Online Advocacy

Emerging Issues: Online Advocacy

Advocacy can be much easier through the Internet. We can research facts, track legislation, contact representatives, and directly lobby for social work concerns. There are several dimensions to this. First, simply monitoring representatives and legislation is possible. We can also electronically participate by circulating information to colleagues, signing petitions, and many other activist tasks. It is also possible to directly organize and advocate online.

Monitoring:

Monitoring legislators is one key way to begin. Just who is my representative? My senator? At the federal level, go to http://www.senate.gov or http://www.house.gov for this information plus ways to directly email or write elected representatives. Going to Congress.org (http://congress.org/search.html) will also work plus you'll find brief highlights of your elected officials actual voting records. Finding state local legislators is not as easy because there is no current comprehensive email system at this time. Most, however, maintain email and webpages. To find them you need to know your district number. If you do, then visit http://www.state.in.us/legislative/leg_list.html. If not, use the phone numbers on the "How To Contact Your Legislator" page, http://www.state.in.us/legislative/contact.html.

Dedicated political websites can also be most helpful. Project Vote Smart, http://www.vote-smart.org, offers substantial information on national through local elected officials. For example, what is Governor O'Bannon's position on using state funds to provide child care for children in low-income working families? You can find out his position on many issues in five mouse-clicks. The database contains biography, finance, positions, participation and voting records for thousands of federal and state legislators.

What are they up to? In Indiana, Bill Watch is an exclusive service of the Access Indiana Information Network, and provides hourly updates on state-level bills when the legislature is in session, http://www.state.in.us/legislative/billwatch.html. You can monitor legislation by a bill's number, keywords, categories or specific sections of the Indiana Code. The service costs about $50 a month, but some agencies may find this expense a worthwhile investment because it directly locates specific information on issues. Don't want to spend the money? Less immediate but very useful information can often be found for free. You can find specific groups that actively monitor current trends and bills depending on their mission and interests. For example, the Indiana Association for Community Economic Development (IACED) tracks legislation, sponsorship, status, and other essential features of legislation. You can view a sample at http://www.iaced.org/policy.htm.

Keeping informed about current legislation at the Federal level is easy if you know where to look. Thomas, one of the oldest websites, is still a wonderful gateway for tracking legislation, accessing the congressional record, and following committees: http://thomas.loc.gov. Probably the fastest way to find information is to go to specific agencies that address your issue. For example, if you want to investigate TANF caseloads and need to know actual trends for Indiana, the US Department of Health and Human Service's "Administration for Children and Families" publishes this information at http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/news/tables.htm. (The answer is -47% from 1993 - 1999.)

Yet finding pertinent information at both the federal and state levels can be frustrating because there are often so many overlapping agencies and jurisdictions. When you don't know a specific place to start or are pretty certain that you will need to visit several agencies, consider using a specialized search engine or database as you begin. Northern Light's "usgovsearch" can be very helpful for federal resources: http://standard.northernlight.com/cgi-bin/govsearch_login.pl. It is specially designed for government research and features highly specific customized search abilities, precise subject classification and a powerful research engine for locating and organizing government information. Search is possible through a public access level or a more sophisticated service that requires a modest feel. A day-pass costs $5 and may be well worth it if you are specifically searching on a topic and want to rapidly sift through thousands of documents with precision. A free but less efficient resource can be found at Virtual Government Search Engines, http://www.virtualfreesites.com/search.government.html. This will take you to more specific websites such Fedworld's databases at http://www.fedworld.gov that allows you to specifically look for government reports by keywords of your own choosing.

State, county and city level information can be more difficult to find, but specialized databases and directories can be most helpful. For example, Piper Resources' guide for state and local resources on the internet is both helpful and fairly comprehensive. You can access it at http://www.piperinfo.com/state/index.cfm. As an alternative, you can always access any state's official website by entering "http://www.state.__.us" and put the state's postal abbreviation in the blank area. Indiana's thus is http://www.state.in.us. Keep in mind that states vary considerably in the quality and amount of information they make available at their websites. Some are very conscientious while others simply engage in boodertism.

