Geiger Gibson Capstone in Community Health Policy

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Geiger Gibson Capstone in Community Health Policy
Leadership

• Webinar Series
• Executive Branch Role
• Legislative Branch Role
• Judicial Branch Role
• Advocacy Role
• Merle Cunningham MD MPH - Program Director

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• The Role of Advocacy
• in Health Policy
• April 14, 2015
• Presented by
• Amanda Pears Kelly
• National Advocacy Director
• National Association of Community Health Centers

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Learning Objectives

• At the end of this session, participants will be
  better able to
• Understand why how advocacy influences health
  policy
• Appreciate the keys to successful advocacy
• Apply the rules for organizing grassroots
  advocacy
• Understand the strategy behind the Access is the
  Answer Advocacy Campaign

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Advocacy and Health Policy

• Good Policy Should Come First
• Who Wants to Advocate for Bad Policy?

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Why Does Advocacy Matter in Health Policy?

• Policy Decisions Do Not Happen in a Vacuum
• - Competing Priorities
• - Dueling Numbers
• - Health policy is about people
• Advocacy is Not Just Lobbying
• - Getting Policymakers to Pay Attention
• - Getting Legislators to Vote Yes (or No)
• Legislative Decisions ALWAYS Involve Politics
• - Good Policy Development is not enough
• - Sometimes votes matter more than relationships
• - What Good is Perfect Policy that Never Becomes
  Law?

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Action Effective Advocacy

• Effective advocacy has one requirement ACTION
• Simply discussing issues, challenges, and plans
  is NOT effective advocacy.
• To Be An Effective Advocate Attain Your Goals
  You MUST
• Make advocacy an ongoing commitment and priority.
• Translate discussions, plans, and passions into
  moveable actions.
• Make your voice and perspective heard and
  understood.

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Effective Advocacy Power

• Grassroots advocacy is about
• BUILDING POWER
• Power is not measured by the number of advocates
  on a list
• Power is not measured by the number of small (or
  even large) victories we win.
• Power must be measured by our ability to
  successfully advance our own agenda and to make
  it unthinkable that any other political or
  special interest would ever want to take us on.

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The Real Deal Relative Effectiveness of
Advocacy Communications

• 1. A visit to your health center
• 2. A personal meeting back home
• 3. A personal meeting in Washington
• 4. Personal telephone calls
• 5. Personalized Letters (faxed)
• 6. Personalized emails
• 7. Template emails (ineffective unless in
• volume)

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Advocacy 101

• The Basics
• Know what you want
• Know who can give it to you
• Know what they want
• Know how to make the loudest squeak
• Advocacy is an ongoing effort
• Keys to Successful Advocacy
• Advocacy is a competitive activity
• There are winners and losers and, sometimes a
  stalemate is a win!
• Advocacy is an ACTIVE, not a passive process
• You are not the only one who wants something So
  you have to be heard through the din of all the
  other interests

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Goals

1. To win
2. T0 positively Impact Advocacy Targets
3. To build an Ongoing Capability
4. To involve your board and staff
5. To involve the community

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Metrics

1. Can someone get the target on the phone?
2. Can you get the target to your center how
   often?
3. How often is the center in the media?
4. How many local organizations/elected officials do
   something CONCRETE to support you?
5. How many grassroots advocates do you have? How
   active are they?
6. How many voters have you registered? Do they
   vote?
7. How much of what you ask your targets for do you
   get?

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Recognition

• -Recognize your targets
• -Recognize your community supporters
• -Recognize your best grassroots advocates
• -Recognize your advocacy leaders
• -Recognize your center!

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Empowering Yourself Through Advocacy

• Your level of commitment is directly related to
  your ability to make an impact.
• You must demonstrate personal commitment to your
  issues if you expect to receive the support and
  commitment of your officials and community
  members.

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Dos Donts of Health Center Advocacy

• Donts
• Offer Answers You Dont Have
• Assume Knowledge of Health Centers
• Believe Someone Else is Taking Care of Your
  Advocacy
• Burn Bridges
• Be Intimidated
• Confuse Being Quiet for Being Polite
• Express Partisanship
• Forget to make your ASK

• Dos
• Know What Youre Asking For
• Know Your Audience
• Know Your Opponents
• Know The Rules
• Make a Commitment
• Be Polite
• Say THANK YOU
• Keep it Simple

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Making Effective Advocacy HappenBuilding A
Culture Of Advocacy

• In order to realize the full potential of our
  grassroots power it is critical that we create a
  culture of advocacy at the local, state and
  federal levels
• Building a culture of advocacy means
• Changing the culture and attitude from within the
  health center, recognizing advocacy as a critical
  and mandatory component to our daily work and
  planning.
• Making a commitment to doing the work to build
  and organize our grassroots in order to fully
  realize the potential of our grassroots power.
• Growth and recognition of grassroots advocacy and
  effectiveness the same way other critical skills
  and programs are recognized for health center
  staff and boards.

