Advocacy Goals Research Articles

Equivalence Framing and the Construction of Advocacy Messages

ABSTRACTAlternative messages that present logically equivalent information, often referred to as equivalence frames, have been shown to influence readers' opinions on public issues. While equivalence framing has been studied in the context of issue advocacy, exhibiting pervasive effects across domains of decision‐making, little attention has been paid to whether the general public is able to choose these equivalence frames based on the goal of persuasion. Given that framing effects have important implications on democratic decision‐making, this paper reports on experiments that manipulate the strategic goal of policy advocacy (i.e., supporting alternative policy proposals) and ask respondents to select between equivalence frames to enhance the persuasive power of the advocacy toward the specified goal. Findings across three issue topics suggest that for the general adult population, only a small proportion of people were able to select equivalence frames based on the goal of persuasion with most people failing to do so. Also, a follow‐up study with a university student sample showed that familiarity with one equivalence frame over the other was a more consistent predictor of equivalence frame use than the goal of advocacy in communicating policy issues.

Employee Compensation of Nonprofit Child Welfare Agencies in New York: Crises and Strategies

ABSTRACTWhile existing literature documents the low compensation of nonprofit human services workers, it is not well understood how managers of these organizations perceive and respond to the problem. Adopting resource dependency and competing institutional logics perspectives, we chose the New York nonprofit child welfare sector—a heavily government‐funded field—as a collective case to study these issues. Based on interviews with 17 leaders of the primary NY nonprofit child welfare agencies, we found that these agencies' employee compensation was primarily constrained by government contracts, and they were torn by conflicting institutional logics from the state, the labor market, private funders, and unions. Overall, government contracts and market competition determined worker pay, and nonprofit child welfare agencies faced labor competition not only from peer organizations, but also from the government and for‐profit sectors. With the “great resignation” atmosphere and increased cost of living intensified by the COVID‐19 pandemic, agencies were under tremendous pressure to raise worker pay. However, programs chronically underfunded by the government were incapable of providing competitive wages and were experiencing high staff turnover and vacancies. Agency leaders agreed on the need to push the government to pay programs adequately but disagreed about advocacy goals and messaging. Most leaders had reservations about aggressive collective bargaining measures such as “going on strike.” These common but attenuated labor dynamics, related managerial responses, and implications for the future of the sector are discussed, particularly in response to competing institutional pressures.

White Paper: American Gastroenterological Association Position Statement: The Future of IBD Care in the United States–Removing Barriers and Embracing Opportunities

Despite incredible growth in systems of care and rapidly expanding therapeutic options for people with inflammatory bowel disease, there are significant barriers that prevent patients from benefiting from these advances. These barriers include restrictions in the form of prior authorization, step therapy, and prescription drug coverage. Furthermore, inadequate use of multidisciplinary care and inflammatory bowel disease specialists limits patient access to high-quality care, particularly for medically vulnerable populations. However, there are opportunities to improve access to high-quality, patient-centered care. This position statement outlines the policy and advocacy goals that the American Gastroenterological Association will prioritize for collaborative efforts with patients, providers, and payors.

Professional societies of obstetrics and gynecology as agents of change in sexual and reproductive health: FIGO's 10-country safe abortion advocacy project in Africa and Latin America.

In 2019, FIGO started implementing its abortion project focusing on advocacy. The Advocacy for Safe Abortion (ASA) Project was conducted in partnership with 10 national professional societies of obstetrics and gynecology in Latin America and Africa. The project aimed to strengthen national societies, support them to be leaders in sexual and reproductive health, and enable them to obtain context-specific advocacy goals that improve access to safe abortion. Innovative monitoring and evaluation methodology enabled tracking of outcomes, consideration of their contribution to success, and cross-country evaluation. The project saw success through some key strategies: institutional capacity strengthening; enhanced work through collaborations; training to increase knowledge and reduce abortion-related stigma with a broad array of stakeholders; and generation and use of evidence to influence decision-makers. This article describes the project and methodology used and provides tangible examples of how societies have been agents of change in their countries and of the need for such important work to continue.

