Amid a moment when the world feels like it’s falling apart around us, it’s alluring to change course. That’s what it means to be responsive, right? We need masks, we need testing, we need financial support for low-income families. The number of fires to put out at this moment is intense. I challenge you to hold onto your goals but adapt your strategies.
First things first, hold onto your goals.
Let’s imagine that your organization is advocating for state funding for home visitation programs. This specific policy goal will be difficult to advance in the current public health environment. However, if you broaden the lens, your goal is about ensuring access to early childhood education for young children. In light of COVID-19, you might decide to abandon your advocacy for home visitation funding, but hold tight to your broader goal and work with state and local leaders to create a financial safety net for childcare centers and preschools.
Your goals are still your goals, but your strategies will need to evolve. How should your strategies change? Here are a couple specific tips:
Consider moving from instigating to incorporating.
Alongside this quickly evolving pandemic, we are seeing new norms and behaviors established with incredible speed. Physicians are moving toward telehealth at a rate that was previously inconceivable. Businesses are requiring employees to work from home after years of resistance. All these changes are happening and it’s important to think about how they impact the issues and people you care about most.
A strategy that instigates change has identified some new approach or idea that they are hoping to see. This is how we typically think about policy advocacy. An organization or group identifies a problem and solution then advocates for adoption. In other cases, change happens due to outside forces and pressures, COVID-19 being a prime example. In these instances, it’s important to use a strategy of incorporating to ensure that your people and issues are represented in these rapidly evolving conversations.
For example, the movement toward telehealth has jumped forward in response to COVID-19. Advocates for telehealth are no longer needing to instigate this transition. Rather, their strategies should focus on incorporating their ideas into this rapidly changing environment. How can we ensure adequate reimbursement for telehealth visits? What about oral health? Mental health? Vision? Hearing? Are there patient privacy and confidentiality standards that need to be in place?
Watch for windows.
John Kingdon’s “Agendas, Alternative, and Public Policies” is an apt framework for rapidly changing environments. He posits that policy solutions are adopted when they solve an identified problem. Our concept of problems at this moment in time is rapidly changing, which creates opportunity for many policy solutions. For example, consider the problem that medical personnel do not have enough personal protective equipment to work. What is the solution to this problem?
Reduce government regulation that has required too much personal protection for health care employees
Streamline bureaucratic processes to allow new equipment to enter the market in a timely and affordable way
Relax hospital policies to allow receipt of donated equipment from community members
Prohibit retail sales of personal protective equipment outside of the health care workforce
There are multiple potential solutions to this same problem. Across multiple issues, this creates windows of opportunity within which advocacy organizations can successfully frame their longstanding policy goals as the solution to new and emerging problems. Imagine you have been advocating for paid sick leave for years. This pandemic is a window of opportunity to highlight the importance of your issue and potentially make progress that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.
Despite all the chaos, harm and uncertainty caused by COVID-19, it is apparent that so many aspects of our lives will be fundamentally and permanently changed. What this change looks like and the extent to which it advances justice and equity will depend on the work of advocates. As much as people are juggling across their personal and professional lives, this is not the time to ignore policy change.