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Advocacy
Skills
Welcome
to Skills for Youth. This article on Advocacy Skills contains the following
sections:
Pregnancy Prevention
often focuses on providing teens with information and skills to reduce their
own sexual risk taking behavior. Another aspect of teen pregnancy
prevention is to help youth become advocates for safe sexual behavior with
their peers, families and community.
An advocate
is someone who acts, speaks, or writes in support of a person or issue.
Advocating for pregnancy prevention can benefit teens in several important
ways. First, advocacy allows young people to see they can make a difference
in the world. Second, their voice has the potential to change sexual norms
and behavior in their school and community. Third advocating for an issue
not only helps young people better understand the issue itself, but helps
them clarify their personal values and beliefs.
There are
a variety of ways teens can advocate for pregnancy prevention ranging
from talking to friends about a particular issue to a complex plan for
societal change that includes speech-making, letter-writing, fundraising,
and more. In this section of Skills for Youth, we're going to focus on
advocating with friends to prevent teen pregnancies.
There
are five basic steps for effective advocacy:
Step
#1: Identify the pregnancy prevention issue that you want to address.
Pregnancy
prevention is a large, complex issue. It affects many different parts
of society. There are financial implications and social costs. Components
of effective pregnancy prevention efforts include abstinence, comprehensive
sexuality education, contraception, increased condom use among sexually
active teens, access to clinical services, funding, and implementing
specific prevention programs like Be Proud, Be Responsible, or
Reducing the Risk. (See Evidence-Based
Programs for more information on each.) From an advocacy perspective,
each of these is a distinct issue.
Students
can choose to advocate for one of the above issues, or brainstorm one
of their own. It's important to focus in on a particular issue because
when you try to advocate for too many different things, efforts get
diluted. One good way to help youth decide how they would like to focus
their advocacy efforts is to hold an educational forum related to pregnancy
prevention and then facilitate a brainstorming session so that they
can decide which issues are a priority.
Step
#2: Identify the intended audience for your advocacy efforts.
Youth
advocating with other youth is a great place to start in regards to
pregnancy prevention efforts. There has been research citing the efficacy
of peer education efforts, and from observation, it's clear that youth
with enthusiasm and energy influence their peers. Therefore, we recommend
that teens target peers, parents, and community members for education
about pregnancy prevention. These people may not be aware of the issues
or the specific situation in the community and can be influenced once
they're provided with good information and an understanding of the advocates'
goals.
Step
#3: Decide on the specific message you want to communicate and how
to say it effectively.
A short,
well thought out idea about your selected issue is easiest to communicate.
It's as simple as saying exactly what you want and why. Messages can
be as simple as "Use condoms. They prevent unwanted teen pregnancies."
Or "Abstinence is the only 100% effective method of preventing pregnancy."
Or "You gotta communicate. Talking to your partner about sex helps you
make good decisions for the future."
Of course,
in order to decide what to say and have the arguments to support a point
of view, teens may need to do a little research first. For teen pregnancy
prevention messages, there are many Websites with information and resources.
For example: browse the ReCAPP Links,
SIECUS, and the National
Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy to get started.
In addition,
new advocates need to be prepared for challenges. Although the specifics
of any given controversy over adolescent pregnancy prevention are unique,
the same arguments tend to surface repeatedly. See the SIECUS
Community Action Kit for ideas about how to respond to common arguments
against comprehensive sexuality education and pregnancy prevention programs.
Step
#4: Choose a method to get your message across effectively.
Methods
of advocacy can include everything from letter writing campaigns; opinion
pieces sent to the school newspaper; tabling; on-line bulletin boards,
lists servs, and chat rooms; speaking to groups of youth; call-ins to
radio shows; buttons, bumper stickers, etc. with the message inscribed;
flyers; monthly school bulletin boards; etc.
When deciding
on the method of advocacy, it's important to consider the audience.
For instance, if most students in your high school eat lunch off campus,
then tabling in the cafeteria would not be the most effective way to
get your message across to the largest number of students. Buttons or
posters with your message printed on them would be more effective method.
Once young
people have decided upon their message and intended audience, a brainstorming
session could ensue. Young people know best how to reach their peers;
the items above are simply a good way to get the ideas flowing.
Step
#5: Plan for the future.
Advocacy
is an on-going process. Advocacy is not something that you can do just
once and see results. People's opinions change over time. Developing
an advocacy plan that will last for a month or more is a great start,
especially if you plan a meeting to discuss your efforts at the end
of the first month.
