DC HOSA Leadership Hub
Domain

Voice

Being understood — speaking, presenting, writing, advocating.

Lead Yourself

What do I do?

The Speaking Ladder

Lead YourselfVoiceEMPOWER5 minCE: Prepared Speaking · Speaking Skills

Nobody gets better at speaking by speaking more. They get better by speaking against one specific criterion, with immediate feedback, and then doing it again. Four rungs, one per chapter meeting, each scored on exactly one thing. One criterion is what makes it practice rather than repetition.

1Chapter announcement30 sec · no filler in the first sentence 2Committee report2 min · opens with the recommendation 3Topic presentation5 min · one idea per slide, three eye-contact zones 4Judged mockevent format · scored on the rating sheet one criterion per rung
Four rungs

Self-recorded on a phone. Scored against the one criterion only.

  • Rung 1 — a chapter announcement. Thirty seconds. Criterion: no filler words in the first sentence.
  • Rung 2 — a committee report. Two minutes. Criterion: opens with the recommendation, not the history.
  • Rung 3 — a topic presentation. Five minutes. Criterion: one idea per slide, eye contact across three zones of the room.
  • Rung 4 — a judged mock in the event format. Criterion: scored on the relevant competitive event rating sheet.
Why one criterion

Deliberate practice is targeted repetition against a specific standard with feedback, not general effort. A member told ‘be more confident’ has nothing to practise. A member told ‘no filler in the first sentence’ can hear on the recording whether they did it.

Where the rungs live

Rungs 1 and 2 are real business at real chapter meetings — the Five Moves and the committee report are already on the agenda. Rung 3 is a Health Literacy Ambassador Level 1 presentation. Rung 4 is the mock before SLC.

Do this
  1. Do rung 1 at the next meeting. Record it. Listen for the first sentence only.
  2. Do not move to rung 2 until rung 1 is clean twice.
  3. Officers: put a rung on every meeting agenda, rotating who climbs.

Where it shows up: Every chapter meeting. You will already be ready for Prepared Speaking and Speaking Skills, and for the presentation round of any event that has one.

Coach note
Resist giving more than one note. If the member’s first sentence was clean, say so and stop, even if the rest was rough. Next rung, next criterion. The whole method depends on the note count being one.
Grounded in
RDeliberate practice — Ericsson
Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer (1993), Psychological Review — deliberate practice as targeted repetition against a specific criterion with immediate feedback.
DC HOSA Leadership Hub  ·  leadership.dchosa.org/voice.html#voice-speaking-ladder  ·  Lead Yourself  ·  Voice

Nerves Are Fuel

Lead YourselfVoiceEMPOWER5 minCE: Prepared Speaking · Speaking Skills · Interviewing Skills

Telling yourself to calm down before you speak does not work, because calm and nervous are far apart and the body does not travel that distance in sixty seconds. Nervous and excited are almost the same state. Saying ‘I am excited’ out loud, once, outperformed trying to calm down — across speaking, singing, and maths tasks.

The one sentence

Out loud, before you walk in: ‘I am excited.’ Not ‘I am calm.’ Not ‘I am fine.’ The point is not to believe it. The point is that it reframes the racing heart as readiness rather than threat, and that changes what you do next.

What it replaces
  • Deep breathing to reach calm — works slowly, and you do not have slowly.
  • ‘Picture the audience in their underwear’ and the rest of the folklore.
  • The old build’s speaker model, which listed preparation, past success, self-esteem and support as the sources of confidence. All true, none of them available in the sixty seconds before a competitive event room. This is.
Then the exposure

Reappraisal is for the moment. Graduated exposure is for the year — the Speaking Ladder is the exposure schedule.

Do this
  1. Say it before the next thing you present. Out loud. Once.
  2. Notice what your body does with the same heart rate under the new label.
  3. Keep climbing the ladder — the reappraisal works better each time it is paired with a rung.

Where it shows up: The corridor outside any competitive event room. Before any presentation. Before testifying.

