Assignment 1: Practicing Policy Review
Assignment 1: Practicing Policy Review
For your Social Change Project, due as your Final Assignment in Week 10, you will propose policy alternatives that address the social problem you selected for study in Week 2. Before you search for, select, and review policies that already exist for your social problem—and before you propose alternatives based on your findings—it will help to practice the skills of policy review so you can navigate the scope of a policy, narrow your focus, and identify critical areas that relate to your selected social problem.
For this Assignment, you will review a policy that has been selected for you and consider how the policy addresses or does not address the social problem that inspired it.
To Prepare:
Review Chapter 7 of the Jansson text as needed.
Review the assigned Georgia voting policy, Election Integrity Act of 2021, from the Learning Resources this week.
You will use this policy to familiarize yourself with the structure of policy documents and the process for policy analysis—an important foundation before you begin your own policy search. Next week, you will select a local or state policy related to the social problem you identified.
Review the Policy Selection Process document in the Learning Resources this week. This document outlines the search for and selection of the Election Integrity Act of 2021—you will need to follow a similar process for your own region or state to complete your Assignment next week.
Identify the social problem(s) addressed in the policy.
Select an excerpt from the policy that you would change—this could be a small change, like an addition, or a large change, like a complete revision or removal—to better alleviate the social problem.
By Day 7
Submit a 2- to 3-page paper that addresses the following:
Describe the social problem(s) addressed in the policy.
Which areas in the policy indicated the social problem(s) to you?
Why, as a social worker, should you be concerned with the problem(s)?
Are there other problem(s) not directly identified that might be impacted, positively or adversely, by the policy?
Which population(s) is/are impacted by the problem?
What is the relationship between the social problem(s) and the population(s)? In other words, why are some people impacted by the problem(s) when others are not?
How is/are the population(s) taken into consideration in the policy?
Summarize the excerpt from the policy that you identified as needing change.
What are the strengths of this excerpt in helping to alleviate the social problem? If you do not see any strengths, that is okay—explain why.
What are the limitations of this excerpt in helping to alleviate the social problem(s) for the population(s)?
What specific changes would you make to the excerpt to alleviate the social problem(s) for the population(s)? You can describe the changes or quote direct policy language you would change.
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