The Writing Center, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill - This webpage provides a thorough overview on what a policy brief is and how to write one effectively.
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) - Social Justice Briefs - NASW provides access to policy briefs on a number of current social justice topics such as immigration reform, criminal justice reform, juvenile justice, and economic justice and equity.
University of Minnesota - Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare (CASCW) - The University of Minnesota's CASCW has created child welfare policy briefs for use by students, professionals, policy makers, and advocates.
What is a Policy Brief?
Policy briefs provide a concise summary of current research and information so that policymakers and professionals may quickly make well informed decisions on complex issues.
What is the purpose of a Policy Brief?
A policy brief helps policymakers come to a decision on a given topic; it informs them of an issue or problem and its impact. Policy briefs give objective summaries of current research, suggest policy options, or may even argue for a particular course of action.
Format of a Policy Brief
Firstly, be sure to consult your assignment prompt or your professor for the specific requirements of your assignment. That being stated, most policy briefs do have several common features. Policy briefs typically use headings and have many short sections. Your policy brief may also include graphs, statistics, charts, and other visual aids to help communicate information to your reader. Policy briefs often include sections such as a title, executive summary, context or scope of the problem, policy alternatives, policy recommendations, appendices, and consulted or recommended sources. To read more in-depth on Policy Brief formatting and writing consult the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Writing Center webpage.
Writing Tips
*Adapted from USC and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Writing Center
Social Sciences Full Text - covering the latest concepts, theories and methods from both applied and theoretical aspects of the social sciences.
Social Services Abstracts - an index of scholarship and research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development.
Sociological Abstracts - indexes the international literature of sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences.
EBSCOhost - provides access to a range of databases, e-journals and e- books
Westlaw - Search for cases, briefs, proposed and enacted legislation, and utilize their bill tracking tool.
RAND State Statistics - a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decision-making through research and analysis. As a nonpartisan organization, RAND is widely respected for operating independent of political and commercial pressures. Their core values are quality and objectivity.
California Legislative Information - provides researchers with information on California Law Codes and Bill searching.
California Open Data - Open data is public data collected by the state through its routine business activities and published in a format that is easy to search, easy to download and easy to combine with other data sets from other sources; it does not include private or confidential data about individuals. Search by organizations, topics, state portals, documentation, and more.
California Department of Social Services, Data Portal - The Department of Social Services provides accurate and timely data which is intended to inform the public about social services programs and policies which serve more than 8 million California residents annually.