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Building A Culture Of Advocacy

• Essentials For Empowering Your Health Center
  Through Advocacy in the community
• Recruit Advocates Inform others of your issues
  and advocacy efforts, ask them to get involved
  and make a commitment to health center advocacy.
• Develop Partnerships Reach out to local
  businesses and organizations to educate them
  about the health center and ask them to join in
  health center advocacy efforts.
• Increase Exposure Begin an advocacy campaign
  at your health center.
• -Set up legislative visits at the health center
  with local, state, and federal officials
  regularly.
• -Write letters to the editor on health center
  issues.
• -Hold health center events
• -Make people (elected officials, the media, the
  public) aware of who you are and what you provide
  the community.

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Building A Culture Of Advocacy

• Build And Maintain Relationships With Elected
  Officials
• Establish an ongoing schedule of hosting and
  meeting with local, state, and federal elected
  officials and their staff at the health center.
• Know your officials interests, background,
  committees, career etc.
• Let your officials know how many patients/
  constituents you are serving and update them
  regularly on developments
• Offer yourself as an information resource to your
  officials and their staff.
• Recognize and thank your officials for their
  support of health centers.

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Making Effective Advocacy Happen Establish What
Works At Your Center And In Your Community

• Essentials For Empowering Yourself Through
  Advocacy
• Staying Informed- provide board members, staff,
  patients, and community partners with regular
  updates on whats happening in D.C. and your
  state capital and how it could affect their
  center.
• Ongoing Priority and Commitment- make advocacy a
  standing item on the agenda at every board
  meeting.
• Recognition- publicly recognize and thank both
  officials and health center advocates.
• Patient Involvement- involve your patients in as
  many advocacy activities as possible.

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The Health Center Funding Cliff
Community Health Center Funding FY 2010 FY
2016
in Billions
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MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!
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Access is the Answer Advocacy Campaign

• To force Washington to fix the Health Center
  Funding Cliff we have launched Access is the
  Answer our campaign to organize EVERY HEALTH
  CENTER ADVOCATE to get Congress the
  Administration to fix the Health Center Funding
  Cliff.
• The goal of the Access is the Answer Campaign is
  to demonstrate on a massive scale, the support
  that local communities have for health centers.
• To Accomplish this Goal we are asking every
  Health Center to take 3 Action Steps as part of
  the first phase of the Campaign.

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What can YOU do right NOW?!

• TODAY April 14th
• CALL 866-456-3949 TELL YOUR SENATORS TO
• Vote YES on H.R. 2 to Support HCs!

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Access is the Answer Phase 3 Action StepsWhat
can YOU do right NOW?!

• Engage Your Health Center Board
• Pass a Cliff Oriented Board Resolution
• Send a Letter to Your MOCs from the BOD
• Engage Health Center Patients Staff
• Collect Patient Advocate Cards
• 2. Launch a Staff Letter Campaign
• Engage State Legislators State Partners
• 1. Collect Individual Support Letters
• 2. Request Support for Sign On Letters via
  S/RPCAs

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Access is the Answer Resources

• Campaign Website
• www.saveourchcs.org/about.cfm
• Templates
• English
• Spanish
• Letter Media Templates
• Local Elected Officials
• Community Partners
• Report Forms
• Tools to Spread the Word
• Bilingual Fliers
• Bilingual Handouts
• Social Media Tools

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Ultimately

• The only way we will succeed in getting
  Washington to fix our funding cliff is to
  organize everyone in our communities elected
  officials, community organizations and partners,
  along with tens of thousands of health center
  advocates, to send a forceful message to Congress
  and the President that folks back home not only
  care about making sure the Health Centers Program
  receives the funding and resources needed to
  continue providing high quality care in their
  communities, but that these same folks (health
  center advocates) reject anything short of real
  action to make sure that not ONE of the current
  22 million health center patients lose access to
  care, and that millions more who still need
  access to care will get it.
• - Dan Hawkins, NACHC Senior Vice President for
  Policy Research

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• The difference between what we do and what we
  are capable of doing would suffice to solve most
  of the worlds problems. -Mohandas Gandhi

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Questions?apearskelly_at_nachc.com