Coach note
Do not teach relaxation techniques for the sixty-second window. Teach this sentence, and reserve breathing and preparation for the weeks before. The member who says ‘I am excited’ walks in differently, and you can see it.
Grounded in
RAnxiety reappraisal — Brooks
Brooks (2014), Journal of Experimental Psychology: General — reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement outperformed attempts to calm down. Graduated exposure for public-speaking anxiety has meta-analytic support.
DC HOSA Leadership Hub  ·  leadership.dchosa.org/voice.html#voice-nerves-are-fuel  ·  Lead Yourself  ·  Voice

One Idea Per Slide

Lead YourselfVoiceEMPOWER10 minCE: Health Education · Public Service Announcement · Community Awareness

‘Your slides have too much text’ sounds like taste. It is not — it is a claim about how much a listener can process at once, and there is a mechanism behind it. Five principles, one line each, applied by the presenter before anyone else sees the deck.

The five-line check
  • Coherence — cut anything that does not serve the point. The decorative image, the third bullet, the logo on every slide.
  • Signalling — cue what matters. Bold the one number. Put the recommendation at the top.
  • Redundancy — do not read on-screen text aloud. If it is on the slide, say something else.
  • Modality — narrate the graphic; do not caption it. Words in the air plus a picture on the screen beats words on the screen plus the same words in the air.
  • Segmenting — one idea per slide, and let the listener control the pace where you can.
Why this version lands with students

Because it is a cognitive-load claim, not a design opinion. The listener has one channel for words and one for pictures; overload either and nothing gets through. That is a mechanism a health science student accepts.

The competitive-event variant

Each principle maps to a criterion on the presentation rating sheets — organisation, visual aids, delivery. Practice for the chapter and preparation for the event are the same activity.

Do this
  1. Run the five lines on your last deck. Score each one yes or no.
  2. Fix the worst one. Usually redundancy.
  3. Rung 3 of the Speaking Ladder is scored on this.

Where it shows up: Every presentation. Health Education, Public Service Announcement, Community Awareness, the Ambassador Level 1 presentation — all of them.

Coach note
When a member defends a crowded slide, ask which of the five principles it passes. The argument ends there, because it is no longer about preference.
Grounded in
RCognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning — Mayer
Mayer, Multimedia Learning (2nd ed., 2009) — coherence, signalling, redundancy, modality and segmenting principles; one of the most replicated bodies of instructional-design research.
DC HOSA Leadership Hub  ·  leadership.dchosa.org/voice.html#voice-one-idea-per-slide  ·  Lead Yourself  ·  Voice

Lead a Team

How do I get a group to do it?

The Committee Report

Lead a TeamVoiceBUILD10 min

Most committee reports tell the meeting what the committee did. The meeting does not need to know that. It needs to know what the committee recommends, so it can decide. Open with the recommendation; the history is available if anyone asks.

The structure

Two minutes, in this order.

  • The recommendation. ‘The fundraising committee recommends a bake sale on 14 February, run by the sophomores, target three hundred dollars.’
  • The one reason. ‘The fun run needs a permit we cannot get in time.’
  • The decision needed. ‘We need a vote to adopt, and a volunteer to book the cafeteria.’
  • Then stop. Questions will surface anything else.
Report versus recommendation

A report informs — here is what happened. A recommendation asks the body to act. The chair needs to know which one is coming, because only the second one gets a motion. Say which it is in the first five words.

If you must tell a story

One shape, when the meeting needs to understand a situation before it can decide: the situation as it was, the complication that changed it, the question that raises, and your answer. Four sentences. It is the only narrative structure this Hub teaches, because one is enough.

Do this
  1. Rewrite your next report with the recommendation as the first sentence.
  2. Cut everything that happened before the recommendation was reached.
  3. Rung 2 of the Speaking Ladder. Record it; check the first sentence.

Where it shows up: February of One Motion a Month, where committee reports are the month’s procedure. Every SEC meeting.

Coach note
When a report runs long, the fix is never ‘be briefer’. It is ‘what are you asking us to decide’. Ask that, and the two minutes appear.
Grounded in
PRecommendation-first reporting; SCQA structure
RONR 12th ed. §51 on committee reports and recommendations (R). The situation–complication–question–answer structure is a practitioner framework (Minto), retained as the single narrative structure and labelled accordingly.
DC HOSA Leadership Hub  ·  leadership.dchosa.org/voice.html#voice-committee-report  ·  Lead a Team  ·  Voice

Write So People Act

Lead a TeamVoiceBUILD15 min

A chapter email that nobody acts on was not read badly; it was written so that no action was findable. Plain language is a federal standard with a short rulebook, and applying it to a chapter announcement takes five minutes and roughly halves the length.

