Case Study - Health Advocacy Day
In December 2006, a selection of health-based voluntary organisations approached
Positif Politics to build an event that would draw in a range of health
and social care organisations wishing to raise their profile with politicians
or had specific messages to convey during the Assembly Election campaign.
The outcome of discussions was the Assembly's first Health, Well-being
and Social Care Advocacy Day on March 28th 2007. It was the largest lobby
by separate organisations ever held in the National Assembly for Wales.
Positif Politics organised and facilitated the event, identifying and drawing in participants and managing the various logistic arrangements. We brought together 57 organisations, many without a history of co-working, and to and attracted two-thirds of all sitting AMs and a range of Assembly candidates to visit their stalls.
The impact of the event can be attested by the following extract from the Plenary Session on March 28th 2007:
Jane Hutt (Lab, Vale of Glamorgan): "I was delighted, Llywydd, to hear your opening remarks today to the health, wellbeing and social care festival, as I would call it, in the neuadd. There were so many organisations present, and they were enthusiastic and keen that Assembly Members should come round to learn and engage. The way that we have ensured relationships is unprecedented. We have not previously had those opportunities in terms of Government and the people in civic society in Wales to engage with wider parliamentary opportunities, and now we are grasping them. That is a made-in-Wales approach."