Discussion 2: Capstone Project: Strategic Plan

The application of social change, leadership, and advocacy to a specific human and social services organization is a systematic process. The initial step is to select and delineate a professional or societal issue about which you are passionate, and then locate an organization from anywhere in the world whose mission is related to this issue. Once you determine the issue and organization that you will focus on, the next step is to set a manageable social change, leadership, or advocacy-related goal for the organization.

Human services professionals can strive to achieve and/or support social change, leadership, or advocacy-related goals by creating a strategic plan. Throughout this course, you will develop the core elements of a strategic plan for your Capstone Project. You build off the coursework you completed in previous courses to conduct a needs assessment as well as develop the fundamentals, strategic issues, and technical elements of the strategic plan.

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review this week’s Learning Resources, considering strategies and approaches that human and social services professionals may use to achieve social change, leadership, and advocacy goals.
• Review the Capstone Project Overview in the Course Information area and the Final Project: Developing a Strategic Plan – Introduction to the Final Project media in the Weekly Resources. Select one professional or societal issue that arouses your passion as a human and social services professional, and then choose a human or social services agency or organization, or a community, that works to support this issue. This can be a local, regional, national, or international agency, organization, or community. Throughout the completion of your Capstone Project, you will explore this issue and agency in depth, examining them from multiple perspectives. Therefore, you should select an agency, organization, or community issue that speaks to you as a human and social services professional.

By Day 4

Identify the agency, organization, or community for which you will develop a strategic plan. State whether the agency, organization, or community exists at the local, regional, national, or international level. Then, discuss why you have chosen this agency to focus on for your Capstone Project. Also, discuss whether your strategic plan will be developed from the perspective of social change, leadership, or advocacy for the agency, organization, or community. Explain why you have chosen to focus on that particular perspective for your strategic plan.

  The first stages of the research writing process involve topic selection, formulation of a research question, preliminary research, and the development of a working thesis statement. Now you will begin identifying and evaluating sources to determine how effectively they can support your argument. If needed, the “Topic Ideas” web link below can be used for selecting your research topic.   For this task, you will create an annotated bibliography by finding 8-10 sources for your research paper, listing the sources in APA-formatted references, and providing an annotation for each source. Each annotation should offer a summary of the source, an evaluation of its author’s or publisher’s credibility, and an assessment of its relevance to your topic. 

 Requirements

Your submission must be your original work. No more than a combined total of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly. An originality report is provided when you submit your task that can be used as a guide.

You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.

Note: When using sources to support ideas and elements in an assessment, the submission MUST include APA formatted in-text citations with a corresponding reference list for any direct quotes or paraphrasing. It is not necessary to list sources that were consulted if they have not been quoted or paraphrased in the text of the assessment. 

A.  Compose an appropriate, arguable thesis statement that previews two to four main points and that you plan to use in your research paper.  

B.  Create an annotated bibliography of eight to ten appropriate, credible sources that you plan to use in your research paper.  

Note: You may use the attached “Annotated Bibliography Template” to complete your annotated bibliography, but use of the attached template is not required. 

1.  Provide a full, APA-formatted reference citation for the 8–10 sources.

2.  Provide an annotation (suggested length of 150 words) for each of the 8–10 sources by doing the following:

a.  Summarize the information presented in the source.

b.  Analyze the credibility of the author of the source or of the publication (e.g. journal, publisher, or website), if no author is present.

c.  Analyze the relevance of the source to your chosen research topic.

3.  Write each  annotation in your own words, without the excessive use of direct quotation or extensive paraphrasing, for the 8–10 sources from part B.  

C.  Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission.  

Respond to his answer 

I would try to follow what I have been directed to do by responding to what I can to the media and not booking interviews for my boss.  I would give the media what information I could that was necessary and anything that wan not necessary, I would not relay.  I think it would be important to share necessary information because that is my job.  People have the right to know what is going on.  I can understand why he does, but I am responsible for my department.

