Direct Care Project Part 2: planning the presentation
The Planning step of a four-part nursing-process project, where the most common submission is a presentation of Part 1's assessment rather than a plan for what happens next.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 8, 2026
Which step of the nursing process is Part 2?
The four parts of this project are the **nursing process**, and seeing that changes what Part 2 is. Part 1 was Assessment, Part 3 is Implementation, Part 4 is Evaluation — so this part is **Planning**, and the course outcome attached to it says exactly that: *apply the nursing process to vulnerable populations*. The commonest failure here is a presentation that re-presents Part 1: windshield survey findings, demographics, prevalence data. Assessment has already happened and been graded. What belongs in a planning deliverable is what you intend to do about it — the goal, the measurable objectives, the audience, the resources, the timeline and how you will know whether it worked. One slide restating the Part 1 finding is enough context; everything after it should be forward-looking, which is also how the graded check-in for this part is worded.
Your topic is not a choice you make now. *The topic selected in Part 1 will be the same one used in Parts 2 through 4*, and the two options run on entirely separate tracks from here: separate instruction documents to download, separate templates, separate audiences. If you chose substance use you present SBIRT to **at least three practising RNs**; if you chose air quality you present the Air Quality Flag Program to **at least one organisation leader**. Those audiences are not interchangeable, and they change the deck substantially — clinicians need the screening tool's thresholds and referral pathway, while an organisation leader needs implementation cost, staffing and who raises the flag each morning. Whichever track you are on, write the audience at the top of your planning notes and check each slide against it, because a deck drifts toward a student audience by default.
Download the correct instruction document and the template before drafting anything. The brief names them individually — *Air Quality Flag Program: Planning the Presentation Instructions* or *SBIRT: Planning the Presentation Instructions* — and tells you to *download the template below and create a PowerPoint presentation*, which means the structure is supplied rather than invented. It also points at a tutorial for this part. Building your own deck first and then trying to retrofit it into the template is the most common way to lose points that were free, because a supplied template usually encodes the rubric's own headings. The tutorial is short and it is the fastest way to see what a completed Part 2 is supposed to look like, which is worth more than another hour of reading about the programme.
**Speaker notes are a graded component, not an accessory.** The brief asks for a presentation *and* speaker notes, and the two carry different content: the slide holds the structure a live audience can read at a glance, while the notes hold what you would actually say, including the evidence behind each claim and the citations supporting it. A deck whose slides contain full paragraphs leaves the notes with nothing to do and is harder to present from, which matters because Part 3 requires you to deliver this to real people who will complete a pre- and post-survey. Aim for a slide that could be understood in five seconds and a note that would take about a minute to say aloud, which is roughly the ratio a live presentation needs.
Plan Part 3 while you are still in Part 2, because two things you need there have to be designed now. The pre- and post-survey is the evaluation instrument for the whole project, so its items have to match the objectives you set in this presentation — a survey written after the fact will measure something your teaching never targeted. And the audience has to be recruited: three practising RNs or an organisation leader are real people with schedules, and the check-in for Part 3 falls on the Wednesday of Week 5. Naming the organisation and the date in your planning slides is the cheapest insurance against the project's real bottleneck. Working backwards from the survey is also the easiest way to test whether your objectives are measurable, since an objective nobody could write a survey item for is not one.
Requirement | What it means here | The submission that fails it |
|---|---|---|
This is the Planning step | Goals, objectives, resources, timeline | Part 1's assessment data, re-presented |
Same topic as Part 1 | Fixed, not revisited | Switching topics between parts |
Topic-specific instructions | Download the one for your topic | Working from the overview alone |
The supplied template | Used from the start | A deck built first, retrofitted after |
Audience | 3 practising RNs, or an organisation leader | A generic audience of peers |
Speaker notes | What you would say, with citations | The slide text repeated |
Pre- and post-survey | Items matched to your objectives | A survey written after the presentation |
Vulnerable population | The one identified in Part 1 | A population introduced fresh |
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Distinguish the planning stage of the nursing process from the assessment that precedes it.
- 02Design a health education intervention for a named, non-student audience.
- 03Write measurable objectives that an evaluation instrument can later test.
- 04Separate what a slide shows from what a presenter says.
