As a division focused on policy and practice for children and families, we are always looking for ways to help our members engage in advocacy that will help bridge science and practice with policy. Inspired by Stephanie Block’s, PhD, 2023 Presidential Theme for Division 37, “A Call to Action,” our division developed a series of programming to help members think about ways to translate the work they already do into action. While many people may think of advocacy and policy changes as being done at the state and federal levels by meeting with politicians, we want to encourage members to find ways to promote change through other channels to further improve the lives of children and families in their communities.
As part of this effort, we have been running a series of “coffee hours” (or “coffee talks,” for the seasoned Saturday Night Live fans out there) to help generate ideas for engaging in advocacy across a range of audiences and platforms. In this series, we invite speakers to lead a conversational hour related to ways of incorporating advocacy into one’s work. To date, we have had presenters talk about incorporating advocacy into teaching, research, and within a health disparities framework. For instance, Apryl Alexander, PhD, shared ways to build advocacy training into classes, such as having students write op-eds for extra credit. Paula Fite, PhD, and Yo Jackson, PhD, spoke about ways to consider advocacy in planning and executing research studies to help ensure the data can be translated in a manner that helps inform policies for community partners. Marilyn Sampilo, PhD, provided thoughtful approaches to consider when advocating for marginalized communities.
After giving an overview of their work and experiences, the speakers engage in a dialogue with the community of attendees to further generate ideas and hear others’ experiences on these topics. Participants on the call can share resources, such as articles, syllabi, books, websites, and more, and together they generate ideas for infusing advocacy into the work they do daily. We hope that providing this platform can help students and psychology professionals consider ways to infuse advocacy into their daily work to help improve the bridge between research, practice, and policy.