Class Descriptions

Social Policy Development and Enactment

SW671

Course Description

This course will review the overall design of human service systems, how to plan for and design such systems, how to develop the legislative mandates and regulations that operationalize these designs, and how to facilitate their formal enactment. Students will learn the analytic skills associated with the development of policies that give specification to human service systems, as well as the more interactional skills associated with facilitating the enactment of these policies.

Objectives

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

1. Use the major analytic tools most commonly used to assess and evaluate complex systems of human and social services. (Practice Behaviors 3.SPE, 6.SPE, 10.b.SPE, 10.d.SPE)
2. Use interactional tools and techniques for facilitating group process and decision making. (Practice Behaviors 5.SPE, 10.a.SPE)
3. Design a procedure for reviewing and assessing a social service system that encompasses a wide variety of separately mandated programs. (Practice Behaviors 4.SPE, 10.b.SPE)
4. Develop and evaluate a reasonable set of options (policy recommendations) for changing a particular service system. (Practice Behaviors 9.SPE, 10.d.SPE)
5. Design and implement a preliminary political strategy for facilitating enactment of the preferred option. (Practice Behavior 10.c.SPE)
6. Organize and prepare different types of policy documents and/or policy recommendations. (Practice Behaviors 3.SPE, 10.c.SPE)
7. Discuss the effect of individual positionalities on policy development and their influence across system levels. (Practice Behavior 4.SPE)
8. Discuss typical ethical concerns related to social policy development and enactment. (Practice Behaviors 1.SPE, 2.SPE)

Design

This course will include lecture and discussion with papers, student projects, and videotaped student presentations.