This article is an excerpt prepared for Apolitical from ‘Persuasive: 40 Lessons in Communicating for the Common Good’, written by Marrianne McMullen.

In Persuasive: 40 Lessons in Communicating for the Common Good, Marrianne McMullen draws useful lessons from her career in government, nonprofits and journalism, closing each of the 40 chapters with a lesson. In this excerpt prepared for Apolitical, she describes communications challenges when managing an unprecedented number of unaccompanied children who came into the US in 2012 and 2014.

The cinderblock room was large and windowless. Long folding tables formed a U-shape around three sides. At each of more than a dozen of these tables, a social worker was setting up a computer, arranging piles of files. Some had bowls of candy. They were preparing for a day of direct client service to migrant children who entered the country unaccompanied by adults.

It was a new use for this space. We were at Lackland Joint Air Force Base outside of San Antonio, a sprawling base that was a heavily guarded city unto itself. It was summer 2014, and the US Department of Defense (DOD) had been called into duty to allow HHS to use its facilities to house unaccompanied children coming over the southern border. By July, we had 1,000 children there.

These young people, most between the ages of 12 and 18, had traveled thousands of miles to get here, and most endured unfathomable suffering and trauma on their long journeys, constantly dodging authorities until they entered the United States, at which point they would surrender themselves to the Border Patrol. The HHS program responsible for caring for them after they were transferred from the Border Patrol had labored in obscurity for years, so much so that it retained an impolitic name: the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) program.

In a typical year 7,000 or so minors entered the United States without a parent or legal guardian. The UAC program was charged with providing them with housing, health care, clothing, food, education, and other services, while social workers matched the children and teens with family members or friends who could take custody of them. A small percentage ended up in foster care.

Those with appointments in presidential administrations are not observers of events. We are shapers of events. That has to be conveyed, always. Anything less can undermine public confidence.

The last year of Barack Obama’s first term, 2012, was not a typical one. That spring the monthly population of unaccompanied children coming over the border tripled. We were desperate for new beds, while public protests greeted every attempt to open new shelters. When we looked at shuttered colleges or hospitals, for example, we were met with protest at the idea that any town would become an asylum for “illegal aliens,” even if they were children. As the number of youth coming over the border escalated and rumors spread about where they were going, protestors even lay down in front of school buses that turned out to be full of local children. With thousands of kids on our hands, there was no time to do a gradual persuasion process, wooing communities to shelter these kids. Nor was there time for major building renovations. Hundreds of beds were required immediately.

Melissa Jacks, then the chief of staff at the Administration for Children & Families, created a detailed spreadsheet of all the possible places where we could add beds, mostly through existing federal contractors expanding their services. Given the rate of intake and out-placements, we knew we needed at least 800 more beds.

While we were hunting for permanent placements, we got a call from the New York Times about the controversial temporary facilities. The reporter, Manny Fernandez, said other people he interviewed had told him we weren’t taking enough care to ensure safe placements where the kids would receive all the services and rights outlined by law.

Melissa and I had been looking through the spreadsheet in my office when Manny called. I put him on hold while we did some quick math about how many more beds we could add with all the locations we had secured. It added up to 851 permanent beds that we could safely say we would be able to bring on. I picked the phone back up and said: “We have 851 permanent, licensed beds coming online between now and June.” Further, I said, we would shut down all temporary facilities over the summer. We were betting on a repeat of a similar pattern in all previous years: that the flow of unaccompanied children peaked in the spring and slowed considerably in the summer.

Those comments were not cleared in advance when I talked to the reporter. And during the Obama administration, every utterance was cleared—far too often by people not qualified to make the judgment call. But sometimes effective media relations require you to go out on a limb. In this case, I felt compelled to deliver a clear message of “we got this.” Those with appointments in presidential administrations are not observers of events. We are shapers of events. That has to be conveyed, always. Anything less can undermine public confidence.

The story was posted just a few hours after we talked. Without my quote saying what we were planning to do, the piece would have only been criticism of the administration’s handling of the crisis. The New York Times pushed us to declare a detailed solution—851 new licensed beds—and by doing so we committed the agency to making it happen. The media, in this case, genuinely acted as “the fourth estate.”

The push factors for immigration—violence and poverty in Central America—had increased exponentially in just two years, leading to new record numbers of unaccompanied youth coming over the border in 2014. Once again, we needed to call on the Department of Defense for support.

