INHS 210 Contemporary Issues in Indigenous Health

Briefing Note Assignment (20%)

Briefing notes are tools often utilized in governmental or organizational settings as a means to inform a supervisor or senior executive of the scope of an identified problem in order to assist their decision making. This is a common exercise in public policy where, as a policy analyst, you may be asked to brief your senior official in a concise manner. This is an individual assignment and you must choose a topic that is different from your paper topic. The briefing note will require proper grammar, sentence structure, and paragraph/point structure. 

Your briefing note will be based on the following scenario:

You are a policy analyst in one of the following: An Indigenous organization/community, the Saskatchewan government, or the Federal government (indicate which level you are representing in your brief). Your supervisor has directed you to construct a briefing note that will inform a new trilateral partnership between Indigenous, Saskatchewan, and Federal governments. This trilateral partnership will work towards addressing longstanding issues in Indigenous health in the province.

The new trilateral partnership will look at the following issues. Your task is to choose one and produce a policy brief to present to your direct supervisor that will inform their understanding and ability to advocate for policy options to the other levels of government:

Long-term boil water advisories in First Nations communities 
On-reserve cannabis operations, policies, laws 
Jordan’s Principle 
Integrating traditional healing and medicines in Saskatchewan Health Authority policy and programming
Collaboration in harm reduction (substance use) initiatives 

Choose one of the above topics and produce a 2-3 single-space page briefing note that briefs your leadership, based on the level of government you have chosen, on the following: the history/context of the issue (what is the issue and what contributes to its existence? Where are the gaps in policy?); the significance of the topic (why must this issue be solved?), and the recommendations you propose for policy options on your chosen topic. Your opinions must be informed by research and analysis of previous policy decisions of your topic and their outcomes and must pull from academic sources on your chosen topic area.

How to Write a Briefing Note