What is Policy?|What Creates Health?|Tips and Tools|Helpful Terms|Links
The health of a community is the shared responsibility of many organizations and interests in that community. This includes schools, employers, healthcare providers, local health departments, park and recreation departments, city planners, traffic controllers and the people of the community, to name a few. Negotiating the interests of such a diverse group of concerned citizens and stakeholders is essentially a political process. In short, politics is the negotiating process by which a civil society decides who gets what, when and how. Politics produces policy. This holds true at any level, from within families, no matter how they are defined, all the way to the White House.
This section coaches you step-by-step through the policy-making process. It guides you through the basics of civic involvement -- from increasing public awareness and developing community partnerships, to understanding the policy process and educating policy-makers at all levels. This section draws extensively from The Access Project's publication, Real Clout.
Bringing Policy Change to Your Community
The health of a community is the shared responsibility of many organizations and interests in that community. This includes schools, employers, healthcare providers, local health departments, park and recreation departments, city planners, traffic controllers and the people of the community, to name a few. Negotiating the interests of such a diverse group of concerned citizens and stakeholders is essentially a political process. In short, politics is the negotiating process by which a civil society decides who gets what, when and how. Politics produces policy. This holds true at any level, from within families, no matter how they are defined, all the way to the White House.
This section coaches you step-by-step through the policy-making process. It guides you through the basics of civic involvement -- from increasing public awareness and developing community partnerships, to understanding the policy process and educating policy-makers at all levels. This section draws extensively from The Access Project's publication, Real Clout.
