Advocacy Memo

Advocacy Memo
Advocacy memo
Write a memo to your boss or a colleague identifying local, state or federal legislation that affects the issues touched on in your hypothetical (depending on which group you are in). Recommend taking a stand for or against 2 or more recent or contemplated issues on the horizon of public debate.
State what they are, why you make the recommendation and say how they affect your program.
Outline a plan for some type of action – it can be a letter writing campaign or a trip to Albany or testifying before City Council etc.
You are the executive director of a multi-million dollar New York City social services and youth development agency whose mission is to assist vulnerable children, teens and families build their skills and resiliency to achieve safety and self-sufficiency. The most challenging but cherished department at your agency is the YAAD – the Youth Aging Away Division, because of its especially critical mission and meager budget.
Specifically, there are nearly 10,000 children in foster care in New York City and each year about 600 of them are ready to age out, or to leave the system because they are between the ages of 18 and 21 and are no longer the responsibility of the public sector. Your program strives to ensure that these teens who are aging out of the system do not fall through the cracks barely surviving in poverty, but instead secure support for the mental, pragmatic and social challenges that face them and make progress toward wellness and independence.
Your government contracts pay for residential, educational and health services through the age of 18, but there are few resources for young adults after that milestone. You wish to build enhancements or an “alumni” program so that the participants can relocate to affordable housing, continue building academic skills, secure jobs and importantly avoid troubles and traps that could derail them severely. You decide to add alums (another A) to your AYE program which is focused on supporting pathways to adulthood