Group Policy Advocacy Project
The group assignment is a 30-minute presentation. The students will sign up for a topic of interest to prepare a power point presentation, which will include a policy advocacy plan to change a current policy or to develop a new policy to address a social problem. Your project must take into account social work’s position (values/ethics) on the policy issue. This project follows the outline of policy tasks as given in the required text. Your goal is to have a project that can be used to advocate to policy makers and other stockholders in order to bring about change. You may use tables and figures to support your oral presentation. As with all of your assignments, you should use reliable professional sources for references; any .org websites must be pre-approved by the instructor. The group will consist of no more than 5 members.

Outline:

a. Introduction and Overview. Identify the key social problem that is the focus of your groups choosing. This may come out of one of your field agency’s mission. Then, identify a community agency that addresses this problem. What is your understanding of the issue? In this section of the presentation, you need to document the issue clearly and provide reliable and current evidence. You may choose to use tables or figures to enhance your presentation. Clearly articulate the problem, and justify why it is a problem for those impacted by the policy/problem.

b. What solution(s) are you advocating for? Why? What do you suspect will change for the population that is impacted by the policy/problem, given the solution that you propose? How might the change impact social work practice? Explain how your recommendations correspond with social work values, policy positions and ethics. You may want to refer to Social Work Speaks for information on the policy positions taken by the National Association of Social Work to assist in completing this section of your presentation.

c. Develop and explain an advocacy map of your planned advocacy effort.

i. Clearly identify stakeholders and why each is included. Who is/are your advocacy target(s) (different from stakeholder(s))? How will you attempt to negotiate or persuade your target(s)?

ii. What policy strategies or tactics will you implement to bring about change?

iii. Provide a timeline for your advocacy project.

iv. How will you evaluate your advocacy effort?

v. How would you monitor the policy/problem once the advocacy effort is over?

vi. What have you learned about yourself and advocacy from this project?

d. Conclusion (Address how the assignment helps you develop the required competencies for this course.)
Grading: The primary criterion for grading is the quality of your analysis and the conclusions that you draw. The other criteria include clarity of presentation, use of references and citations, and the format of your presentation. Please refer to the grading section on the syllabus for more information about grading and preparation of your presentation.