Course

Welcome to Save the Children’s ‘Advocacy and Campaigns’ course.  Advocacy and campaigning is a key part of how Save the Children delivers change for children and is a central part of our Theory of Change. This course will introduce you to how Save the Children campaigns and advocates for breakthroughs in the way the world treats children.

The course has been developed for staff around the world whether they work full time on advocacy and campaigns or whether it is one aspect of their work.  

It has been written by Save the Children staff with strong experience of delivering advocacy and campaigns in different contexts around the world in partnership with The Open University who have helped us produce the best possible learning experience.

What does advocacy and campaigns mean?

The terms advocacy and campaigns are close in meaning. Both refer to a set of organised activities designed to influence policies and practices to achieve lasting change for children. However, campaigning always goes beyond just influencing policies and practices and always seeks to engage the public in taking action and creating a broader movement for change.

How to study this course

These materials have been specifically designed for independent self-directed learning. Whether you have prior experience of advocacy and campaigns or are new to the subject areas, the sessions have been written to develop your knowledge, understanding and practical skills. They contain relevant information, practical activities and opportunities to reflect on your own experiences.  

Before you start we would encourage you to think about how you are going to approach your study. The sessions vary in length and should take you between 1 and 3 hours. We recommend that you complete the shorter sessions at one go. We recognise some learners may study on their own, while others may do it in groups. It is up to you to decide what works best for you in your situation. However, pacing your studies with a colleague may facilitate exchange of ideas, especially for the activities in the study materials.

What the course will cover

This course provides some basic minimum knowledge on advocacy and campaigning and shares Save the Children’s approaches and examples, but will only take you so far and does not provide all the tools you will need. You will still need to speak with colleagues within and outside Save the Children for further learning, access tools and support from across Save the Children, and to constantly test and review your advocacy and campaigns work for learning and improvement.

The course is composed of 15 sessions. Sessions 1 and 2 outline the way advocacy and campaigns are undertaken in Save the Children, followed by Sessions 3 to 11 which set out the principal advocacy and campaigns components and concepts. Sessions 12 to 15 address specific themes and approaches to advocacy and campaigns. The whole course is designed to take 27.5 hours to complete. We recommend that all staff complete Sessions 1 to 3 first as the core sessions of the course, and you can then prioritise the most relevant sessions from 4 to 15. Please spend time to check the introductions and keywords to find out more about each session. The elective sessions may be more interesting and pertinent to your work than the title suggests.

Please note

It is worth noting that many of the sessions in this course include information on our current agreed strategies that are likely to be updated before the end of 2015. We will aim to update the course regularly, but always refer to Save the Children’s internal website OneNet for the latest information on any specific topic.

Thank you for joining the course. Wherever possible we want to link this course to your own Learning and Development Plan, so please complete the end-of-course survey, and share your experience of the course and personal reflections with your line manager and where appropriate with other colleagues.

Save the Children staff should access this course through the Save the Children International OneNet