic status and all young children have access to quality early care and education and a shift toward greater civic participation and appreciation of the importance and obligation for doing so among children’s doctors. Specifically, increasing the number of doctors actively engaged in advocacy work beyond their clinical practice walls.

Let us know how we can help you in your efforts to realize change for children.  This is truly a moment in time; let’s rise to the challenge together.

Best regards,

Dina Lieser , MD, FAAP
Executive Director