Advocating for Results

Effective advocacy is the key to building sustained public commitment to adult education, and experience has shown that social, financial, and policy support for adult education can be profoundly affected by educators’ advocacy for their learners and their work. Yet many education practitioners are reluctant to engage in advocacy. They may be constrained by regulations that govern their places of work, or they may feel unable to add yet another activity to their overloaded schedules. Often, however, they may simply not know what to do or how to do it.

This interactive session outlines different types of advocacy and guides participants in developing advocacy messages that resonate with employers, funders, community members, and policy makers. By encouraging participants to emphasize strengths, successes, and contributions to the community, this presentation empowers them to combine data on outcomes with persuasive learner stories in ways that connect with audience interests and priorities. Participants become able to identify advocacy needs in their own contexts, create compelling narratives that demonstrate the role of adult education in strengthening the community and the workplace, and introduce advocacy communication techniques to their adult learners, enabling the learners to become ambassadors themselves for their programs and for lifelong learning.

All of Deborah Kennedy’s presentations use an interactive approach that engages participants in connecting new knowledge and skills to their own contexts. Presentations are one hour in length and can take place in face-to-face, online, or hybrid formats.