School of social welfare transgender justice group: student-led advocacy to promote justice and equity for gender diverse college students

Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) social work students experience microaggressions on campuses, curricula that are often cissexist and stigmatizing, and a lack of inclusive facilities, like gender-neutral bathrooms. The Transgender Justice Group (TJG) was founded by students at a School of Social Welfare (SSW) to respond to these and other pressing issues on the campus of a public university in the Midwestern U.S. This report aims to describe the formation process and activities of the TJG and provide recommendations for students, staff, and faculty who are interested in creating similar groups at other universities. Students and supporting faculty used a nonhierarchical approach to define, strategize, and implement advocacy goals, including creating more trans-affirming classrooms and increasing positive and proactive administrative responses to recent harmful anti-trans laws. Strategies for achieving these goals included engagement with a private, student-only online group chat, the production of regular informational webinars, and student-led meetings with school administrators to formally address state political actions negatively affecting TGD and queer people. Our group benefited from a dual focus on student support and advocacy. Through the TJG’s ongoing work, students learned to collaborate more effectively, a skill that is crucial for their careers in the social work profession.

Neighborhood Assessment of the Environment for Physical Activity: Engaging Adolescents Within an Under-resourced Community

Abstract: Background: Physical activity (PA) participation has many benefits; however, rates of participation remain low, particularly among underserved populations which may face low PA participation due to having poorer quality of built environment factors which is a known influence on activity levels. Objectives: To train adolescents to conduct environmental neighborhood assessments and neighborhood resident surveys of with the end goal of encouraging advocacy for neighborhood improvements. Methods: This mixed methods, prospective design study was focused in a low-income, under-resourced, predominately African American neighborhood in Pittsburgh. Adolescents ( n = 14; 13–17 years) in a community partner's youth program were trained to conduct neighborhood environmental assessments and distributed neighborhood resident surveys. Results of these assessments were shared with community partners to create strategies for improvement. These adolescents participated in a focus group following the environmental assessments to reflect on their findings and the process. The neighborhood resident survey ( n = 123) assessed demographics, perceptions of the neighborhood, PA participation and health outcomes. Results: Neighborhood assessments noted and resident surveys noted many barriers to activity (i.e., poor sidewalks, unsafe areas). Results were informative for our community partner to advocate for neighborhood improvements. Focus group results indicated that the adolescents understood how their neighborhood environment could influence PA and how the findings could be utilized to make improvements in their neighborhood. Conclusions: Adolescents can be successfully trained/educated to follow a research protocol for assessing the built environment for PA using a variety of measurement tools, while additionally gaining insight towards neighborhood environment advocacy.

From Rights Claims to Quality Frames in US Child Care Advocacy

ABSTRACT How and why do advocates choose frames, and what are the effects of these choices? This study draws on two decades of data about the Center for the Child Care Workforce (CCW), an advocacy organization founded by feminist early childhood educators in 1977 to raise child care wages. It traces how contextual factors shape framing choices, and how framing choices shape advocacy goals and claims. Archival research and interview data reveal that discursive barriers led CCW to lobby for ensuring “quality” child care, a strategic choice that inadvertently prioritized professional educators’ interests over those of other caregivers.

Comfort Activism: Online Photography for Social Change in a Minority Group

While technology has been a valuable ally for social change, we know to a smaller extent its potential for less overt forms of activism, especially in the context of socially sensitive issues. In this paper, we explore the role of photography to bring about social change in Bahrain, an island nation in the Arabian Peninsula. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, we describe how professional photographers capturing a controversial religious ritual of the Muslim-minority Shia employed a quiet form of activism we call "comfort activism," small and embodied acts with technology that address areas of comfort/discomfort for themselves and groups with whom they have social ties with. We discuss how comfort activism points design toward advocacy goals such as equality that provide an alternative perspective to cultures---one that prioritizes individuals' agencies and choices instead of static cultural norms and values.

Answering the Call for Systems Change

There is much agreement within counseling psychology on the importance of social justice, yet social justice education and training remain limited in counseling psychology programs (Beerman et al., 2012; Pieterse et al., 2009; Singh et al., 2010). Critical components to social justice education and training include an emphasis on systems theories that could inform interventions (i.e. advocacy and activism) at the exosystem and mesosystem levels as well as learning about the breadth of activism and advocacy skills. Assessment, diagnosis, and conceptualization are considered core functional competencies in professional psychology (Fouad, 2009), yet these processes are often only taught at the individual level. If the goal of advocacy and activism are to foster systems change, considered a functional competency in counseling psychology (CCPTP, 2012), then it is crucial to provide systems-level theories and skills in counseling psychology education and training. We describe how we have attended to the provision of systems-level education and training in our respective programs. We will provide recommendations about the inclusion of systems-level theories, classroom formats, assignments, and mentorship designed to foster trainees’ development of a systems-level theoretical orientation, as well as skills to engage in social justice research, leadership, and both micro- and macro-level advocacy interventions.

