Advocacy in the Workplace
Your Voice Matters!
The thought of becoming an advocate may be a bit daunting to you at first but the truth is, you may already be an advocate and not even know it! According to Merriam-Webster dictionary advocacy is: The act or process of supporting a cause or proposal; the act or process of advocating. You are a subject matter expert when it comes to talking about and advocating for your profession, your industry/your practice setting and most importantly your patients.
You are a subject matter expert when it comes to talking about and advocating for your profession, your industry/your practice setting and most importantly your patients. The personalized stories that you can provide about your patients and/or your organizational impact is an important piece of advocating for your patients, your profession, and the industry. The personalized touch is impactful when it comes to advocacy.
Elected officials work for their constituents and it is imperative they hear from those they are elected to represent on issues such as access to care and reimbursement challenges and much more.
Getting to Know the 3 Types of Advocacy:
- Self-advocacy: speaking for yourself and knowing what is important to you.
- Individual advocacy: when a person or group of people/an organization focuses on the interests of one or a few individuals. Individual advocacy can be either informal or formal.
- Systems advocacy: focuses on change at the local, state, and national levels to impact change within public policy.
Advocacy allows your voice to be heard and to shine a spotlight on important healthcare issues.
6 Principles of Advocacy:
- Honesty: implies a refusal to lie, steal, or deceive in any way.
- Fairness: the quality or state of being fair.
- Respect: a relation or reference to a particular thing or situation.
- Compassion: sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.
- Integrity: firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values.
- Self-Discipline: correction or regulation of oneself for the sake of improvement.
When advocating it is important you are informed on the issue(s) you are speaking about; you are prepared with a short, clear, and concise message; and you are relaxed and confident in your messaging as you are the subject matter expert.
Below are some resources for identifying who your elected officials are, how to contact them and how to set up a meeting with them. Keep in mind that you may not always meet with the elected official but with a member of their staff. These staff members are key to keeping the officials informed on current issues of constituents.