Advocacy is the pursuit of influencing outcomes—including public policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic and social systems and institutions—that directly affect people's lives (Advocacy Institute, 2004).
Advocacy is:
- One of many possible strategies, or ways, to approach a problem
- Active promotion of a cause or principle primarily through education
- Organized actions that lead to a selected goal
- Part or as the main focus of a community initiative
- Not direct service
- Not necessarily confrontation or conflict.
Source: The Community Tool Box: http://ctb.ku.edu
NOFAS is committed to empowering community advocates to address fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and other fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). We believe that "Informed Communities Are Healthy Communities." In support of this commitment and belief, NOFAS is developing a step-by-step guide for community advocacy around FAS/FASD.
In developing the community guide, NOFAS researched the current literature on advocacy and completed several reviews of step-by-step advocacy guides to assess their content for applicability and/or concept integration for FAS/FASD advocates. Additionally, we assessed available information for elements of effectiveness at the grassroots community level. These elements were included as successful strategies for the NOFAS guide.
The manual is designed to reach individuals who are ready to make incremental and strategic changes within systems to improve the quality of life for those affected by FASD. The primary goal of this guide is to provide specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-sensitive (SMART) strategies for activating communities around FAS/FASD in an easy-to-read format. These grassroots strategies for FAS/FASD advocacy include:
- Getting to know more about the issue and its prevalence in the community
- Taking inventory of the available resources and services in the community
- Developing an advocacy action plan
- Garnering support for your community action plan
- Fostering and maintaining community action partnerships and coalitions
- Organizing community support groups for those affected by FAS/FASD
- Moving community, social and political systems toward action to improve the quality of life for those affected by FAS/FASD
- Developing useful strategies and examples for writing letters to media and legislators
- Identifying simple strategies for measuring advocacy progress
- Sharing successful FAS/FASD advocacy experiences to activate other communities.
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