Description
Write a personal story about how an experience with healthcare related to access made me choose to write a policy on healthcare access/ reform.
- Personal Story
The personal story is designed to underscore the human impact of a shortfall in a current policy, or the lack of a policy, and highlights the need for the policy change you want to happen. It is designed to engage the targeted listener emotionally and to motivate them to act on your “Ask”, i.e., to do what you ask them to do to help make the policy change happen. In advocacy efforts, the same personal story is used in pitching to key policymakers and other stakeholders, but the “Ask” is modified as needed in regard to what would be most useful for the policymaker or other key stakeholder to do to help make headway.
Write a storytelling script, describing a true story of an anonymous individual, who has experienced the problem you are presenting. Direct your story to all of the targeted key policymaker(s) whose buy in and help are essential to helping you make headway in the policy change you want. For the purpose of this assignment, construct a scenario in which all your targeted key policymakers are present and you are telling your story verbally in a face-to-face format.
Begin your story by greeting your targeted policymaker(s), introducing yourself, and including your credentials that are relevant to establishing your credibility or standing to advocate for the policy change you want. Also highlight the problem, its human impact, and the relevance of your proposed policy solution to this situation. End the story with a specific request – a realistic action item that you would like from your targeted key policymaker or set of key policymakers. You should be able to “tell” the story, as written, within two minutes.
Once you have a first draft of your story, read it aloud, and time yourself as you read it aloud in a conversational manner with variations in pacing and pauses as you would do if you were sharing it with your targeted key policymaker(s). Put a check mark at the point at which you reach two minutes. You will then see how much the draft story runs over the time limit. As you read it aloud you also will discover what sounds too clunky when shared verbally and get a firsthand sense of where there is too much detail as you tell it verbally. With this information, pare down to the essence of what you want to share.
Upload your personal story as a Word document under Assignments in Blackboard for grading. For this assignment, there is a draft and final assignment section. In the draft area, you are permitted up to three attempts to check your personal story document against the “Originality Reports” in SafeAssign before submitting your final document.
Policy on Health Care Reform/ Access on a Federal Level
Student’s Name
University Name
Course
Instructor
Date due
Policy on Health Care Reform/ Access on a Federal Level
To the chief financial officers, chief information officer, doctors, government lawyer, nurses, and all observed protocols, greetings! My name is Bintou Beretey and I am a registered nurse, I have been a nurse for the past 11 years. I am here to give a story that requires immediate action from all the policymakers present here. First and foremost, thank you for coming to this great meeting that is purposely for the request for changes in our organizational health policy.,
There are many reasons that led me to my decision to aid and assist in the Healthcare/Medical profession. But the more profound reason in my case was because of the near-death experience I had as a child in Africa. I am an African woman that grew up in an impoverished part of Africa. I witnessed Health Care at its worst form: needless deaths due to medical errors, misdiagnoses, poverty, accessibility, inadequate housing, and the medical attendants being underqualified and understaffed due to the high demand of medical care needed per patient. On a very personal note, I myself nearly had a near death experience due to a medical error, and my dearest grandmother died because she was not able to receive the proper medical care and attention she needed.
I will start with my story and then progress to my Grandmother’s. I was born in West Africa, from a family of nine. I grew up in the eastern part of Sierra leone, the area considered to be impoverished as opposed to the western part of sierra leone. When I was 9 years old, I experienced the worse stomach ache in my life. I remember laying on an empty mattress on the floor curled up in a ball and crying with the amount of pain I was feeling. My mother was aware that I was not feeling well, but was not in a position to do anything about my pain. My elder brother knew this and told my mother, if anything happened to me she will be held accountable. My mother finally told me to go to a local pharmacy that was across from our house. As a 9 years old girl, walking in pain to the pharmacy with no parental support, no knowledge about the healthcare field and what it entails, I was scared to death. I walked on until I reached my destination. I had a brief encounter with the pharmacist that also happened to be a doctor, he asked me a few questions as to why I was there and the symptoms that I had. I explained those symptoms to him. No assessment was done on me, no vital signs taken or no further test was given to me. He gave a shot in my arm. I don’t know what it was because that wasn’t explained to me. I later experienced an adverse reaction from that drug that was giving to me. My throat closed up on me and I was having involuntary spasm to my neck. My brother put me in his back and took a taxi to the nearest hospital where I was later treated with proper treatment.
I knew early on that I wanted to help and assist people because of what I was witness in my country
Grading Criteria: Personal Story (Storytelling Script Submitted as Word Document) | Points | Points
Earned |
· Includes a greeting to all the targeted key policymaker(s) to whom the story is being told.
If your policy advocacy is focused at the organizational level, and your targeted policy maker(s) work there, to protect confidentiality, do not identify the organization or the policy maker(s) by name; identify the organization only by organization type and the policy maker(s) by job titles.
For public figures, e.g., legislators, greet them using their actual names, and in addressing them indicate if they are federal or state level legislators, the state they represent, and the state or Congressional level legislative district(s) they represent.
· Includes your credentials that are relevant to establishing your credibility or standing to advocate for the policy change you want.
If you are focused on organizational policy change, note that you are an employee of the organization you are targeting for policy change, your job title, the type of unit or department where you work, and your membership in relevant committees/task forces within the targeted organization and in professional associations and other relevant organizations.
If you are focusing on policy change at the legislative level and your targeted key policymaker(s) represents you, note that you are a constituent and what type (see paragraphs five, six and seven in the guidelines for the policy decision brief for more details about constituent type). |
5 |
|
· Includes a real life example of problem and impact
|
20 |
|
· Reflects human impact and encourages emotional engagement
|
20 |
|
· Connects the story to the proposed policy solution (how the story is going to motivate the policymaker(s) to take action)
|
25 |
|
· Includes a realistic specific request of what your targeted policymaker(s) can do (the “Ask” – what you want the policy maker(s) to do) |
20 |
|
· Takes no longer than two-minutes to tell story
|
10 |
|
Total |
100 |