Advocacy Resources - February 2009 Pulse Article

Below is the article that will appear in the February 2009 edition of the Student Assembly Pulse Newsletter:

APTA Advocacy Resources
Allison Daly, SPT
Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center - New Orleans

An advocate is someone who supports, promotes, defends, and maintains a specific cause or interest. Anyone can be an advocate when equipped with an understanding of the cause and armed with the right tools. Our cause is creating awareness of Physical Therapy and we are lucky to have a professional association that works to fortify us with the tools we need to be effective advocates for our profession. With the Student Advocacy Challenge upon us, the question keeps arising among students, “where do we begin?” The APTA has many resources for advocacy available on the website at www.apta.org/advocacy including: Legislative Action Center, PTeam, Advocacy Calendar, and Advocacy Toolkit. The Legislative Action Center is your quick ticket to advocacy. Here you can enter your information to find your congressmen, read more about current federal and state legislative issues, and write an email or letter to your congressman expressing your opinions. The Advocacy Calendar is a new resource that provides information on state legislative sessions, congressional recesses, and includes a monthly advocacy tip. The PTeam is a grassroots program that keeps members up to date on legislative activity on Capitol Hill through quarterly newsletters and requests action of members to contact Congressmen on pertinent issues through Legislative Action Alerts. A resource to look forward to in the upcoming months is the Advocacy Toolkit. This toolkit is a resource for all advocates that will include information on understanding the basics of Congress, the structure of APTA Grassroots, and creating/delivering an advocacy message to a legislator. This toolkit is currently in the development process. An introduction of the toolkit will be presented at CSM, with the full toolkit available to APTA members later this Spring.