Who can write an Advocacy Letter?

III. Advocacy Letter: 20 points (due by the end of day on 11/04/2018)

You can select and analyze a bill proposed in this session of Congress or State House of Representatives or any other legislative body. Based on your reading and analysis of a policy brief/bill, write a letter to a relevant public official. In the letter, you should identify yourself as a social work student, and thus the letter should reflect the quality we expect in the academic work of our students. Be sure you use proper headings, properly use the title of the person you are writing and properly address them per the above guidelines! For instance, writing the Governor: The letter should be addressed to:

1. The Honorable (insert governor's full name)

2. Office of the Governor

3. Then the street address or post office box, city, state and zip code as with any other letter.

4. The salutation should be: Dear Governor (insert governor's last name)

Please keep in mind that you do not have to present yourself as an expert. One of the purposes of advocacy letters is to ask questions, raise problems, discuss issues. The choice of elected official or public official (an unelected employee usually in a position related to public policy) should be appropriate for the nature of the topic about which you are writing. The letter should be on a topic relevant to social welfare policy. Advocacy letter should be 1 or 2 pages.