Advancing Advocacy – Tips for Testifying
By Andy Stein….
Testifying in front of your state’s legislature can be a very intimidating experience. But with the right preparation and thoughtful attention to detail, you can be heard and create small successes along the road to reform.
Last summer, a team of therapists, lawyers, registrants, and family members met to organize Kentucky Citizens and Families for Reform. While the process of putting together an organization has been slow, the team has experienced recent success testifying during the 2017 Kentucky legislative session. In February, a panel consisting of a criminal defense lawyer, a therapist, and a family member of a former registrant testified against a bill that would add public playgrounds to the list of presence restrictions. During this Advancing Advocacy session, you learn tips for delivering effective testimony and will see the panel in action in the video of the testimony recorded during the Kentucky House Judiciary Committee meeting.
The presenter, Jennifer Van Waes, has been an advocate in Kentucky since 2008 when her family was negatively impacted by the retroactive application of residency restrictions. She currently organizes the Advancing Advocacy sessions for NARSOL and continues to work in her state on registry issues.
The PointPoint presentation is here
An audio download is here
Utah joined the resident restriction, if on the registry and contacted you get 2 months to move if on a month to month contract. On a lease you can live out your lease. If you own a home and on parole the parole office will not approve if it is near a park. I went to my home to much during the day and got put on a 17:30 curfue after work.
So I’m watching the video and the beginning of it is about passing a bill to make it a “hate crime” to target first respondants such as police, firefighters and EMT’s. Notice how every one of the state reps who don’t agree to make killing a person in a specific uniform a hate crime all happen to be DEMOCRATS! Yep! Typical liberals. Don’t allow police to profile ghetto thug gang members/trouble makers, but go ahead and kill cops. That’s not a hate crime.
Well….can anyone say “contradiction”? The state reps spoke on their votes and ADMITTED that there are people on the registry who don’t belong on it and ADMITTED that the idea of “stranger danger” is a false sense of security yet they still voted YES to the bill!!
WTF!!?? We are a backasswards country.
I take their comments as what my husband, who is in sales, calls a “buying sign.” They opened the door for us to continue dialogue. They weren’t quite ready to take that bold “no” step, but they opened the door for that at a later time. In this political climate, and after working on reform for almost 10 years, I’ll take that as a win.