Workshop Teaches Students Advocacy Skills.
More than 30 School of Public Health students came to campus on a recent Saturday to participate in the Activist Lab’s inaugural, day-long Advocacy Workshop.
“Advocacy for public health change is a prime mission of the SPH Activist Lab and a concern for all public health professionals,” says course organizer Anne Fidler, assistant dean for public health practice and associate professor of environmental health.
Using proposed legislation to define, develop, and implement smart gun technology in Massachusetts as an example, the students learned about building and sustaining partnerships and coalitions, selecting and framing issues, developing strategic advocacy plans, and writing and delivering legislative testimony.
The workshop was led by Associate Dean of Public Health Practice Harold Cox and Adjunct Instructor Allyson Baughman (’07). They were joined by John Rosenthal, co-founder of Stop Handgun Violence; Rebekah Gewirtz, executive director of the Massachusetts Public Health Association; Tami Gouveia, senior associate at ReThink Health; and Ashley Floreen (’16) of the Massachusetts Eye Research & Surgery Institute and a former Massachusetts legislative aide.
Fidler says the workshop aimed to help students “to take what they are learning in the classroom, combined with their passion for public health, to effect real and lasting change.”
The Office for Public Health Practice launched the Activist Lab this spring to help bridge the gap between academic work and regional action. The lab’s first areas of focus are gun violence, government infrastructure, and public housing.
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