APA Board Discusses ‘Roadmap for the Future,’ M/UR Nomenclature

APA Board Discusses ‘Roadmap for the Future,’ M/UR Nomenclature

Medical Student-Driven Efforts to Incorporate Segregated Care Education Into Their Curriculum

US health care is segregated by insurance status and de facto by race; however, traditional models of medical education do not teach students about segregated care, and the authors know of no examples in the literature problematizing segregated care in medical education. To fill this gap, this article describes a student-led effort to disseminate peer-to-peer segregated care education at a single-site, large academic health system in New York City. It also provides educational resources that other student-advocates can adopt to drive curricular inclusion efforts at their own institutions. This article concludes that the primary goal of advocacy to teach segregated care is always desegregation, so curricular inclusion efforts are needed to educate students about the inequitable systems they are entering and to provide them with tools to advocate against such systems.

Brief Report: It's Time to Embed Health-Related Quality of Life Across all Steps of the HIV Care Cascade

Calls for stakeholders across the global HIV landscape to widely and systematically adopt person-centered care and patient-oriented research approaches have been made by HIV scholars, clinicians, patients, and groups such as the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). Such calls implicitly acknowledge that the end goal of HIV care, research, and advocacy goes beyond HIV viral suppression or undetectability toward ensuring optimal health-related quality of life (HrQoL) for people living with HIV (PLWH). Indeed, global efforts have focused on keeping people alive yet have failed to ensure that they feel alive. In this brief report, we highlight the progress that has been made toward evolving the HIV care cascade to better represent actual experiences of PLWH, especially those that are most vulnerable and marginalized. We then describe what person-centered care, patient-oriented research, and HrQoL are and why they are important for our current context in HIV. We conclude by sharing 2 propositions for the global HIV community to consider moving forward. HIV care must not only focus on viral suppression but also better recognize the intersecting and multifaceted challenges faced by PLWH when taking HIV treatment and engaging in care. Evaluating HrQoL at each step of the cascade using validated patient-reported outcome and experience measures would assist in systematically tracking and addressing challenges faced by PLWH. Measures chosen through global consensus may facilitate rigorous comparisons across jurisdictions. Adopting a patient-oriented research paradigm will also be crucial for empowering and meaningfully engaging patients throughout the research process.

‘If you respect us...listen to us’: how sporting event media reframes or reinforces representations of street-connected children

ABSTRACT Advocacy programmes targeting street-connected children involve changing public and policy makers’ perceptions about this group of often stigmatised children. Increasingly, such programmes centre leisure activities, sports, and sporting events as potential platforms for sharing messages aimed at effecting social change. For effective impact, such advocacy goals require that safe spaces are developed for emerging children’s political messages and managing media narratives to centralise their individual challenges and, more importantly, the root-causes of their street-connectedness. In part influenced by an Ecological Framework for Human Development, we explore how the media engage meaningfully with Street Child United (SCU) events and how they represent street-connected children. Thematically analysing this media coverage, we explore SCU partners’ relationships with the media and whether advocacy messages are communicated coherently and consistently. We found that messages of advocacy and children’s rights are present, but inconsistently framed, reinforcing a binary between pity and inspiration, and limiting opportunities of challenging public perceptions and effecting change. For SCU, similar sports event organisers, and civil society organisations to successfully determine media narratives, they need to develop strategies to manage relationships and more continuous engagement with the media and other stakeholders to sustain interest and leverage impact.

Improving outcomes through patient-generated evidence—the next step in patient advocacy

Patient advocacy—a term that is broad in scope but that essentially describes a range of services for patients, survivors, and caregivers who are living with, or have lived with a disease. The paramount goal of patient advocacy is to truly represent the voice of patients to ensure their needs and preferences are met within an often complex and labyrinthine health-care system, which is rarely built to recognise—let alone accommodate—the needs of those who must attempt its navigation.