The rules that do the most work
  • The action first. What do you want them to do, by when. First line, not last.
  • One topic per message. Two topics is two messages.
  • Short sentences, common words, active voice. ‘Bring your form on Tuesday’, not ‘forms should be submitted by attendees prior to the Tuesday session’.
  • Headings and lists for anything longer than a paragraph. Nobody reads a wall.
  • The reader’s question, answered — ‘what does this mean for me’ — before your reason for writing.
For health material, score it

Anything that is patient education — a flyer, a handout, a poster — gets the PEMAT score from Community as well. Plain language is the writing; PEMAT is the check.

For the affiliate

State staff and the SEC can adopt the federal plain-language guidance as a house standard in one meeting. A Chartered Association that asks chapters to communicate clearly should be able to show it does.

Do this
  1. Take the last chapter message you sent. Put the action in the first line.
  2. Cut it by half.
  3. Send the shorter one next time and count the replies.

Where it shows up: Every chapter and affiliate communication. The newsletter column. Anything with a deadline in it.

Coach note
Read the SEC’s last three advisor emails with the five rules in hand. Score them. If the affiliate’s own writing fails, that is the first fix, before any chapter is asked to change.
Grounded in
RPlain language — federal guidelines
Federal Plain Language Guidelines, plainlanguage.gov (Plain Writing Act of 2010). PEMAT for patient education material per the Community domain.
Re-verify the plainlanguage.gov link before adopting formally.
DC HOSA Leadership Hub  ·  leadership.dchosa.org/voice.html#voice-write-so-people-act  ·  Lead a Team  ·  Voice

Lead Beyond

How do I change something outside this room?

Make an Ask

Lead BeyondVoiceCONNECT30 minCE: Researched Persuasive Writing & Speaking · Extemporaneous Writing – Health Policy

Youth advocacy fails in a specific way: plenty of voice, no audience. Members write, post, present — and nobody with the power to act was in the room. A four-box checklist tells you whether a campaign is real before you run it, and a 16-year-old can audit their own in ten minutes.

Four boxes — all four, or it is not participation
  • Space — is there a safe, inclusive place for the members to form and express a view?
  • Voice — are they supported to say it? Information, time, the words.
  • Audience — is someone with the power to act actually listening? Named. In the room, or receiving the document.
  • Influence — will the view be acted on, and will the members be told what happened and why?
The box DC students miss

Audience. A campaign with Space and Voice and no Audience is an assembly. DC has something most affiliates lack: a city council whose committees accept public testimony, including from young people. That is an Audience with a calendar.

Then the One-Page Ask

See Testify. The ask is what you put in front of the Audience once you have found one.

Do this
  1. Audit your current campaign against the four boxes. Write yes or no on each.
  2. If Audience is no, stop. Find one — the ward map has candidates; the Council calendar has hearings.
  3. If Influence is no, decide how members will hear back. That is part of the design, not an afterthought.

Where it shows up: Any advocacy the chapter or SEC runs. Researched Persuasive Writing & Speaking and Extemporaneous Writing – Health Policy are this, in competition form.

Coach note
When an officer proposes an awareness campaign, ask who the Audience is by name. If the answer is ‘the community’ or ‘students’, there is no Audience yet, and the campaign is not ready.
Grounded in
RLundy Model of Participation — Space, Voice, Audience, Influence
Lundy (2007), British Educational Research Journal — a rights-based model with published implementation evidence; used as the design spine of youth advocacy programmes including Amplify and Advocate (Journal of Community Psychology, 2025).
DC HOSA Leadership Hub  ·  leadership.dchosa.org/voice.html#voice-make-an-ask  ·  Lead Beyond  ·  Voice

Testify

Lead BeyondVoiceCONNECT45 minCE: Researched Persuasive Writing & Speaking · Extemporaneous Writing – Health Policy

The DC Council holds public hearings, and its committees accept testimony from members of the public — young people included. Public witnesses get a few minutes each. That is a real Audience with real power, on a published calendar, and almost no chapter has ever used it. The One-Page Ask is what you bring.

