RE: SOCW6361- Discussion: Analyses of Social Problems in Case Studies (WK3)

As a social worker, often you need to use your policy advocacy skills to ensure that your clients are receiving the services that they need. Although you may tend to think of policy advocacy skills as separate from your clinical social work skills, they are very similar.

Think of the skills that you would use in working with a client such as Jake Levy. How could you apply these skills to policy advocacy? How will you use these skills to identify the policy and social problems that are impacting these families?

In this week’s Discussion, you will continue to follow the Levy, Bradley, Petrakis, and Cortez families to start the process of policy advocacy.

In this Discussion, select one of the four integrated videos and identify the problems experienced by the client(s).

Post your responses to the following: (Use subheadings and 1 additional APA peer reviewed reference and be detailed in response.) (Jake Levy is client. Use sub-heading, be detailed in response and use 1 additional APA reference)

• Who is defining the problem?
• What values are reflected in this definition of the problem?
• What is being omitted in this definition?
• What other problems do you see that are not being acknowledged?

Reference

Jansson, B. S. (2018). Becoming an effective policy advocate: From policy practice to social justice. (8th ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning Series.

• Chapter 7, “Analyzing Problems in the First Step of Policy Analysis” (pp. 204-243)

Laureate Education. (Producer). (2013). Levy (Episode 7 of 42) [Video file]. In Sessions. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

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Identification of a Social Problem

As an astute social worker and professional policy advocate, you must be adept at identifying social problems that exist in your community or in an agency or organization with which you are acquainted.

In this assignment, identifying and describing a current social problem.

Address the following items within your group discussion:

• Describe a current social problem. How might this problem be incongruent with social work values/ethics?
• How/when has this problem been identified historically, and what were the actions taken to address this concern?
• How have the groups affected by this concern changed over time?

Reference

Jansson, B. S. (2018). Becoming an effective policy advocate: From policy practice to social justice. (8th ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning Series.

• Chapter 7, “Analyzing Problems in the First Step of Policy Analysis” (pp. 204-243)

Midgley, J., & Livemore, M. M.(Eds). (2008). Te handbook of social policy (2^nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Chapter 14, “Critical Social Policy” (pp. 215-235) (PDF)