Creating grassroots advocacy campaigns for child safety issues: A case study

As public health and health care professionals work to enact or improve state laws that promote children's health and safety, the ability to craft meaningful campaigns that mobilize the public behind an issue are a key to swaying legislators. This presentation uses a grassroots advocacy campaign to improve Ohio's child passenger safety law as a case study in successfully rallying the public behind an issue and providing advocates with the tools they need to convince legislators that voters support a change. The case study focuses on the process of developing an advocacy campaign and can serve as a model for anyone who needs to gather public support for a child safety issue and influence legislators' perceptions of voter support. The presentation will focus on the steps to creating a grassroots advocacy campaign, including knowing your audience, finding out what people know (or think they know) about an issue, identifying and addressing barriers to the passage of legislation, ways to reframe issues from a negative to a positive tone, and how to build the support from the public and the media required to sway legislators. This advocacy how-to presentation is not specific to child passenger safety issues, but can apply to any effort to protect children's health and safety through legislative change.