Specialized interest and research groups often post very helpful information for lobbying. For example, the Children's Defense Fund has substantial information on TANF policies at http://www.childrensdefense.org/fairstart_stateplans.html. Moreover, some websites will support direct action. Visit their "Child Protection/Alcohol and Drug Partnership Act (S. 2435)" website and click on their "Take Action" button to get a sense of how this can be done.

Online publications and services

Many organizations now offer news services that provide updates on advocacy through regularly emailed bulletins. For example, NASW's advocacy listserv at http://www.socialworkers.org/Govwk/advolist.htm can be easily joined and followed. While we are at it, NASW's special section on advocacy at the national level can be accessed at http://www.socialworkers.org/ADVOCACY.HTM and quite a bit of information from past years is archived as well.

Organizational newsgroups are rapidly emerging as another way to keep informed. For example, if you are interested in "digital divide" issues - internet access for everyone - the Benton Foundation's two listservs address emerging public communications policy: http://www.benton.org/Resources/home.html.

Go beyond census information. (http://www.census.gov). Think tanks, government agencies, and private research groups can be very helpful. Let's take child welfare as an example. The Urban Institute's "Assessing the New Federalism" project offers easily accessible publications that will keep you - and those you and your colleagues want to lobby - well informed. Visiting this website at http://newfederalism.urban.org/nfdb/index.htm will provide you with specific information on child care, support, welfare and health along with state-level reports. ChildStats.gov, formed by the Office of Management and Budget and the leaders of six Federal agencies created a large interagency forum on children and family statistics at http://childstats.gov/index.htm. "Kids Count", a project sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, http://www.aecf.org/kidscount, has an extensive database plus superb mapping abilities for many child welfare issues. Advocacy groups often provide specific information such as the library, legislation and facts sheets made available by the National Coalition for the Homeless at http://nch.ari.net.

Don't underestimate academic resources. While instructional websites are often one step removed from actual advocacy practice - their mission is to teach it - these often contain excellent resources for the practitioner. For example, Influencing State Policy at http://www.statepolicy.org has excellent bibliographies and listings for state-level information resources. John McNutt's Electronic Advocacy in Social Work Practice website has extensive resources, http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/gssw/ea_resources.html. SWAN, the Social Work Access Network, also maintains rosters of pertinent links for lobbying and legislative advocacy: http://www.sc.edu/swan/politic.html. Gary Holden's vast World Wide Web Resources for Social Workers can also be very useful. For example, perhaps you want to include a professional representative for exceptional children in a coalition. Going to the website and using the "find" feature on the "Professional Associations" list brings you to the Council for Exceptional Children, http://www.cec.sped.org.

Another alternative for lobbying information is to search for direct legal information such as cases and briefs. Plaintiff vs. Defendant, http://www.dpg-law.com/index.htm, offers informative reading. CataLaw, http://www.catalaw.com, provides a catalog of catalogs on legal issues. The specialized search engine FindLaw.LawCrawler, http://lawcrawler.findlaw.com, will allow you to search on many advocacy topics and issues.

Direct Action via the Internet

Taking direct action is easy when you just want to email a legislator, but web-based lobbying is beginning to emerge at a far more sophisticated level. Circulating electronic petitions, for example, is possible through websites such as
E The People at http://www.e-thepeople.com/affiliates/national/index.cfm. (Some of the petitions on E The People are antithetical to social work values, so beware.) While this and more advanced forms of "electronic advocacy practice" involve skills far beyond the scope of this article, it may worth investigating if you and your colleagues have the resources and commitment. To get a sense of what electronic advocacy involves visit "The Virtual Activist" at the NetAction website, http://www.netaction.org/training. Their tutorial offers an excellent overview of this emerging practice area. The Nonviolence Web's "How to Use the Internet for Organizing" http://www.nonviolence.org/support/ is also most worthwhile.

There's no place like home…

Finally, don't forget that websites can simply be used as another handy way to support local advocacy efforts. The second "Social Workers Make a Difference Day!", sponsored by the Indiana Chapter of NASW and the Indiana Association for Social Work Education will be on Feb. 21, 2001. Put this date in your calendar right now and visit the website as more information becomes available! http://iussw.iupui.edu/advocacy/advocacy.htm