SHS 250-Community and Client Advocacy
Learning Activities

 1.  Advocacy Services List (due:  Jan. 14th):  Go to crisisclinic.org and click on "Community Resources Online."  Search for individual advocacy resources and scroll through to get an idea of what types of advocacy services exist.  Then select five that catch your interest and gather information about them.  Turn in a word processed, 12 point font, double spaced, 2-3 page paper including:

• Who the client population served by the organization

• What they advocate for

• How they advocate for the client (skills/strategies used)

2.  Letter to elected official (due Jan. 28th):  Identify an issue of interest that is being discussed, debated or decided on at the city, county, state, federal or school board level.  Write a letter to the relevant elected official including the information below.  Your letter should be no more than one page and very neatly written or word processed.  Plan on sending one copy to the official and turning in one copy to me.

• Who you are

• Your reason for writing

• Your position on the issue and why you hold this position

• What you would like the target of your letter to do

3.  Attendance at a community meeting (due Feb. 25th):  Attend a meeting of either elected officials or a community group working on some type of social change.  Check the activism calendar for information (http://www.scn.org/activism/calendar/) or look up the meeting schedule for the school board, city council or county council; another possibility is student groups on campus.  Finally, I will be sending out a Policy Watch Newsletter each week and you will find opportunities in that as well.

Write a two page response to the meeting, including the name of the group, their purpose/mission, who is involved and anything else about them you found interesting.  Then reflect on what you observed that worked well in terms of group process, running a meeting, handling conflict/differences of opinion, inclusiveness, etc.  Also, reflect on what you would have done differently if you were running the meeting.

4.  Rough draft or progress report on group project (due March 4th): 

• Statement of the fundamental and specific issues

• Background information on the issue

• The goal of the group and strategies with brief explanation of the rationale for these strategies

Grading criteria:  All learning activity assignments will be graded on relevance, thoroughness, thoughtfulness, professionalism and how effective they are at conveying information and achieving their purpose.