BUILDING YOUR TESTIMONY
There are several ways to approach providing your testimony. Below we have further defined each of the two approaches on ways you can choose to structure your comments.
STRUCTURED APPROACH
Section 1: Providing insight and recommendations through direct response to the main Consultation topics.
If you choose to structure your testimony by providing insight and recommendations through direct response to the four items addressed in the Violence Against Women Act. Some suggestions on the structure are as follows:
- Respond to one or all of the questions presented defining the purpose of the Consultation.
- Administering tribal funds and programs;
- Enhancing the safety of Indian women from domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, homicide, stalking, and sex trafficking;
- Strengthening the federal response to such crimes; and,
- Improving access to local, regional, State, and Federal crime information databases and criminal justice information systems.
- Consider structuring your remarks or written comments in a way that can be shared and implemented.
- State the topic of response (ex. In response to the question on … ).
- Identify the issue, challenge, or support of the topic
- Provide recommendations or suggestions for improvement.
Section 2: Respond to the questions posed in one or all of the Framing Papers for this year’s consultation
- Read this year’s Framing Papers. Posted on the Resources Page.
- Respond to one or all of the questions presented at the end of the Framing Paper to help provide guidance to the federal government on the impacts of the topic(s) presented and how to improve the situation.
- Consider structuring your remarks or written comments in a way that can be shared and implemented.
- State the question or main topic of response within the Framing Paper.
- Provide supporting statements or personal stories relating to the issue.
- Provide solutions or suggestions for improvement.
FREESTYLE APPROACH
Approach 1: Identify an area of concern or an issue that directly impacts your tribe or community.
- Consider structuring your remarks or written comments in a way that can be shared and implemented.
- State the topic of concern.
- Provide supporting statements or personal stories relating to the issue.
- Provide recommendations or suggestions for improvement.
Approach 2: Sharing stories to strengthen your testimony
- Through the use of personal stories, you can choose to share with us what challenges you and your tribal community face or the impacts of something (legislative, economic, environmental, etc.) your community has had to deal with.
- Your voice on matters of importance can be heard by detailing the problem including examples if you are comfortable.
- It is helpful to ask for what is needed or provide suggestions for solutions to resolve the problem.
TIPS FOR SUCCESS
- When citing legislation to support your testimony, you are not required to detail the full scope of the legislation in order to support your point. Feel free to include these references as appropriate to your testimony, but please note when testimony is summarized, the main details of your message are what will be pulled out for the Annual Report. The focus of the summary will be on what is most important in your message.
- Your stories are powerful and your experiences can often do more to state the true challenges your community faces and the impact of those challenges. If you feel comfortable sharing your stories as a part of your testimony they can help illustrate the message you are trying to convey.
- You may consider diving into where the standing laws and processes are falling short or leaving gaps that need to be addressed.
- Sharing your ideas on how you think these challenges can be addressed or improved is important. You are on the forefront of these challenges every day and your insight is invaluable!
