Teaching nursing students skills in testifying for policy change

Teaching senior public health nursing students the skills required to affect policy change when working with populations can be challenging. An assignment developed in a public health nursing course helps students practice public speaking skills by testifying to a mock policymaker panel.

Students identify real public health issues at federal, state and/or local levels. After researching these topics, they prepare testimony similar to that given at a public hearing. The challenge is to speak to the issue in a manner understandable to a policymaker audience in four minutes, which represents an average time allowed per speaker at many public hearings.

This assignment challenges students to glean the most cogent data and arrange evidence in a way that is meaningful to public policymakers like legislators and Congressional representatives. To be successful, they must learn to ask the questions policymakers ask and to tell the stories that illustrate public health needs.

Presenters will describe the purpose and objectives of the Oral Presentation for Policy Change assignment. Faculty will discuss how they assist students to gain confidence in their abilities to be advocates for policy change: to research, organize, and present an argument for changing something that will improve the health of a population and to bring nursing's voice to the policy table.

Evaluations of the assignment show wide-ranging results. Not only do students improve their public speaking skills but they learn the wise selection of evidence to support their testimony. In addition, they have a much broader understanding of the complexity of solving public health issues and the validity of public health nursing participation in the process. Connecting this assignment to real world health issues has helped the students to feel more empowered in their roles as professional nurses.