Health Advocacy Campaign: Legal Considerations - Essay Example

Health Advocacy Campaign: Legal Considerations Affiliation: How laws and regulations can shape the way you advocate for and attempt to implement your proposed policy Advocacy is a strategy to influence policies that are either in existence or trying to create new ones. The main aim of advocacy is to address some of the problems that are in existence in the society and come up with strategies to solve them. It is a process that takes several stages to be completed and the results to be experienced or seen. A policy is a set of regulations or a course of action that is implemented by the government, business or even an institution (Sabatier & Weible, 2014). When there are tough laws on a policy or in the processes required to implement a proposed policy, it makes it had for the advocates to solve the problems in existence. When the laws and regulations are favorable, it makes it easier for advocates to implement policies that they propose in the different areas. Can advocacy be achieved through the development of a new policy or a change in the existing policy? Advocacy is about addressing the policies that impact the lives of people through solving their problems but which have not been working accordingly hence failing to impact the lives of people positively (Sabatier & Weible, 2014). Changing the existing policy is always the first step in advocacy. However, the advocates have to examine their goals for the policy they are advocating for. If their goals can be fulfilled by simply making changes in the existing policy, then they can change it. If this is not the case, then they should look into completely overhauling the existing policy and implementing a new one in place as long as the laws and regulations of doing so are favorable. How can existing laws and regulations impact your advocacy efforts? Existing laws and regulations pave way for the smooth implementation of the advocacy steps towards policy change. They provide the necessary guidance such as on gathering information about the politics and the policy as well as assists in assessing the risks that might be involved. They also enable the advocates maintain focus on what is important about the policy and which is always about the people especially the sick in the community. These laws and regulations also ensure that the advocacy is credible and legal and can pave way for forming partnerships along the way to increase the pressure of changing the policy and implementing an effective one in place. Without these laws, the whole process of advocacy would not be as smooth and straight forward as it currently is. Analysis of the methods you could use to influence legislators or policymakers to support your policy Grassroots mobilization involves using the same community the policy affects. It will include using mobilization techniques such as writing of letters, making phone calls or even using demonstrations as a last resort to make the legislators pay attention and support the policy change and implementation. Using the mass media is bound to catch the attention of the legislators as well as contextualizing the policy and its importance to the public. With media attention, the legislator’s pressure to implement becomes twice fold. Legislators always like looking good on the media and hence will support the policy simply for the attention. Building coalitions will increase the number of people advocating and hence this is bound to increase the pressure on the legislators. More people mean more knowledge and resources and hence more convincing techniques (Grossmann, 2012). Explain how you could use the three legs of lobbying in your advocacy efforts a) Leg One is the Professional Lobbyist which is the individuals who represent special interest groups and are looked to as the experts by lawmakers who need information and rational for supporting or not supporting a particular issue The professional lobbyists know what buttons to push to the legislators and make them support the policy change and push for it to be implemented. They do not necessarily have to be supporting the policy themselves but they are paid to assist in doing so. Professional health lobbyists who have made policies been changed as well as the human rights lobbyists are the perfect candidates for a health policy advocacy and especially one in which affects majority of the people. These lobbyists can be sought especially when there is need to not only change the existing policy but completely eliminate it and put in place a new one which is bound to bring in much more positive results to the interest group (Zetter, 2011). b) Leg Two are the Grassroots lobbyist which are the constituents who have the power to elect official through their vote, usually consider knowledgeable and an expert The grassroot lobbyists not only have the numbers to make changes happen but they have the voters’ card to play hence can use these to manipulate the legislators to support their advocacy efforts. They also have the numbers in terms of the community which is going to benefit from the new proposed policy (Zetter, 2011). A combination of numbers, knowledge and skills is sufficient to make the legislators comply. Grassroots lobbyists use all means possible including organizing and holding mass demonstrations with full media coverage as a way to apply more pressure to the legislatures and pass across the importance of the policy change to the people who are the ones being affected anyway by the present policy or lack of it. c) Leg Three is the role of money that causes much discomfort and concern to nurses and others: how money influences who wins or loses an election Nurses may prefer using the grassroot lobbying method to implement the policy change on some of the health concerns affecting the community as they work closely with them. However, they mainly do not support using money to make these changes happen through persuasion. Lobbying using money may be considered unethical and hence the reason many health professionals avoid using it but it is among the most effective lobbying techniques as it makes people comply with the support (Maryland & Gonzalez, 2012). If money for election campaign for example is promised or offered on a legislator, they will indeed support the policy as campaigns are an expensive affair. In this leg, both parties emerge winners and they benefit even though it is through using unscrupulous means. Summarize the obstacles to anticipate arising in the legislative process and how you could overcome these hurdles. In most cases, after lobbying, the legislators simply debate on the issue and it is passed and implementation process starts taking place. However, this is not always the case as obstacles in legislations such as having conflicting regional regulation issues on where the policy will be implemented as well as on conflicting interpretations of local regulations and laws. Other obstacles include conflicts in the ordinance process as well as complexity of the initiative (Cork & Forman, 2008). These can be addressed through the advocates first carrying out in depth legal research while researching on the policy to find ways to circumvent these legislation problems. The other is to ensure they have a strong legal team in place which can tackle these problems and seek ways to override them if need be. References Cork, K. & Forman, C. (2008). Legal and Political Obstacles to Smoke-Free Regulation in Minnesota Regions. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 35(6S): S508-S518. Grossmann, M. (2012). Interest group influence on US policy change: An assessment based on policy history. Interest Groups & Advocacy, 1: 171-192. doi:10.1057/iga.2012.9 Maryland, M. & Gonzalez, R., (2012, January 31). Patient Advocacy in the Community and Legislative Arenas. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing 17(1). DOI: 10.3912/OJIN.Vol17No01Man02 Sabatier, P. & Weible, C. (2014). Theories of the Policy Process. Massachusetts: Westview Press. Zetter, L. (2011). Lobbying: The Art of Political Persuasion. New York: Harriman House Limited. Read More