REPORT:  WORKSHOP A1

Making a Case for Adult Learners:

Guidebook on Policy Advocacy

 

Coordinators:  Alan Tuckett and Janos Toth

 

Issue:

To develop a practical guidebook on policy advocacy.

 

Aims:

·        Exchange of views

·        Settle on key ideas

·        Collect examples of good practice

·        Continue the advocacy role of ICAE

 

Main Perspectives:

Deepening democracy in this era of globalization (Ref. Giddons)

Developing civil society through adult education (Ref. Givney)

Identifying best practice for advocacy work

Identifying elements of advocacy:

·        Beating drums, mobilizing people – learners and adult educators, identifying who isn’t there, using the language of the ‘Other,’ starting where people are at.

‘Dreaming, stealing, dancing and showing off’

 

Pin Points:

Prior Work on:

·        Target group(s)

·        Values/ethical/moral standpoints

·        Resources already available

·        People with lots of prior experiences as resources

 

Actual Work on:

·        What the guide book will consist of

·        Place of information and knowledge

·        Language issues

·        Pedagogical Approaches

 

Conclusion:  See Appendix

 

Recommendations:

 

1.      Collect available resources – examples of good practice and existing manuals, etc.

2.      Identify small international group to complete the project, from all the regions

3.      Identify and support with funding, for purposes identified by the working group.

 

 

Appendix

 

 

Who is it for?

·        Learners, to empower themselves/advocate on their own behalf.

·        Learners, to organize themselves

·        Organisations and institutions to change and innovate their practice.

·        Partners/allies/networks involved in adult learning.

 

 

What is it for?

·        Learning

·        How to use advocacy

·        How to tell own story/formulate a case.

·        Capacity building.

·        Addressing issues, for example equality, environment, health, etc.

 

Guiding Principles

·        Ethical/moral/values standpoint

·        Critical pedagogy to inform and transform ourselves as adult educators/institutions/structures/and in wider civil society

·        “get our act together”

·        learning for its own sake – creating and sustaining conditions for learning

 

 

How?

·        Guiding principles

·        Strategy

·        Tools

·        Language

·        Process

 

Strategy

·        Translating good practice into good advocacy

·        Evaluating risks

·        Answering difficult questions in advance

·        Skills & Knowledge on funding and resources

·        Celebration

·        Using appropriate technologies (old and new)

·        Mobilizing/influencing opinion formers

 

Tools

·        Tool ‘kit’: - strategy, format, steps

·        Template, not a recipe, for application in different contexts, mostly in the form of questions.

·        Approach/tactics/timing appropriate to context?

·        Models of creative approaches, publications/cases

·        Language

 

Language

·        Understandable/Plain language

·        Audience appropriate language

·        Dynamic translation

·        Jargon of advocacy

·        Voices of learners

 

 

Process

·        Balancing bottom-up and top-down

·        Describing conflicts

·        Awareness of policy barriers

·        Agenda setting, resetting/reframing

 

Skill Sets

·        later

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