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
What the Part 2 presentation and notes must contain
- 01A PowerPoint presentation built on the template supplied for your topic.
- 02Speaker notes for the presentation.
- 03Content based on the topic and problem identified in Part 1.
- 04Material pitched at the required audience for your topic.
- 05Planning content: goals, objectives, resources and timeline.
- 06Groundwork for the Part 3 pre- and post-survey.
From the Part 1 problem to objectives and evaluation
The problem, in one slide
Restate the Part 1 finding briefly as the starting point for the plan.
The intervention
Introduce the Air Quality Flag Program or SBIRT and what it does.
Goals and measurable objectives
State what the presentation is meant to achieve for this audience.
How it would work here
Apply the programme to your community and this organisation.
Implementation requirements
Cover staffing, cost, training and the practical steps to adopt it.
Evaluation
Describe how the pre- and post-survey will measure the objectives.
Finding implementation evidence for your chosen programme
Recommended databases
- The topic-specific Planning Your Presentation Instructions and template
- AirNow and EPA resources, or SAMHSA resources
- PubMed Central
- CINAHL
Search sequence
- 1.Download the instruction document and template for your topic first, because the two tracks diverge here and the template usually encodes the rubric's headings.
- 2.Read the programme's own official material before the research literature, since your audience needs to know what the programme actually is before they can be persuaded it works.
- 3.Search for implementation evidence rather than efficacy evidence, because an organisation leader or a group of RNs is deciding whether it can be run here rather than whether it works in principle.
- 4.Search for barriers to adoption specifically, so the presentation can anticipate the objection the audience will raise rather than being surprised by it in Part 3.
Air Quality Flag Program and SBIRT sources
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
Air Quality Flag Program Main Page
AirNow.gov · 2025
The programme's own source if air quality is your topic: what the flags mean, the daily routine the programme asks of an organisation, and the materials it supplies. An organisation leader will want to know exactly what adopting it costs in daily effort, and this is where that detail comes from rather than from the research literature.
- 02
Provider and Practice Characteristics and Perceived Barriers Associated With Different Levels of Adoption of SBIRT
Journal of Addiction Medicine · 2021
If substance use is your topic, this is the source aimed squarely at your audience. It reports what actually stops clinicians adopting SBIRT, which lets your presentation anticipate the objections three practising RNs will raise instead of presenting the model as though implementation were straightforward.
- 03
Project Lifeline-II: Feasibility of Implementing Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment
Substance Abuse · 2026
A feasibility study, which is the right genre for a planning deliverable: it reports what implementation required rather than whether the intervention works in principle. Useful for the resources and timeline slides, and for setting objectives that a pre- and post-survey could realistically detect.
- 04
Barbershop talk: a hybrid-2 trial examining the effectiveness of a barbershop-placed screening and brief intervention
Trials · 2026
An example of the same screening logic delivered outside a clinic to a specific vulnerable population, which is the shape of this whole project. Cite it when arguing that the intervention can be adapted to your community's setting, and for how such a project defines and measures its outcomes.
Before Direct Care Project Part 2 is submitted
Common mistakes
- Re-presenting Part 1's assessment data instead of planning an intervention.
- Changing topic between Part 1 and Part 2.
- Working from the project overview instead of the topic-specific instructions.
- Building a deck before downloading the supplied template.
- Pitching to classmates rather than to practising RNs or an organisation leader.
- Writing speaker notes that repeat the slide text.
- Putting full paragraphs on slides, which leaves nothing for the notes.
- Setting objectives too vague for a pre- and post-survey to measure.
- Leaving audience recruitment until Part 3, when the check-in falls in Week 5.
- Omitting citations, which belong in the notes rather than crowding the slides.
Submission checklist
- The presentation uses the template supplied for your topic.
- The topic matches Part 1.
- The vulnerable population is the one identified in Part 1.
- The content is a plan, not a restatement of the assessment.
- Objectives are specific enough to be measured.
- The audience is the one your topic requires.
- Speaker notes exist for every content slide.
- Notes carry the evidence and citations, not the slides.
- The pre- and post-survey items map to the stated objectives.
- A named organisation or set of RNs and a date are identified for Part 3.
Use this guide to plan and review your own work. Follow your institution's rules and read our academic-integrity policy.
Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.
Reviewed by
Dr. Nathan Cole
PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.