What Can You Do? Advocacy and Public Policy
What is advocacy?
Advocacy requires taking direct action to change something in your own life, in your family life, in your social environment (neighborhood, work, school, religious setting etc.) or in your local, state or federal politics to encourage positive change. There has been research to guide us on what is effective in helping reduce violence at each of these levels. Effective strategies to end violence requires a comprehensive approach, they don’t just involve reacting to one part of the complex environment that encourages violence. Instead, they involve providing the resources that communities need to intervene at the personal through political levels of change. In addition, effective strategies are fully implemented. For example, having more police officers in the community is only one part of a specific strategy for reducing violence in that community. These police officers also need to be taught effective communication skills, how to deescalate aggressive situations, and how to show respect and value for diverse community members. It is a huge burden on families and communities when a family member is incarceration. Thus, police officers need to recognize when incarceration is truly needed versus when referrals for mental health services, drug services, relocation away from violent family members, or resources to address problems such as housing and food insecurity would be more effective responses. Neighborhoods that contain access to good quality schools, medical centers, mental health services, drug treatment centers, employment opportunities and safety nets for the poor have shown lower rates of violence.
As you read through this page you will see many different examples of advocacy steps you could take to help build a safer world for everyone. It is important, when considering taking any of the action steps described, that you consider your own personal safety in deciding which steps to take. If speaking up to a spouse, or neighbor, or member of your religious group could lead you to be physically, sexually, or emotionally abused, then you want to ensure your own safety and that of other vulnerable family members as your first advocacy steps.
TO READ ABOUT EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES FOR GETTING HELP click here.
Individual advocacy
Individual advocacy means you take a step personally to do something to reduce interpersonal violence. It could start with a self-assessment of your own strengths. You might realize that you are a highly compassionate individual who has had significant experience helping children with their homework as one of your children struggled with math and another with learning to read. After learning how often abused children and teens need help learning how to do well in school, make friends, and apply for jobs, you could decide to:
Provide one hour a week, two hours a week or more helping a foster child develop good academic and social skills. You could take this specific advocacy step, by clicking on the link below:
https://www.pivotalnow.org/volunteer
If you work full time, and have our own family, this might not be the best advocacy step for you. Instead, every four months you might send a care package to a foster youth that contained items like books on how to get into college or clothing teens could wear when they go for a job interview. You could take this specific advocacy step, by clicking on the link below:
https://www.fc2success.org/programs/student-care-packages/
These are just two examples of the many different action steps you could take to do something personally to try to show an abused or neglected child or teen that you value them as a person and wish to help them build a safe and successful life.
Social Advocacy
Social advocacy involves you taking on the role of a leader through encouraging actions in your social network, religious organization, PTA, neighborhood organization and so forth that could help reduce the risk factors for violence or encourage resilience in those harmed by violence. There are many types of social advocacy you could engage in. Some require a lot of time, but some require just taking advantage of brief moments in your day. For example, you could start a social media campaign to encourage more families to take care of foster children by using hashtags in your activities on social media. You could click on the link below:
https://nfpaonline.org/fostercare
This website takes you to a volunteer organization that provides everything you need to know about becoming a foster parent. To start your social media campaign, you need to write a brief paragraph that says why you think becoming a foster parent is important to help children in need and then put this paragraph into all the social media you use such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat as possible action step examples.
Adding hashtags to your paragraph can increase its spread to people who might need to hear your message. You can read about effective use of hashtags in social media campaigns at: Social Media Today
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/smt-influencer/3-examples-social-media-campaigns-social-good
If you have a school that has no tolerance policies, these have been found harmful. You might go to a PTA meeting and share this information and encourage your school or community to become a No HIT ZONE instead. In No HIT ZONES, the pledge from adults includes that: No adult shall hit another adult; No adult shall hit a child; No child shall hit an adult; and, no child shall hit another child. At a school, all adults in the school are trained in how to pre-empt or de-escalate conflict. The No-Hit Zone Toolkit includes materials for the school, the staff, and the parents in how to help build positive communication and problem solving within the school community.
An example of what you might say is: “It may sound good to be highly punitive to anyone showing any sign of aggression, but actually, creating an environment that has resources and help for learning how to communicate and solve problems does more to create a safe and positive learning environment.”
You could also use information like this to write a letter to the editor for your local newspaper.
An example might say, “We all feel horrified when we read a news article that says an adult or child was beaten to death, however, the answer to violence is not just that we have an effective police force. We also need social norms where are community is a No Hit Zone. In this type of community, we all would learn to recognize the warning signs of violence building up and act before the violence occurs. This might involve helping people receive mental health or medical services if they need it. Helping people in need of food and housing get it. Friends and families using social pressure on those they love to indicate that solving problems never involves hitting anyone.”
Other social advocacy steps could be things like:
Talk to your Iman/Priest/Minister/Rabbi about positive actions to make violence less likely
Providing a talk at one of your clubs about positive actions to make violence less likely
Giving a talk at public library about positive actions to make violence less likely
Tweet or retweet information about No Hit Zones
Go on local radio station and provide information about the harm no tolerance policies have in schools
Political Advocacy
When you take a political advocacy step, you are working to support or change public policies at the local, state, or federal level. Public policies are government legislation. They are intended to support both our economy and our society. We don’t all agree on how much our government should be involved in our personal and family lives. However, we have supported our government in developing legislation aimed at preventing child abuse and neglect, elder abuse and financial exploitation, violence against women and other forms of violence. Unfortunately, public policy has sometimes created conditions that allow violence and/or trauma to occur. For example, public policy at the southern border of the US separated children from their parents and had detained children living in cages. These children and parents were harmed if not traumatized by these experiences.
