OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Political Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the political frame
2. Apply the political frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

I am discussing a non-profit animal rescue center with multiple departments from animal
adoptions, a public veterinarian for small animals, an equine hospital, therapeutic riding
programs, children’s education and camps, public support programs, and administration. My
role is the client services supervisor in the adoption department and I’m addressing the
organization as the Animal Center due to non-disclosure agreements. I am discussing a
specific project I worked on last summer where we rescued 45 beagles out of 4,000 that had
been removed from the Envigo research and laboratory sourcing organization, due to over 70
animal rights violations. Once arrived, we had to individually assess each pet’s needs
medically and behaviorally before sending them to foster homes and eventually their forever
families.

2) Describe how the politics of the organization influenced the situation.

There are two aspects of this that I view through a political frame. The first is that we worked
directly with the Humane Society of the United States to receive these beagles. We applied to
be one of the rescue facilities to take them in and adopt them as HSUS knew they would not
be able to find homes for all 4,000 alone. This organization had particular ideas about what
we would be allowed to share in the first few days of receiving them and wanted everything
done in a specific way. We thought we potentially had received a pregnant mom (she ended
up not being pregnant) and somehow our media team got wind of this and shared it with a
news outlet. When HSUS heard this, they were initially upset because they had shared they
were not going to send out pregnant or nursing moms as they are considered the most critical,
and traveling across the country is not necessarily the safest. Since this group is the one in a
primary position of power as we agreed to certain terms, like not sharing this information but
rather letting them know first.

1
 Another aspect is more internal as I discussed previously, there were a lot of communication
errors within this project, and this ties in with what I just shared about the potentially
pregnant beagle. It was not communicated to the media team what they were allowed to
document and share and they got a little too excited about the possibility of beagle puppies as
we had only received adult dogs up until the potential pregnant mom.

3) Recommend how you would use organizational politics for an alternative course of
action regarding your case.

I believe a lot of these issues were caused by internal miscommunication but having a
massive organization looming over you as you work through these issues did not help with
the immense pressure of the project. As HSUS holds the primary authority over our decision
making especially as we first received the animals and shared information with the local
media, we had to be very cautious and ensure we were showing everyone in the best light
possible. As this was a massive animal welfare project for HSUS, they wanted it to be
successful meaning they could not have smaller organizations undermining them saying they
received animals they should not have.

This may not seem like a big deal to anyone, not in this field, but after everything these
animals went through, HSUS released a statement they would not be sending any nursing or
pregnant moms a far distance as this would be incredibly traumatizing for the animals who
have spent their entire lives being breed for animal testing. I believe our organization should
have discussed these concerns with the entire team working on this project prior to the arrival
rather than assuming we would not be receiving any pregnant moms. Even though we didn’t
actually and it was just speculation, this caused unnecessary stress and a rift already being
driven between our departments.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

This aspect is challenging for me especially when considering it in the political light as I do
not hold much power in my position to have created real change. This seemed easily
avoidable as more communication, as well as clear boundaries between departments, would
have solved this concern.