All Policy Is Relationships
Neil Hann
Former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil is famous for saying, "All
politics is local." Many past and present politicians have found
this to be true. However, I believe this statement can be paraphrased
to say, "All policy is relationships."
Without question, to influence policy, relationships must be
built with policy makers. That is what The Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation Connect Project is all about. Simply telling policy
makers our public health story and, in particular, the exciting
accomplishments now being realized by Turning Point initiatives
all across the country, can have a tremendous effect.
Recently, Larry Olmstead and I had the privilege of attending
one of the first Connect training workshops in Washington, DC,
conducted by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. We were not sure
what to expect but were excited about the opportunity to tell
our Turning Point story to the Oklahoma Congressional delegation.
The training itself was very informative. It showed us how to
outline and organize our thoughts and provided a basic structure
on our approach to policy makers.. The Connect structure allowed
us to tell the key points of our initiative effectively in a very
limited time frame.
The basics steps we followed were:
Establish Credibility. This was done as soon as we entered
the Congressman's or Senator's office. Ann Searight, from The
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, introduced us and cited Turning
Point as a successful initiative.
Outline the Issue. I did this specifically by talking
about the Oklahoma Turning Point "philosophy" of community-based
partnerships and how it has transformed the way we conduct the
business of public health in Oklahoma. Larry Olmstead then put
a human face on the Oklahoma Turning Point Initiative by giving
examples of local Turning Point successes, highlighting those
successes in the districts the Congressmen represented.
How to Work Together. We then discussed how we could work
together with the Congressman or Senator on specific policy issues,
including promotiing local Turning Point partnerships and establishing
business task forces in existing partnerships.
Recapping. We ended by recapping our conversations and
leaving materials.
All of our meetings with the Oklahoma Congressional delegation
went extremely well. The staff members were attentive, asked good
questions, and seemed very interested in what we were trying to
accomplish with Turning Point in Oklahoma. This would have been
success enough, but one visit in particular had great results.
Our meeting with the staff person from Senator Inhofe's (OK-R)
office, Julie Wareing, went along like the others, but during
our recap, Ms. Wareing indicated that she was working on setting
up a health summit with Senator Inhofe and Senator Frist (TN-R).
She asked if one of us would be interested in participating as
one of the invited panelists. Larry Olmstead, Ann Searight, and
I had to restrain ourselves from jumping out of our seats, but
we did manage to say YES! A few short weeks later, Larry Olmstead
participated in the summit, and Turning Point was touted as a
key model for helping solve our nation's health woes through community-based
collaboration, action, and partnership initiatives.
The lesson from all of this is that telling our story can make
a difference and building relationships with policy makers is
not only a good idea, but should be considered an integral part
of our work. Some of us have fears about even making minor contact
with policy makers, but if we do not tell our story, who will?
Telling policy makers about the importance of public health, about
the worth of collaboration, and about the success of community
health improvement partnerships is our job as public health
professionals. We protect the public's health, and in order to
do that, we need many partners, including our state policy makers
and our friends on Capital Hill in Washington, DC.
September 12, 2002
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