Welcome! Putting Advocacy to Work

Credit Valley Hospital 2200 Eglinton Avenue West, Mississauga

Mississauga Hospital100 Queensway West, Mississauga

Queensway Health Centre150 Sherway Drive, Toronto 1

Welcome!Putting Advocacy to WorkNovember 15, 2013

Carol KotackaTrillium Health Partners




Common understanding

Lobbying:Influencing decisions made by legislators and officials in government - ex:

• Birth of Status of Women Canada

Social Change:Change in the nature, social institutions, social behaviors or social relations of a society – ex:

• Green Movement




Advocacy Social Justice

Change the “what is” into a “what should be”

• Improve public policy• Ensure governments’ accountability to

citizens• Give a voice to citizen interests• Educate and engage people to participate

on their own behalf



Queensway Health Centre150 Sherway Drive, Toronto

Advocacy and the publicly funded organization

4

ADVOCACY

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT




Tools

• Lobbying

• Media relations

• Public education

• Research




Foundational Cornerstones




Identify VisionChildren have the right ………

• To live. Governments are responsible for making sure every child grows up healthy

• To form and express an opinion

• To a family

• To quality health care, including access to safe and clean water, nutritious food….




Own the Vision

• Identify exactly what needs to change

• Do the work to determine how that change must happen

• Develop a strategy to achieve change




• Founded in 1980

• Used visceral, emotional, gut-wrenching material

• Resulted in mounds of traffic and victims rights legislation

• Truly an example of societal change triggered by advocacy




– Road Map to Social Change

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Spring 1980

100 chapters- 330 chapters 2 million members

Growing MADD support

Candy Lightner loses her daugther to a drunk driver

Fall1980

MADD holds first press conference

1982Ronald Reagan announces Presidential Commission on drunk driving

1982129 drunk driving laws passed across USA

1984Uniform Drinking Age Act passed (legal age now 21)

1992Four states lower legal blood alcohol levels to 0.8

1990Traffic fatalities drop to 30 year low

2000President Clinton passes 0.8 across the country

2005Est. 300,000 lives saved

“They are grassroots heroes really. They have helped change the climate of safety in America and tens of thousands of lives have been saved.” – Senator Dole




Identify Targets Who do you need to achieve the vision?

Government? • Provincial / Federal / Municipal

Specific demographic group• Youth / executives




Small Group / Small Target




• Advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring equity in funding for social services in Peel

• Factual approach - working with government

• Twenty years of advocacy

• Tools:– Public positions and policy papers– Public education– Joint advocacy– Government relations

Fair Share Task Force




20 Years and Three parties later…………..




Engage partners and champions based on those targets

Strategically incorporate champions to deliver messages to your target.

• Business leaders• Policy Advisors• Sports figures• A representative




Texas Environmental Group

• Littering was a serious problem

• Tried a variety of public education campaigns with little effect

• Strategically profile targets to determine which messages would have impact




Don’t Mess with Texas!




Dogged Execution

Child framework to advocacy

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Practical Application




Food For Thought:

Children have the right ………

• To live. Governments are responsible for making sure every child grows up healthy

• To form and express an opinion

• To a family

• To quality health care, including access to safe and clean water, nutritious food….




Guiding Questions• What are the barriers?

• What actions must happen to remove those barriers?

• Who are the players?

• How do you engage them?

• Who will lead the initiative?

• How will you measure success? Be specific.




Thank you very much!

Happy Advocating!

Documents

Welcome! Putting Advocacy to Work