Who can write an Advocacy Letter?

Example of Advocacy Letter

As we know, this is just an example. If you want to get more examples,

please visit this website. There are many advocacy letters in this

website. Please refer to it:

https://www.socialworkers.org/Advocacy/Sign-On-Letters-Statements

Also, for this assignment, there are no limitations to choose the topic,

policy, and bill. Thus, please choose the topic, policy, and bill

whatever you want. However, if you have any suggestions about your

topic, bill, and policy, please email me ([email protected]).

The Honorable Olympia Snowe

U.S. Senate

Washington, DC 20510

Dear. Sen. Name,

We are writing to urge you to oppose the Family Privacy Protection Act (H.R. 1271). This

bill, which was passed by the House of Representatives in April 2011, would require minors

to obtain parental permission before participating in surveys or studies that ask them

questions about psychological problems, sexual behavior or attitudes, or “illegal, antisocial or

self-incriminating behavior.”

The Healthy Youth Coalition represents over 125 agencies serving troubled, runaway and

homeless youth in New England, including seven agencies in Maine alone. In Maine as

elsewhere, these agencies are often the last stop for adolescents in crisis and/or on the street.

Among other things, these agencies provide emergency shelter; individual and family

counseling; drug treatment and prevention; and HIV education – services that teens and their

families often can’t get anywhere else. These services are particularly important in Maine,

which has a higher-than-average rate of youth suicide and where an estimated 98% of

homeless adolescents abuse alcohol and other drugs or are at risk of doing so.

Homeless and troubled youth are particularly hard to study because they spend so much time

on the streets, hiding even from those who could help them the most. Youth-serving agencies

rely heavily on the work of social scientists to track and study this transient, vulnerable

population. A law forbidding minors to participate in anonymous research studies would

almost certainly reduce the amount of information our member agencies could receive about

the problems and needs of these youth.

The Family Privacy Protection Act (H.R. 1271) would seriously undermine youth agencies’

efforts to serve society’s most vulnerable adolescents. In the interest of adolescents and their

families, we ask that you vote against it.

Sincerely yours,

Your Name

Executive Director

Healthy Youth Coalition