An outstanding example of advocacy and awareness posted to Co-Cure (Subject: [CO-CURE] ACT: NJCFSA Youth Education Committee Report at CFSAC) by Mary Schweitzer. The NJ association is fortunate to have several healthy spouses/parents in key leadership positions—really an ideal situation for a support group.

Elizabeth McConnell's report to the CFSAC about the NJ CFS Association's Youth Education Committee and its activities to help spread awareness of childhood/adolescent CFS is now available on the NJCFSA website: (www.njcfsa.org/CHILDrep.html) I was personally amazed at the size and breadth of this project. Here are the first two paragraphs to get an idea of the contents of the report on the website:

"In 1998 we (The NJCFSA) contacted the National Association of School Nurses and discovered that they were having a two-day regional conference in Atlantic City, N.J. We found out they were offering exhibit space and we exhibited for our first time. It was a fulfilling experience. After checking my notes from this conference, I noted that the most repeated statement from the school nurses was "I had no idea that children got this illness!" They knew of CFS to be a woman's disease. The first day the nurses took our handouts and the next day they came back to speak to us one-on-one and had very good questions. After reading our handouts a nurse recognized a student she had in their school system that fit the criteria of CFS and was excited to share the information with the child's parents when she got home. We went to the conference with five boxes of handout articles and left with one box half full. It was a success.

"In 1998 we contacted the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), an affiliate of the National Education Association. NJEA has an annual convention in Atlantic City, N.J. every November and we contacted them to exhibit. NJEA has 180,000 members which breaks down to 115,000 (teachers, administrators, school nurses, counselors, psychologist), 45,000 support personal (secretary, cafeteria, janitors) and 20,000 retired members. 55,000 NJEA members attend their two-day convention each year."

This appears to be a very effective advocacy program which could be duplicated by any state or regional association in the country. I urge those interested in public awareness—and public awareness for children/adolescents in particular—to take a look at the report.

Mary M. Schweitzer (for Elizabeth McConnell)

Posted by Co-Cure moderators for Mary M. Schweitzer, Ph.D. [marymsch (at) comcast (dot) net], February 16, 2005