The One-Page Ask

Six parts, in order, one page.

  • The problem, in two sentences.
  • The DC-specific data point — a ward disparity from named DC Health data, a pathway gap, a funding line. Cited and dated.
  • The single ask, stated as a verb a named person can perform. Not ‘support health education’. ‘Fund the health science pathway at two more high schools in the FY28 budget.’
  • Who that person is — the committee, the councilmember, the agency.
  • The date by which it must happen, and why that date.
  • What happens next if the answer is no.
At the hearing
  • Check the hearing notice for the witness time limit and the sign-up method. Follow both exactly.
  • Read the One-Page Ask aloud. It fits. Submit the written version for the record.
  • Say who you represent, and what you are and are not authorised to commit. See Speak for the Affiliate.
  • Say ‘I am excited’ in the corridor first.
Afterwards

Report back to the chapter and the SEC — what was said, what the committee asked, what happens next. That closes the Influence box.

Do this
  1. Draft the six parts. Have someone score the ask line: could a named person do this on Monday?
  2. Find the next relevant hearing on the Council calendar. Sign up as a public witness.
  3. Rehearse it as Rung 4 of the Speaking Ladder — timed, scored on the one criterion: the ask is in the first thirty seconds.

Where it shows up: Council hearings on health, education, or the budget. The same document, shortened, is the Internal Advocacy Pack an advisor takes to a principal.

Coach note
The first testimony is the hard one. Go with them. Sit behind them in the hearing room, say nothing, and debrief within 24 hours using the three questions. The second one they do alone.
Grounded in
PStructured policy ask; DC Council public hearing process
The One-Page Ask is a DC HOSA construction built on the Lundy Model (R). DC Council hearing procedures — witness sign-up, time limits, written testimony — are as published in each committee’s hearing notice; confirm per hearing.
Hearing procedures and time limits vary by committee and are set in each notice. Never rely on a remembered limit.
DC HOSA Leadership Hub  ·  leadership.dchosa.org/voice.html#voice-testify  ·  Lead Beyond  ·  Voice

Speak for the Affiliate

Lead BeyondVoiceCONNECT15 min

The moment a state officer is introduced to a hospital partner or a Council staffer, they need to know where their authority ends. Right now they learn it by getting it wrong. This card is written as permissions rather than prohibitions, so it enables rather than chills.

You may, on your own authority
  • Describe DC HOSA, its mission, its pillars, and its programmes accurately.
  • Share published figures — dated, from the membership report — and say when you do not know one.
  • Accept a speaking invitation for yourself, and say you will confirm the affiliate’s participation.
  • Take a partner’s interest back to the SEC and the State Advisor, with a date by which they will hear.
  • Give your own view, labelled as your own.
You may not, without the State Advisor
  • Agree a partnership, sponsorship, or any arrangement with money or the DC HOSA name in it.
  • Quote a figure you have not seen published — membership, chapters, budget.
  • Respond to media on behalf of the affiliate.
  • Sign anything.
  • Commit a chapter to anything. Chapters commit themselves.
The sentence that handles every edge case

‘That is a great question and it is not mine to answer — I will take it to the State Advisor and you will hear back by [date].’ Said with confidence, it reads as competence, not as weakness.

Do this
  1. Read both lists at SEC orientation. Every officer.
  2. Write the edge-case sentence on the back of your name badge, literally.
  3. The first time you use it, tell the State Advisor the same day.

Where it shows up: Every partner meeting, hearing, media contact, and conference. It is the second half of the Voting Delegate card — a delegate votes as a representative, not an individual, and needs the same boundary.

Coach note
This gap is real and the affiliate has been closing it case by case. Write the two lists into SEC orientation and the Portfolio Charter so nobody learns them the hard way. And when an officer uses the edge-case sentence correctly, tell them — that is the behaviour you want repeated.
Grounded in
PRepresentation and delegated authority — governance convention
DC HOSA governance construction, consistent with the Bylaws’ allocation of authority to the State Advisor. Practitioner convention; not a research finding.
DC HOSA Leadership Hub  ·  leadership.dchosa.org/voice.html#voice-speak-for-the-affiliate  ·  Lead Beyond  ·  Voice