A new Youth Leaders module in the Policy Communication Toolkit provides youth-led and youth-serving advocacy and accountability organizations a curriculum that meaningfully engages youth to develop their policy communication knowledge and skills.
For more than 30 years Population Reference Bureau (PRB) has trained researchers and advocates to communicate to policy audiences, bringing small groups of Ph.D. candidates, family planning experts, youth leaders, and health advocates together to learn how to translate health and family planning research into clear and actionable policy messages. Alumni of these trainings have enabled the policy environment for family planning and reproductive health around the world, mobilizing evidence to influence policy action at all levels of the health system.
PRB expands the reach of these skills by offering our package of training materials in a user-friendly toolkit. The Policy Communication Toolkit consolidates PRB’s training resources and includes timely topics such as using social media for research and policy, and policy communication for budget negotiations and accountability. Sessions focus on how research can inform policy; how to frame clear, actionable policy messages; and how to communicate those messages through policy briefs, presentations, data visualizations, social media, and more.
The Youth Leaders module was created based on the belief that youth are powerful agents of change when armed with effective communication tools and strategies. This module prepares youth to engage in policy communication as they learn about how their actions can result in strong policy creation and implementation on a range of issues. The module increases the policy communication knowledge and skills of youth leaders, equipping them with tools to improve their advocacy effectiveness and ability to engage with policymakers.
