Policy Matters Blog
In This Section
Policy Playbook and Website Features
NASP's Advocacy Team recently revamped its website and created a new key resource in order to aid school psychologists and leaders in their professional and legislative advocacy efforts. Some new features include the following resources and web pages:
Policy Playbook: The Policy Playbook was recently developed as a new resource for state leaders and individual school psychologists to offer tips, advice and best practices on how to be a successful advocate. The Playbook includes information on the basics of legislative advocacy, communications strategies, tips for state leaders to engage their members and activate their grassroots, and key messages and talking points for six of the core issues that NASP advocates on. The Playbook can be viewed and is available for download here.
Proposed Bills Interactive Map: NASP's advocacy team assists states with tracking relevant legislation on issues that matter to school psychologists and the children we serve. On our website, we've created a new interactive map, where you can select your state or federal button and browse some of the proposed bills that have been flagged in our tracking system.
Policy Issues: To assist you in your advocacy efforts, NASP has created six critical issue pages for some of the issues we advocate on the most: comprehensive school safety, the shortage of school psychologists, supporting diverse populations, increasing funding for education, increasing access to mental and behavioral health services in schools, and promoting the comprehensive role of school psychologists. Each of these pages provides a summary of the issue, talking points, and many resources to assist you in familiarizing yourself with the problem and crafting your advocacy messages.
Statements and Testimony: NASP regularly submits testimony for relevant congressional hearings, sends letters to the Hill urging support or opposition to various legislative proposals, and releases public statements on policy topics important to school psychologists and children. Advocacy-related letters, statements, and testimony are now all on one centralized page on the website, which you can view here.
Personal Advocacy Tips: This web page lists a few simple tips for how you can be a good personal advocate for students, families, schools and the communities we serve, even if you aren't a member of your local, state, or national school psychology leadership teams.