Children's Hospital Colorado

Child Health Advocacy in Public Policy

Register now

Here at Children’s Hospital Colorado, child health advocacy is a core part of our hospital’s mission to care for kids. This is why our Government Affairs team works to keep kids out of the hospital by advocating for laws and policies that improve kids’ health. We work with local, state and federal leaders, community partners, families and community members to ensure kids grow up healthy and strong.

We have a responsibility to advocate on behalf of our patients and families, our community and all kids, not only because it’s an investment in our nation’s future, but because it’s the right thing to do.

As a nonpartisan organization, we hope to serve as a resource for voters and elected officials alike on the unique needs of children. Above all, we speak up clearly and powerfully for kids’ needs in public policy. And we rely on our network of Child Health Champions to speak up, too!

Graphic that reads: Lifting Children Up - Our Policy and Advocacy Priorities

Healthier kids through public policy

Public policy decisions can dramatically shape the health of children, for better or worse. That’s why we speak up on their behalf – year after year.

Learn about our priorities for 2023

Children’s health policy issues

Whether we’re advocating to promote youth mental health or protecting kids' access to healthcare, we campaign for public policy change that benefits the health of all kids. Key issues that the Government Affairs team works to promote include:

  • Child and adolescent mental health
  • Social determinants of child health
  • Early childhood
  • Respiratory health
  • Pediatric oral health
  • Injury prevention
  • Healthy eating and active living
  • Protecting and expanding children's access to care
  • Workforce

Download our mental health policy playbook (.pdf).

“Advocacy is a core part of our mission. That means speaking up for patients and families, kids in our community and kids across the country to ensure each of them has the opportunity to grow up healthy and strong.”
Zach Zaslow, Vice President, Advocacy and Community Health
A bright blue graphic with a circle of the Colorado flag with the words: I speak up for kids!

Be a champion for kids' health

We make it easy to write emails, make phone calls, share social media posts and speak up for kids’ — so that lawmakers know that their constituents value child health.

Visit the action center

Follow us on Facebook

Connect with us on Twitter

Child health in the news

  • The New York Times
    Hundreds of suicidal teens sleep in emergency rooms every night
    May 08, 2022

    With inpatient psychiatric services in short supply, adolescents are spending days, even weeks, in hospital emergency departments awaiting the help they desperately need. Dr. Kevin Carney, a pediatric emergency-room doctor at Children's Colorado, detailed the challenge for The New York Times.

  • 5280
    Colorado’s youth mental health crisis continues
    March 30, 2022

    Nearly a year ago, Children's Hospital Colorado declared a state of emergency for youth mental health. Unfortunately, the crisis is far from over. Vice President of Population Health and Advocacy Heidi Baskfield shares about the challenges kids are facing and how the incidence of depression, anxiety and self-harm continues to increase.

  • The Gazette
    Children's mental health experts urge parents to check in with kids amid soaring rates of depression
    February 02, 2022

    Depression in kids has more than doubled during the pandemic. At a special town hall on mental health, Children's Colorado experts took questions from parents, offered tips and urged community members to check in with the adolescents and teenagers in their lives.