Teacher education students surveyed about their perceptions of child advocacy indicated that to become successful advocates they needed to become more self-confident and politically aware and to be able to communicate effectively with knowledge of current issues, advocacy methods, and the political system. In order to facilitate the training of early childhood educators in one technique of effective advocacy, this paper offers a framework for analyzing child advocacy/early education issues and provides guidelines for developing debate arguments. Contents answer the following questions: (1) What is an issue? (2) How can questions underlying a debate issue be formulated? (3) How can plausible arguments be developed? (4) How can teams prepare for an informal debate? (5) What is the format of the informal debate? (6) What strategies are helpful during delivery of a debate? The debate process outlined in the paper is provided to encourage students to "find their own answers" to current issues and to incorporate advocacy training into teacher education. (RH)