Hot Off the Press: Addressing gender inequities: Creation of a multi-institutional consortium of women physicians in academic emergency medicine.

Hot Off the Press: Addressing gender inequities: Creation of a multi-institutional consortium of women physicians in academic emergency medicine.

التطبيقات الدعوية النظرية في قَصص سورة الکهف

الفکرة الأساسية للبحث هي: تنفيذ وتطبيق مفردات علم الدعوة إلى الله تعالى على قصص سورة الکهف الأربعة حيث تم دراسة القصص دراسة دعوية متخصصة، وانتهى إلى عدد من النتائج هي: بلغ عدد أساليب الدعوة في القصص الأربعة؛ ستة عشر أسلوبا، وعدد وسائل الدعوة خمسة عشرة وسيلة، وعدد أهداف الدعوة اثنتا عشرة هدفا، وعدد المصالح الدعوية في القصص الأربعة؛ اثنتا عشرة مصلحة، وعدد الآثار الدعوية واحدا وعشرون أثرا دعويا، وعدد المقاصد الدعوية تسعة مقاصد، وعدد القواعد الدعوية في القصص الأربعة؛ عشرون قاعدة. وجاءت توصيات البحث في ست توصيات من أهمها: الاستمرار في عمل التطبيقات الدعوية النظرية في قصص القرآن الکريم، والسنة النبوية المطهرة. أسأل الله تعالى أن يکون هذا البحث خالصا لوجهه الکريم، فإن کان فيه صواب وحق فهو فضل الله تعالى ومنته وکرمه، وإن کان فيه خطأ وزلل فمني ومن الشيطان، واستغفر الله الذي لا إله إلا هو. يتکون بحث: التطبيقات الدعوية النظرية في قصص سورة الکهف من: مقدمة وتمهيد وخمسة مباحث هي: المبحث الأول: فضل سورة الکهف وسبب نزولها؛ ومفردات علم الدعوة.أما المبحث الثاني: التطبيقات الدعوية النظرية في قصة أصحاب الکهف.والمبحث الثالث: التطبيقات الدعوية النظرية في قصة صاحب الجنتين.والمبحث الرابع: التطبيقات الدعوية النظرية في قصة موسىu مع العبد الصالح.والمبحث الخامس: التطبيقات الدعوية النظرية في قصة ذو القرنين.ثم الخاتمة والنتائج والتوصيات. ثم جاءت الفهارس: للآيات القرآنية/ الأحاديث النبوية الشريفة/ للمصادر والمراجع/ للموضوعات. Abstract: The basic idea of ​​the research is: Implementation and application of the vocabulary of the science of calling to God Almighty on the four stories of Surat Al-Kahf where the stories were studied by a specialized study of da'wah, and came to a number of results: The number of methods of advocacy in the four stories; Sixteen methods, the number of advocacy methods is fifteen, the number of advocacy goals is twelve, and the number of advocacy interests in the four stories. Twelve interests, the number of advocacy effects is twenty-one, and the number of advocacy purposes is nine, and the number of advocacy bases in the four stories. Twenty bases. The research recommendations came in six recommendations, the most important of which are: Continuing to make theoretical advocacy applications in the stories of the Holy Qur’an, and the purified Sunnah of the Prophet.I ask God Almighty to make this research sincere for His honorable sake, and if it is right and true, then it is the grace of God Almighty, its end, and its generosity, and if it is wrong and an error, then I am from Satan, and I ask forgiveness of God for whom there is no god but He. The research: The theoretical advocacy applications in Surat Al-Kahf stories consist of:An introduction, introduction and five topics are: The first topic: The merits of Surat Al-Kahf and the reason for its descent. And vocabulary of the science of advocacy.The second topic: the theoretical advocacy applications in the story of the owners of the cave.The third topic: the theoretical advocacy applications in the story of the owner of the two gardens.The fourth topic: The theoretical advocacy applications in the story of Moses with Al-Abd Al-Saleh.The fifth topic: the theoretical advocacy applications in the story of Dhu al-Qarnayn.Conclusion, findings and recommendations.Indexes: for Quranic verses / hadiths of the noble Prophet / for sources and references / for topics. Key words: Applications, Advocacy, Theory, Stories, Surat Al-Kahf.