We all learned a lot working together in 2012. Military public affairs is well staffed and capable. At our very first meeting, DOD public affairs staff bristled at the term alien in the program’s name. We immediately shed the name, which we used because it was in the legislation autho- rizing the program, and just called it the Unaccompanied Children program. (The military is not where one would expect guidance on cultural sensitivity in language, but there it was.) In 2012 the discomfort that the DOD had about playing this sheltering role was so profound that on one early conference call there were no fewer than four generals on the line. They challenged, they discussed, and they let their feelings known, but at the end of the day there was one question: what is the mission? Once that mission was decided and clear, the discussion was over and everyone got to work. It was an aspect of military culture that I appreciated immensely.

When we returned to the DOD in 2014, though, they had learned enough from 2012 that they wanted to refine their rules of engagement. There was no way they were going to fight the last war. This time, they insisted on a Memorandum of Understanding. One of their many conditions in this MOU was that an HHS communication person be on site at all times to manage the external affairs and media relations demands. My staff and I, and a few other communication staff from other HHS agencies, took turns doing one-to-two-week rotations in San Antonio.

Our communications office learned a few things from 2012, too. The Office of Refugee Resettlement had always been strict about security and privacy at their facilities. “The children aren’t animals in a zoo,” they would say, supporting their bans of any media at shelters. But this approach worked against building trust and confidence in the services we were providing. We talked ORR into some compromises. First, when the shelter was set up and before the kids were placed there, we allowed journalists to tour the facility at Lackland Air Force Base. They saw the bunk rooms, the medical clinic, the dining area, the classrooms, the recreation areas. They were walked through the intake procedures and how a typical day went for a young person.

While they were not permitted to bring cameras or to tape or film, we took a broad range of quality still shots and gave them all access. After the kids came, we shot B-roll and took more still shots, ensuring that no kids were identifiable, and made all of that available to the media. The still shots also included art produced by the kids that they hung around their beds, often reflecting scenes from their home countries.

The media used every bit of what we provided and were appreciative. They had collateral for their news reports, and we were able to deliver a clear visual message about the quality of conditions at the shelter.

Another big change between 2012 and 2014 was working with the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA). It had set up a Joint Information Center (JIC) to coordinate activities between HHS, the DOD, FEMA, the White House, and any other federal agency or staff who might touch the immigration emergency.

FEMA staff who commanded the effort had the authority to demand immediate decisions from anyone. After years of passive resistance from the White House and HHS that I had no power to counter, it was a pleasure to be in the room with someone with the authority to compel action. “What do you mean the White House hasn’t responded yet,” I remember a FEMA commander asking after just an hour after the White House had been contacted. He immediately moved up the White House chain and got the clearance we needed to move forward with a decision.

The DOD wasn’t the only agency committed to not fighting the last war. FEMA’s communication shop had learned a lot from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. FEMA personnel watched as members of the Coast Guard were hailed as heroes, while FEMA was portrayed as bumbling and mired in red tape. Both agencies had clear missions and dedicated staff, but they had very different communication practices. Specifically: everyone who was in the Coast Guard was authorized to talk to the media at any time. Their only caveat is that they could only talk about their own job—nothing about policies, politics, or agency-wide decisions. What was their responsibility? Were they having trouble attaining or transporting materials they needed? How many hours had they worked that day? If it was within the context of their assigned duties, they could talk about it. This meant journalists not only got good color for their stories, but they also came to respect the individual Coast Guard staff, and that came through in their stories.

FEMA staff, meanwhile, lived with restrictions more common in the federal government—that only a few people were ever authorized to talk to the media and even they could only use cleared talking points. After Katrina, FEMA changed its policy, authorizing all staff to talk to the media at any time about their own jobs. Media training for all staff became a routine part of orientation and continued professional development. Imagine what it could do for the federal government’s image if this was an across-the- board practice.

Back at Lackland Air Force Base, in the cinderblock room, young people gathered one at a time or in small groups at each table while others waited their turn. It was the social worker’s job to help young people identify an eligible family member or friend in the United States who could come and get them, taking them into their custody while the youth awaited an asylum hearing. Young people pored over Facebook pages with social workers, looking for their people. Some were ready with names and phone numbers right away.

One by one, connections were made. Periodically, a joyfully loud interaction would punctuate the typically somber room. A child found an abuela; a parent found their child. And they would soon be on their way to pick the child up. The youth would leave with anticipated court dates. They weren’t legal yet, but they were safe. And, they hoped, on their way to a new life.

Lesson learned

Communications staff need to be able to lead. At times, decisions have to be made in the moment, without permission, to ensure a positive and accurate public image for a program or an organization.

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