I will give Burt Taylor the information that is prepared for the media, TV, and newspapers.  He can decide if it is what he wants, especially since I am a new hire.  I will attempt to get in good standing with the media, newspaper, TV, and online institutions.  That will benefit our company.  If any crisis happens, I will get with my boss and we will decide what we release.  Once my boss sees I know what I am doing then we can look at things and see if we can do them different. 

I will talk to my boss if we come upon any problems.  Communication is the important thing to do.  That way we both know what is going on.  I will attend meeting so that I know what is happening, so hopefully any crisis can be prevented.  I will be checking online, TV, newspapers, and media daily to make sure we are knowledgeable. 

Required Resources
Read/review the following resources for this activity:

PLASMODIUM (PARASITE THAT CAUSES MALARIA)

Instructions

Objective:
Select a publication or a newspaper article on a pathogen, apply knowledge learned in BIOS242, and write a paper.

The goal for this project is:

1. to make connections between concepts learned in the course and what is observed in a health care setting

2. to understand real-life applications of Microbiology

Project Parameters:
For this assignment, you will identify a pathogen in a newspaper article or publication of your choice, apply principles learned in BIOS 242, and research the pathogen for its connection to nursing/health care. You must get approval for your chosen article and pathogen. You will then write a paper on their chosen pathogen/topic. Use the template hyperlinked above when writing your paper.

The pathogen can be a bacteria, fungus, protozoa, or virus. In addition to the article, information to include in the paper should include, morphology, gram stain characteristics, virulence factors, susceptibility to antibiotics, host cells, nutritional needs, growth conditions, mechanisms used to evade the immune system and invasion into the host(s), interactions with the hosts and diseases caused and affected body systems. Additionally, students should explain symptoms when the pathogen infects a host, as well as a diagnosis and the therapeutic intervention needed after infection. You may also add information on statistics related to infection (epidemiology) and any new research findings related to the pathogen.

Writing Requirements (APA format)

Length: 2 pages (not including title page or references page) 

1-inch margin

Double spaced

12-point Times New Roman font

Title page

References page (minimum of 2 scholarly sources)

I just need the second post 

Our Weeks Three and Four Discussion will focus on contracts, a topic that applies to everyone, regardless of your profession.

Post One (you are the plaintiff):

• Using a business model for the ideal job you plan to have one day, draft a short story describing the facts that behind a contract for services.
• The story should be very brief and the purpose of the contract must be related to a service.
• For example:

I am the owner of a nightclub called: LizBar. I hire We R Always Wired, Inc. to do some electrical work on a new start-of-the-art light system because they claimed to have experience working on the lighting system that was purchased. 

• The example provides the background information of my story, but does not include the terms of our contract, which is what your Post One must include.
• Briefly draft the terms of the contract between your business and the vendor. They key is to cover the essential elements of a valid contract.
• Conclude your story with a brief explanation describing the vendor’s acts/behavior that amounts to a breach of contract.
• In one sentence state exactly what you will be suing for and the remedy you are seeking.
• Support your legal theory for this law suit by referencing a case from your home state where the plaintiff won his/her lawsuit against the defendant for committing an identical (or very similar) breach. Summarize the facts from that case, the court’s ruling, and the reasoning behind its ruling.
• How are the facts from your story similar to the facts from the case you cited?
• Provide a properly formatted citation to your case.
• There is a-lot of material that must be discussed in this post, which would require at least 250 words, but cannot exceed 450 words).
• Due: Sunday of Week Three

Post Two (you are the defendant):

• Select a fellow student’s Post One.
• Find a case from the same state cited in that Post One where the defendant was able to provide a winning defense.
• Discuss the facts from that case, the court’s ruling, and the reasoning behind its ruling.
• How are the facts from the student’s Post One similar to, or different from, the facts from the case you cited?
• Provide a properly formatted citation to your case.
• There is a-lot of material that must be discussed in this post, which would require at least 250 words, but cannot exceed 450 words).
• Due: Sunday of Week Four