The Blog

This year, there will be a Summit track devoted to health policy on the local, state, and federal levels. Lauren Dimitry, a health and fitness policy associate with our partner Texans Care For Children, will be leading an interactive session entitled Selling Advocacy: Creating Your How-To Toolkit. When Lauren isn’t at the capitol, she’s leading trainings year-round on how to speak up effectively about the health issues your community faces. This will be Lauren’s third year presenting at the Summit, and she leaves inspired every year, with new insight into the local health challenges Texans are facing across the state. “I hope that anyone interested in being involved in advocacy, whether it be in schools, in their local community, or on the state and federal level, will attend a session in the policy track.”

“This year, I will be sharing tips on how to effectively advance health policy in your community. I’ll talk a little bit about what has happened in the 2015 Legislative session, what I’ve witnessed that was effective for changing policy on the state-level, and some pitfalls to avoid – we all learn things the hard way sometimes and advocacy is no exception! Alongside my colleagues on the state-level, I’ll also be presenting advocacy tools people can take home with them like sample talking points, messaging techniques, and a framework for coalition building.”