Assignment: Advocating with Policy Makers

In social work, advocacy is very important to promote social change. Letters are often used as an effective tool to bring attention to social justice issues. This assignment requires you to choose a social justice issue that is important to you, gather current research and data on the subject matter, and write a one page professional and formal letter to your elected local, state, or national representative responsible for your social justice matter you have identified.

Choose a social welfare problem that you believe is in need of change and write a letter to an elected local, state, or federal official regarding the issue you have chosen. You are not required to send the letter; however, it must be written in a professional, well organized, clear, and concise format.

Writing letters to public officials is a form of political advocacy for clients and social workers. For this Assignment, you will write an advocacy letter to public official about a problem and a policy. In addition, you will write a 1-2 page explanation of your letter. Your explanation will provide the rationale behind your chosen issue and the approach you took with the specific representative.

By Day 7

Assignment: In the same document, submit both Part I and II of the assignment (2-4 pages):

Part I: Letter to Representative

Your letter should include:

• A description of the social welfare issue
• An explanation of how you want the legislator to respond to the issue (vote, create legislation, hold public hearings, etc.) and why.
• Support of your viewpoints with credible facts and research.

Part II: Explanation (1-2 pages, double-space, APA format)

For this part of the assignment, provide an explanation of:

• Why you selected the issue
• How the issue affects social work
• The reason you chose the specific representative
• The approach you took with the representative (consider the representative’s voting history, political affiliation, and any other factors you considered)

Learning Resources

Note: To access this week’s required library resources, please click on the link to the Course Readings List, found in the Course Materials section of your Syllabus.

Required Readings

Beerma, D. (2012). Advocacy handbook for social workers. National Association of Social Workers – North Carolina Chapter. Retrieved fromhttp://c.ymcdn.com/sites/naswnc.site-ym.com/resource/resmgr/Advocacy/Advocacyhandbook
Plummer, S.-B., Makris, S., & Brocksen, S. M. (Eds.). (2014). Social work case studies: Foundation year. Baltimore: MD: Laureate International Universities Publishing. [Vital Source e-reader].
“Working with Clients with Dual Diagnosis: The Case of Joe” (pp. 77–78)
Popple, P. R., & Leighninger, L. (2019). The policy-based profession: An introduction to social welfare policy analysis for social workers (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Chapter 8, “Mental Health and Substance Abuse” (pp. 161-191)
Humphreys, K., & McLellan, A. T. (2011). A policy-oriented review of strategies for improving the outcomes of services for substance use disorder patients. Addiction, 106(12), 2058–2066.