Some public policies have given power to some groups over others either intentionally or unintentionally thus, leading to potentially traumatic events. For example, the Dakota Access Pipeline’s route was scheduled to travel over a route that would have endangered Lake Oahe, which is the primary source of water for Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota as well as endanger sacred sites near the lake which would violate treaty rights. The US has a long history of violating treaties made with Native American Indians.
Public policies behind the “war on drugs” for example, made it less likely that middle and upper-class White users of cocaine would be arrested or incarcerated than Black users and poor users. What users need is trauma-informed treatment. When incarceration is considered vital, then rehabilitation needs to occur in prison settings and help in gaining employment after release as not finding employment is a risk factor for reengaging with drugs. It is important to provide our political leaders with accurate information about the complex causes of interpersonal violence, how to provide evidence-informed treatment services to those who are harmed or who cause harm, and how to prevent future violence without intentionally or unintentionally heightening the impact of racism, income inequality, sexism and other factors that lead to increases in violence.
The National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence, along with the Centers for Disease Control, the Zero Abuse Project, and others have recommended a comprehensive, public health approach to ending interpersonal violence. This involves recognizing that many challenging human problems may cluster and that early intervention with child abuse and neglect, intervention with mental health problems, intimate partner violence, bullying, and substance abuse can all involve reducing the same risk factors for violence and increasing in society the factors that support resilient development.
Passing legislation that supports a comprehensive approach to a social problem is not enough in itself. For example, the Elder Justice Act was passed at the Federal level in 2010. However, it was funded at approximately 13 million a year when experts recommended 771 million. In addition, the act was allowed to expire as if there was no longer a need for it.
A comprehensive approach to preventing violence would include changes in our educational systems, criminal justice systems, social welfare systems to strengthen family relations, and build safety within a family unit. The approach would strengthen communities through increased employment opportunities, quality educational services, medical services, and mental health services to prevent the risk factors that can lead to interpersonal violence and increase the protective factors that build a resilient population.
If you want to find your representatives and senators in the Commonwealth of PA to send them information about preventing violence you can go to:
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/
You will then have an opportunity to send a letter.
Here are sample letters that you could send:
Dear Senator,
I have read about a case involving child abuse, substance abuse, and intimate partner violence that led to the death of a two-year-old child. There are common risk factors for interpersonal violence, teen pregnancy, dropping out of school, and substance abuse including: abuse and neglect during childhood; exposure to violence between adults in the family or in the community; lack of support for learning emotional control and either numbing or enhancing of the response to warning signs of dangerous risks. Whether treatment starts with an infant when she is an abused and neglected child, or later when she is entering her teen years and starts to date, or even later when she starts parenting, child abuse and neglect has been found to be passed on from one generation to another due to a lack of proper education and resources provided when the first warning signs occurred. Please support legislation that would provide all at risk family members with trauma-informed assessments and treatment to help end the intergenerational transmission of violence. Without this lifespan approach, an infant might be taken from a neglectful teen mother who doesn’t know how to be a responsive parent and put in the custody of a grandparent who also doesn’t know how to be a responsive parent.
Common treatment strategies have also been found to help those involved in violence, whatever their age for example: increasing emotional intelligence, increasing impulse control, increasing the ability to form positive and deep attachments with others, and increasing problem solving skills. These represent the common factors that support resilient development and building these can also be an effective strategy for ending the intergenerational transmission of violence.
Please fund programs that take a comprehensive approach to reducing risk and increasing resilience.
Thank you,
Your name
If you want to find your representatives and senators at the federal level, you can go to:
Sometimes it can be hard to know what to say to one of your political leaders. You can get nervous as you wait on the phone before having the opportunity to say something. One strategy that can help with this could be writing a brief paragraph to read in advance of the call that you could read out loud as a whole, or to just get you on a roll.
An example could be:
“I am really concerned about how much bullying there is my school district. They have had a few programs at the school, but my son says they are boring and stupid. In California, they have passed a Mental Health Student Services Act. This act funds county behavioral health departments to partner with publicly- funded mental health care to provide services in the schools. This helps respond proactively to signs of mental illness, depression, homelessness, suicidal or violent behavior through funding a psychologist or other mental health person full time at every school. This person could earn the trust of the students by being there all the time and helping with many other problems that children and teens have such as questions about their sexuality, anger over a dating breakup, worry about a parental divorce. Having mental health services in the school might reduce all sorts of problems including school failures, violence in the schools, teen pregnancy, and early experimentation with drugs and alcohol.”
If you were sending a letter, an example could be:
Dear Representative,
I am really concerned about how much bullying and drug abuse are occurring in my school district. They have had a few programs at the school, but my son says they are boring and stupid. Research in California has investigated the impact of providing mental health services in the school instead of bringing in ad hoc programs. I understand that Congresswoman Grace Flores Napolitano represents California’s 32nd District in the Federal House of Representatives. She has been working since 2001 on providing mental health and suicide prevention services in the schools. The success of the program in four schools led to it being expanded to 35 K-12 schools throughout the San Gabriel Valley and Southeast LA County. Please look into her work and California’s H.R. 721, the Mental Services for Students Act to see if legislation like this could be started to help bullied, and other distressed children and teens in Pennsylvania.
Thank you for your time,
Your Name
Developing advocacy steps that work requires you having information that is based on scientific evidence to share.
TO LEARN ABOUT WHY VIOLENCE HAPPENS click here
TO LEARN ABOUT WHAT CAN BE DONE TO HELP THOSE INVOLVED IN VIOLENCE click here
TO REVIEW THE RESOURCES DESCRIBED IN THIS DOCUMENT click here
This is funded with PA Tax dollars. The opinions, findings and conclusions expressed within this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of PCCD.