What is the Back-to-School Campaign?

Now in its seventh year, the annual Covering Kids & Families Back-to-School Campaign takes place August and September to get the word out to parents that low-cost or free health care coverage may be available for their uninsured children. The campaign and its partners reach millions of families by:

• Organizing thousands of activities, including health and enrollment fairs, to encourage parents to seek information about low-cost and free health coverage for their uninsured children
• Encouraging national organizational partners to distribute information through their Web sites, listserv announcements, newsletters, conferences and mailings
• Forming partnerships with national corporations to help promote messages about the availability of low-cost and free health care coverage
• Working with media partners that help spread the word to parents by airing advertisements and public service announcements and including information on their Web sites
• Recruiting high-profile sports figures and celebrities to participate in campaign activities across the country

The Covering Kids & Families Back-to-School Campaign message is simple:

• Low-cost or free health care coverage is available for many uninsured families.
• Enrolling your children for health care coverage should be at the top of your back-to-school checklist, right up there with buying notebooks and school shoes.
• Healthy kids are better prepared to learn.

To bring this message to families, Covering Kids & Families uses an integrated communications approach to reach families where they live, work and play. To help with this massive outreach effort, the Covering Kids & Families Communications Team provides media and planning tools to coalitions across the country that plan more than 3,000 outreach and enrollment events each year to reach uninsured families nationwide. The Back-to-School Campaign corporate and organizational partners are also vital to this effort, helping the messages reach millions more eligible families by promoting low-cost and free health care coverage to their customers and members.

Read about the results of the 2006 Back-to-School Campaign, including media coverage, click here. To learn how you can get involved in this year's efforts, visit plan.covertheuninsured.org.