Advancing advocacy: Lessons learned from advocates in school psychology.

Although school psychologists are called on a daily basis to advocate for the needs of our nations' schoolchildren, little is known about the factors that contribute to effective school-based advocacy. This study involved face-to-face interviews with 21 award-winning school psychology advocates. They described what led them into advocacy, obstacles faced, successes experienced, mistakes made, strategies used, resources employed, skills needed, and changes observed. The advocates discussed their definitions of advocacy, how they find balance, their advice for newcomers, and how they empower others. Following a qualitative content analysis, their collective input yielded important findings, including indispensable advice for future advocates. Most suggested that beginners' build relationships with like-minded collaborators and the targets of their advocacy, devote time to building expertise, and be patient and persistent. Common obstacles included intransigence among school psychology colleagues who were reluctant to change their roles to reflect new developments in the field or who feared participating in advocacy would destabilize their positions. To fully embrace an advocacy role, most advised advocacy education and training for both existing school psychologists and newcomers to the field. Limitations and implications that inform a foundation for advancing advocacy within school psychology are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Advocates in public service settings: Voices from the field.

Numerous conceptual pieces addressing the importance of advocacy within psychology have been published over the last 20 years. Most recently, that chorus of voices has increasingly focused on the needs of historically marginalized populations (Burney et al., 2009; Garrison, DeLeon, & Smedley, 2017; Nadal, 2017). Despite this attention, a dearth of research has explored the experiences of seasoned advocates who work with such populations. The present investigation drew from an interdisciplinary group of award-winning advocates to reveal how they define and conceptualize advocacy; the motivators and barriers they've experienced; and their recommendations about how to support newcomers to advocacy. Through semistructured face-to-face interviews that were content analyzed qualitatively, the 14 advocates describe important lessons about advocacy work. Participants' desires to become an advocate were fueled mostly by personal interests and early formative experiences. They found collaborations and building networks (i.e., building relationships with people on all sides of an issue) to be their chief advocacy strategies, and stressed the importance of interpersonal and communication skills (e.g., taking initiative, making connections with those in power) in their skill repertoire. The main barriers encountered included psychological resistance (i.e., intentional blindness toward hidden populations), funding constraints, and various other negative obstacles. Although most found creating a work-life balance elusive, they were energized by mentoring advocacy newcomers, by successes achieved in legislative/policy/program advances, and by creating systems that provide needed services. They shared wisdom about a host of issues for a new generation of advocates. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).