Advocacy Liaison

This is an internal posting only.

The Organization:

The Florence Project was founded in 1989 to respond to a representation crisis for indigent non-citizens detained at the rural Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention Center in Florence, Arizona. Through our programs today, we provide services to thousands of adults, youth, and children detained in Eloy, Florence, Phoenix, and Tucson, Arizona on any given day. In 2001, the Florence Project implemented our Integrated Social Services Program, one of the first of its kind in this field. The Florence Project provides high quality legal and social services and supports initiatives for national changes in immigration law and policy.

Advocacy Liaison:

The Advocacy Liaison role is an opportunity for professional development for staff within FIRRP. Participation in the liaison program is voluntary and in addition to staff members’ normal job duties. The goal of the liaison program is to create a structured system for interested staff members to develop skills that will enable them to confidently participate in FIRRP’s advocacy efforts. Liaisons will benefit from targeted training on a variety of communication, litigation, and other skills commonly used by our advocacy team. Additionally, liaisons will act as bridges for increased communication and information sharing between the advocacy team and their home teams. Advocacy liaisons will also have increased opportunities to engage directly in FIRRP’s advocacy efforts, thereby encouraging professional growth while simultaneously increasing organizational capacity for national and local advocacy efforts.

Duties:

Because the liaison opportunity is offered in addition to, not in lieu of, normal job duties, the time commitment is relatively limited. Aside from specialized trainings, liaisons are generally asked to give no more than 40 hours over the course of the year to advocacy-related work.

• Attend advocacy team meetings 1x/month to keep updated on advocacy projects and serve as an ambassador for information sharing between home teams and the advocacy team. Advocacy team meetings are Monday mornings from 10:30-11:30.

• Depending on an individual’s area of interest, liaisons may be asked to assist with any or all of the following:

• media interviews or the drafting of talking points;

• communication with legislators and their teams;

• drafting comments to proposed regulations;

• drafting portions of pleadings or developing evidence for FIRRP litigation efforts; and

• collaborating with FIRRP’s partners in national litigation, reports, or other advocacy by gathering and distilling plaintiff stories.

This is an illustrative list only.

How is the liaison system structured?

Because this is a professional development opportunity, liaisons generally serve in their role for a limited period to allow multiple staff to have the opportunity. During their period of service, liaisons are given special training opportunities and chances to participate in communication and advocacy efforts. Once selected, liaisons serve in that role for a period of up to two-years, with one new “class” of liaisons joining the program every year as those who have been in the role for two-years transition out. As such, there will always be a “senior class” of more experienced liaisons, as well as a “junior class” of newer liaisons. Each liaison class will be comprised of 5-6 staff members, so that at any given time there should be between 10-12 liaisons working with the advocacy team.  By having groups of this size we are able to spread the work around and also ensure that our liaisons represent the diversity of teams, experiences, expertise, and areas of interest that we have at FIRRP.  Because staff turnover can impact our liaison groups, we have begun implementing a system of “alternates” for each advocacy class who may be asked if they care to join as a liaison mid-year when members of liaison classes have left FIRRP. Alternates will be contacted on an as needed basis, but will be selected by the advocacy team from the list of recent past applicants applying the same selection criteria for all liaison positions, described in further detail below.

Please note, while the above describes the structure we plan to follow, we are only entering our third year of the liaison system and we are still learning how to make this project the most productive, because this is a new project, we may still need to adjust this structure based on organizational needs.

Selection Criteria

In each liaison class we hope to have:

• Liaisons who are representative of the diverse teams, positions, and job duties legal and social service staff have at FIRRP

• A healthy mix of liaisons who are interested the various types of advocacy our advocacy team engages in, including media and communications work, policy outreach, trend and issue tracking, and written advocacy – including direct litigation and identification and development of stories for reports or plaintiffs for litigation. Potential liaisons can express interest in one or more of these advocacy categories. We are particularly interested in developing staff’s media and communications skills with an eye towards having a broader and more diverse pool of qualified and prepared staff members able to readily speak to the media about our work and our clients’ experiences.

• Liaisons who bring a range of past experience and areas of expertise

• Liaisons who are strong oral or written communicators

• Liaisons who are excited and passionate about amplifying our clients’ voices and experiences to advance our work on a state and national level

• Liaisons who have expressed an ongoing interest in learning more about and being more involved with FIRRP’s advocacy

No prior experience is required in media/communications, written advocacy, or litigation in order to be a liaison, but folks who are interested in being liaisons should be:

• Excited to participate in additional training in written and oral advocacy.

• Confident and compelling advocates able to express themselves effectively orally, in writing, or both

• Disciplined team players

• Creative problem solvers

• For those interested in Media/Communications specifically, willingness to do (with appropriate training) on-camera, radio, and print interviews is a strong plus.

To Express Interest in the Advocacy Liaison Role

To express interest in serving as an advocacy liaison, please apply through BambooHR by answering the brief questionnaire explaining what interests you about the advocacy liaison role; what, if any, special experiences or skills you bring that you believe would benefit FIRRP’s advocacy efforts; what areas of advocacy you are most interested in becoming involved; and how many times you have applied to be an advocacy liaison.

Keywords

AdvocacyLiaisonCommunicationLitigationAdvocacy TeamTrainingMediaLegislatorsRegulationsLitigation EffortsNational AdvocacyProfessional Growth