At the
meeting, advocates can talk about what worked best, what didn't work,
and review the highlights of the advocacy campaign in order to spur
ideas and suggestions for how the advocacy efforts could continue into
the future. They may also want to discuss if they think their advocacy
efforts are working.
Although
it is difficult to measure the immediate effects of advocacy, students
might pay attention to how open people are to their message or if they
hear others discussing the issue in a different way after they have
done their advocacy.
top
| Demonstration
of the Skill |
Start by
explaining what advocacy is and the benefits of learning to advocate for
critical issues that affect each of our lives. (See information about
benefits in Description of the Skill section.)
Review the
example below to outline one possible pregnancy prevention advocacy campaign.
Step
#1: Identify the pregnancy prevention issue you want to address.
Issue:
Increase condom use of sexually active teens.
Step
#2: Identify the intended audience.
Audience:
Students at your school
Step
#3: Decide on the specific message you want to communicate and how
to say it so that it's most effective.
A simple
message could be, "Condoms help prevent teen pregnancy. Use them." There
are a variety of ways to say this that could incorporate the slang or
culture of your school. For example, youth could use specific slang
words for "girl friend," "boy friend" or "date" as well as show images
of star students from your class or recent graduates who are advocating
for condom use.
Step
#4: Choose a method to get your message across effectively.
Methods
might include: Putting baskets of condoms in the nurse's office, talking
to a planned number of other students about condom usage each week,
or putting up posters around the school with a one-line message.
Step
#5: Develop long-term plans.
If you've
chosen putting up posters, make sure someone agrees to design the posters
and then put them up in visible places around the school. If you've
chosen talking to other students, make sure there are measurable goals
for each advocate and regular meetings to discuss how things are going.
Measurable goals could include how many students or community members
have been contacted each week, the number of new advocates recruited
during the campaign, etc.
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| Behavioral
Practice of the Skill |
The best
method for learning a new skill or technique is to practice it. For example,
if youth will be delivering the message verbally they could practice talking
to each other about condom usage in a role play. (See Skills
for Youth: Listening Skills for complete role play instructions.)
Ask for two student volunteers to come to the front of the classroom.
Suggest that one is a new advocate for teen pregnancy prevention and the
other is basically unconcerned with the issue. Encourage them to exaggerate
their parts in order to make it more fun.
The instructions
to the new advocate are simple: Tell the other student that condoms help
prevent teen pregnancy and that s/he should use them. Remind the new advocate
that no matter how the discussion progresses, this is the only message
s/he is trying to get across.
After the
role play, ask the role players how they think it went. Was the advocate
persuasive? Did s/he get the intended message across effectively? Did
the other student "hear" the message? Did the advocate keep it simple?
Was s/he prepared for the common arguments against pregnancy prevention
efforts?
Then open
the question and answer period up to the class at large. From their observations,
which of the new advocate's methods were effective and where was there
room for improvement?
After the
role play and discussion, give students time to come up with their own
advocacy plan to prevent unwanted teen pregnancies in their school using
the five-step method outlined above.
If youth
will be using posters as a way to deliver their message, they could agree
on a set of criteria for the posters and then present a sketch of their
poster for review by the class and teacher. Some criteria might include:
the message is stated clearly, visual images support the message, and
messages are acceptable to students, parents and administrators.
If youth
are writing a letter or newspaper article they could develop a draft and
have the class and teacher review it to make sure the message is clear
and acceptable in the community.
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To maximize
your effectiveness in teaching advocacy skills, we suggest that you:
- Model
advocacy skills yourself in persuading the young people to become advocates.
- Encourage
the youth to brainstorm by adding ideas of your own.
- Connect
the role play activity with real life. Ask students questions during
the discussion about what the real barriers are to talking to their
peers about teen pregnancy prevention. Record their answers and come
back to them as students are developing their own advocacy plan.
- Consider
being the students' advisor for their advocacy work. Help strategize
when they naturally start to lose momentum, or when obstacles to effective
advocacy seem insurmountable.
- Follow
up in subsequent classwork with youth. Ask them how their advocacy work
is going and leave time for discussion of what's working and what isn't.
Provide additional materials as needed to keep students motivated.
- Be sure
to check with your school or agency policy about teen advocacy. Be sure
to clarify which topics or issues are appropriate to advocate for in
your setting or community.
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