Which Audiences Engage With Advocacy Groups on Twitter? Explaining the Online Engagement of Elite, Peer, and Mass Audiences With Advocacy Groups

Gaining an audience on social media is an important goal of contemporary policy advocacy. While previous studies demonstrate that advocacy-dedicated nonprofit organizations—what we refer to as advocacy groups—use different social media tools, we still know little about what specific audiences advocacy groups set out to target on social media, and whether those audiences actually engage with these groups. This study fills this gap, deploying survey and digital trace data from Twitter over a 12-month period for the Australian case. We show that while groups target a variety of audiences online, there are differences between group types in their strategic objectives and the extent to which particular audiences engage with them. Business groups appear to target elite audiences more often compared with citizen and professional groups, whereas citizen groups receive more online engagement from mass and peer audiences.

Community organisation-researcher partnerships: what concerns arise for community organisations and how can they be mitigated?

Universities and research funders’ growing emphasis on community partnerships, engagement and outreach has seen a rise in collaborations between university researchers and staff of community organisations (COs) on research projects....

96. MULTI-INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH TO ADVOCACY TRAINING AMONG PEDIATRIC RESIDENTS

Background The ACGME and AAP prioritize patient advocacy because it provides a way to move beyond individual solutions to create and be part of broader systemic change. Advocacy training allows residents to better understand how community variables affect health. Yet, many pediatricians report receiving inadequate advocacy training. Studies have demonstrated an improved experience when residents across training programs collaborate on advocacy projects. The 4 Louisiana pediatric residency programs implemented a combined advocacy curriculum to cultivate cooperation and inspire broader systemic change. Objective: We aimed to evaluate the impact of the statewide advocacy curriculum on residents’ confidence in their ability to advocate effectively for patients and families. Methods Residents from the 4 programs selected a main focus for their advocacy project and determined goals for advocacy rotation. During the rotation, residents met weekly via conference call to discuss progress, accomplishments, and next steps as they received feedback from peers and recommendations from mentors. Residents engaged in 8 different communication tools while furthering their site's delineated advocacy goals. To assess curriculum efficacy, residents from 2 programs were surveyed about their thoughts and attitudes regarding advocacy and asked to self-assess their advocacy skills. Two residency programs did not participate in the evaluation. Survey responses of residents who had participated in the collaborative curriculum (n=11) were compared to those who had not participated in the curriculum (n=33). Results Survey items with statistically significant differences are shown in Table 1. Other items changed in the expected direction but failed to reach significance. Conclusion The collaborative advocacy curriculum led to significantly improved confidence in identifying pediatric health issues, finding resources to advocate effectively for change, communicating about the identified issues, and developing action plans to address community health needs. Future goals include curriculum enhancement to areas in need of improvement.

Communities Healing And Transforming Trauma (CHATT): A Trauma-Informed Speakers’ Bureau for Survivors of Violence

ABSTRACT There is increasing recognition of the value of consumer participation in advocacy and community activism. Among trauma survivors, finding a sense of purpose and a way to make meaning from the trauma experience has been termed “survivor mission,” and may include a call to social action, involvement in social justice activities, or public speaking. The current study describes the development of a trauma-informed trauma-survivor speakers’ bureau (CHATT) and presents quantitative and qualitative outcome findings. The CHATT program encompasses (1) a speaker training component, (2) public speaking activities, and (3) speaking support groups. Trauma survivors (N = 27) who received trauma mental health (MH) services and were in the later stages of recovery completed the two-part seven-hour speaker training and subsequently presented talks at 13 venues to 192 audience members during a three-year study period. Speakers completed baseline measures prior to the training, and follow-up measures at six months and one year to assess posttraumatic growth (PTG) and self-efficacy. Audience members completed an assessment of change in beliefs about key speaker advocacy goals, as well as emotional reactions and satisfaction with talks. Results revealed PTG and speaking self-efficacy increased for speakers after one-year post-training. Audience ratings of talks averaged in the high range except for one domain. Ratings differed by audience type and number of speakers, and increased as the program matured. Key speaker advocacy successes including state policy changes, limitations, and implications for future research and development are discussed.