I'd like to share with you all  (oops! southern Vermont, y'all!)  (for the
non-USers, Vermont is a very small, rural state in the very NORTHeastern US)
how our tag-team has been working to effect institutional change in our
community.
Although we are a small, rural community - our "big town" has 12,000
people - we are blessed to have a long tradition of breastfeeding.  Our
hospital nurses _said_ they were supportive of breastfeeding and family
centered maternity care, but they were kind of stuck in their own
kind-of-medical-model, kind-of-trying-not-to-be rut.
We had an "outsider" come in to be unit manager.  Meanwhile, one of the
local LLL Leaders, Sally Pennington, political lactivist par excellence,
managed to get herself onto the Board of Trustees for the hospital.  At the
same time, we started a Breastfeeding Coalition.
We had Marsha Walker come talk to us to establish "common ground" on
breastfeeding management for every mom in the county, whether they birthed
at home (75/yr), in the  "big" hospital (350/yr) or at our little Grace
Cottage Hospital (30/yr).  (Thanks Marsha!  The docs still remember you!)

Because of the Coalition, we started to know who our allies were.  We felt
like we could fight the good fight because we were not alone.  Also, some of
the change agent nurses at the hospital started getting fired up about
getting better at helping breastfeeding moms...and moms started raving about
how much things had improved!  Administration started getting more
interested...
Renovations needed in the Birthing Center?  Well, says Leader Pennington, we
need a lactation clinic!  But let's get a task force of community and
medical community leaders, and let's do the whole thing right!
The OB Task Force worked for a year to come up with recommendations for the
Board of Trustees...who by now were enjoying Sally and her breath of fresh
and lively air (and her nursing baby Salty who ended up doing lots of
publicity pictures for us!).

Now, 1-1/2 yrs later, the clinic is in full swing, we're talking about
continuing to expand educational offereings, and we're the darlings of the
marketing department.  (I know, it will change next week.  But we're a
constant source of wonderful baby pictures for the newspaper and the
hospital newsletter.)

Sally called me last week to tell me that our weekly new moms support group
seems to have put the morning LLL meeting out of business.  I was aghast
(I'm still a Leader too).

"It's okay" she said.  "We're tired.  Now it's your turn for a while.  We'll
put our energies into our evening meetings and see what else we want to do."

So find friends and colleagues.  Don't do it all yourself.  You are not
alone.  It can't be done one person or one deed at a time. (This story spans
about six years.  It seems now like the blink of an eyelash.) It's all of us
together, tag-teaming, that will continue to change things.

With a grateful heart in beautiful, snow-covered and crisp-clear southern
Vermont
    Dawn Kersula  (singing and touching the stars in the night sky)