The Healthcare Action Institute trains participants in storytelling, advocacy, and healthcare policy in Illinois. It features bi-weekly virtual sessions covering skills like media engagement, legislative testimony, and digital organizing, along with ongoing mentorship to support long-term leadership development.
Lived Experience in Action
How the Institute works
Participants learn to turn their personal healthcare experiences into compelling advocacy narratives that move decision-makers to act.
Understand how power operates in healthcare — who makes decisions, who holds influence, and how advocates can shift both.
Hands-on training in lobbying, media, digital organizing, and coalition-building — the practical tools for fighting and winning.
Cohort members build lasting relationships with advocates across Illinois, from Chicago to Carbondale.
Graduates join a growing alumni network and stay connected to Citizen Action's statewide healthcare campaigns.
Our advocates
From Rockford to Carbondale, from the suburbs to the city — cohort members are turning lived experience into leadership.
Follow the work our
advocates are doing.
Stay connected for community updates, event invitations, and powerful stories of impact straight from our leadership cohort.