Join us for our upcoming learning collaborative experience focused on developing effective advocacy strategies. Strong advocacy skills can improve your ability to implement new policy, build the case for more resources, and gain administrative buy-in for new and existing programs. Led by subject matter experts, this four-part series will provide you with the knowledge and skills needed to develop your own advocacy plan that can be scaled to use on campus, within your community, or even higher levels of government.
This series will also explore how best to navigate the current legislative landscape in order to achieve your specific initiatives goals. Each session will be conducted in a blended format, including webinars and open discussions.
What can I do? An Intro to Activism
Overview:
Have you looked at everything happening around us and wondered, “What can I do?” This workshop is for you! Intro to Activism lays out a framework for how to connect to the issues you are passionate about and start building the future you want to see.
Using a broad framework for increasing civic participation, this workshop will encourage participants to embrace the importance of political engagement regardless of their practice area and provide tangible skills to get involved in issue-based advocacy.
Directed at those who feel the pull of our current movement moment, this session will provide a foundational approach to connecting with organizing and political work. Throughout the workshop, participant will chart action steps they can take to build connections and engagement to ongoing campaigns.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the importance of political engagement for helping professions in all practice settings.
- Identify practice behaviors and strategies used in organizing and advocacy.
- Identify organizations and personal networks to find opportunities to get involved around specific social work issues.
Steve David, LSW
#DoSomething: Legislative Advocacy for Impact
Overview:
From protecting trans kids to stopping education censorship, we need your voice at the Statehouse. Focusing on the Ohio legislature, this workshop will provide hands on activities for understanding the legislative process and how we can leverage our personal and professional experience for policy change.
Focusing on the legislative structures and process, participants will complete exercises to enhance their understanding of government, and comfort engaging in the policy advocacy. Participants will work individually and in breakout groups to identify targets for advocacy, analyze legislation, and make plans to contact elected officials about issues that impact their clients and practice.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand levels of government and appropriate targets for advocacy.
- Navigate state legislative websites to track and analyze legislation.
- Demonstrate advocacy interventions, including phone calls, letter writing and testimony.
Steve David, LSW
Put It into Action: Strategies to Create Change on Your Campus Part I
Overview:
An advocacy campaign is defined as a course of action to achieve a goal. These campaigns can be used to help gain but-in for new policies, additional resources and administrative support. This session will review all of the components needed to foster change on you campus and what is necessary to maintain momentum in order to achieve the desired goal.
Learning Objectives:
- Discuss what goes into organizing and developing a campaign.
- Explore what it looks like to get started and how to maintain campaign momentum.
- Explain how to evaluate the campaign climate.
Rick Birt
Put It into Action: Strategies to Create Change on Your Campus Part II
Overview:
Now that you have fostered a strong understanding of what is needed to craft a successful campaign it is time to apply your newly learned skills to develop your own advocacy plan. This session will allow participants to take what they have just learned and begin applying it to their own specific initiative. We will discuss why it is important to define what success looks like for our campaign and how to set realistic goals and milestones along the way.
Learning Objectives:
- Apply newly learned skills to the development of your own campaign.
- Create campaign goals/milestones
- Identify how success will be defined.
- Move through the steps of creating an advocacy plan that is custom to your specific initiative goals.