BRYN MAWR COLLEGE

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK AND SOCIAL RESEARCH

 

Policy Practice and Advocacy II

(#202)

 

2007 – 2008                                                                           

Spring Semester

 

Course Description

Policy Practice and Advocacy II explores the skills used by policy advocates in developing social policies and programs. Emphasis is on organizational and policy analysis, program development, planning, evaluation, service coordination and management.  Students are challenged to consider their skill development in relation to the political context within which they are deployed.  Consequently, there is a focus on the political dimensions of policy analysis, especially in terms of how policy issues are framed and articulated in policy discourse – all for the purpose of exposing the implications for action. 

Case studies, examples from the field, and learning from successful advocates will be featured in the class so students can look to models for applying specific skills in policy advocacy arenas. An important feature of this course is the emphasis on developing these skills while taking into account the political context in which they are deployed.  An important goal of the course is to learn how to participate in policy discourses critically so as to become a better policy advocate.  Consequently, the issues examined focus on the political dimensions of policy analysis, especially in terms of how policy issues are framed, narrated and articulated in policy discourse.

 

Policy Practice and Advocacy II is the final course in the three-semester sequence for the concentration.  This course builds on the knowledge and skills addressed in Policy Practice and Advocacy I, which in turn builds on the Community Practice course – the foundation course of the macro-practice concentration. 

 

Each course in the Policy and Practice concentration integrates students’ field placement experiences to emphasize learning by doing, using case studies and examples from the field to building a rich perspective on policy advocacy as an important form of social work that involves the development of specific skills for producing social change.

 

Course Objectives

 

This course will enable students to:  

  1. demonstrate an understanding of the role of critical, reflective social welfare policy advocacy can play for addressing human needs;

 

  1. apply knowledge of the range of factors that influence social policy and program development including political realities, structures of power, processes of political conflict, systems of resource allocation, organizational and agency relationships and practices; 

 

  1. apply constructionists perspectives to understand how policy is framed, developed and implemented;

 

  1. demonstrate critical thinking skills to examine practice perspectives and to enhance policy practice;  

 

  1. demonstrate the ability to form a positive working relationship with clients of relevant public policies and the associated mastery of the principles and techniques associated with effective communication, including interviewing and working with groups;

 

  1. develop a critical awareness of how dominant societal discourses regarding science, knowledge and truth can influence policy analysis and evaluation;

 

  1. demonstrate an understanding of the ways in which race, color, national and ethnic origin, class, sexual orientation, physical ability, gender, and age affect their work with individuals, communities and organizations, as well as their efforts to promote policy change; 

 

  1. draw from the NASW Code of Ethics to guide their policy practice and to address ethical dilemmas and value conflicts;

 

  1. understand, critique and think about how to utilize in politically thoughtful ways accepted practice evaluation methods to routinely assess one’s own policy-related practice;

 

Class Policies


Students are expected to attend all class sessions. Please notify the instructor in advance if you have to miss a class. More than 3 unexcused absences will result in a grade of Unsatisfactory for this course.
 
Students are expected to submit written assignments on time. The instructor should be notified in advance if the student expects to miss an assignment due date.

 

Use APA guidelines (5th ed., 2001) for citing all references.

 
Students are expected to have read all required reading assignments in advance and come to class prepared to discuss and critically appraise these materials.

 

Class will begin and end on time with a short break.
 
Cell phones and beepers must be turned off during class sessions.
 
Please review orientation materials on ethics in social work and the academe, especially those regarding plagiarism.

Students who think they may need accommodations because of a disability are encouraged to meet with their Instructor, early in the semester.  As soon as possible, students should also contact the Coordinator of Access Services, at 610-526-7351 in Canwyll House, to verify their eligibility for reasonable accommodations.

 

Course Assignments

Assignment #1: Policy Analysis Paper

Due: Week 7

Objectives: learn basic policy analysis skills, apply them to a specific policy issue, reflect critically on the politics of policy analysis

 

Analyze a specific social welfare or social work related policy, in terms of how it got framed, narrated and articulated in policy discourse. Examine the role of some one or more than one aspect of narrative in the development, implementation and evaluation of the policy. Give special attention to how that aspect or aspects of narrative helped make the policy be seen as feasible and how narrative affected the way people came to judge the policy, if possible for each stage in its development: before, during and, after it went into effect. 

 

This assignment call for an analysis that contrasts the dominant approach to policy analysis with a more political approach that emphasizes the political character of everything involved with policymaking—formulation, implementation, and evaluation.

 

Therefore, your job in this assignment is to choose any social welfare or social work related policy and show how politics is embedded in the policy, its implementation and even the standards and statistics used to evaluate it. 

 

Provide good detail on all these aspects of the policy and do so in a way that demonstrates how political biases are built into the policy, its implementation, and the evaluative standards and related statistics.

 

Conclude by suggesting how your analysis empowers advocates to address these biases either by supporting them, opposing them, or offering alternatives in order to promote better policy in this area and further the cause of social justice. Be sure to show how your Stone-type analysis enables you to do this.

 

Papers should be 7-9 pages, typewritten double-spaced with a title page that, as I have always ask, has an interesting title. It’s really important!

 

Assignment #2: Policy/Program Evaluation

Due: One week after class ends

Objectives: learn basic program evaluation skills, apply them to a specific program, reflect critically on the politics of program evaluation

 

Provide an evaluation of the implementation of a public policy or a specific program related to a policy area. This is commonly called a program evaluation. You can focus on any type of program evaluation you wish to, such as a process, impact, or cost-benefit evaluation (the latter is often called a program evaluation when it is really just one type). You can offer a combination of all types. The choice is entirely up to you.

 

Your evaluation can rely on existing evaluations. If there are none for your program, then provide an analysis of what you think would be a good evaluation for that program.

 

In addition to your evaluation, provide an assessment of the idea of using quantitative measures for evaluating social welfare programs. Also, discuss whether or not performance measurement would improve the implementation of the policy you are evaluating, why or why not and what measures or benchmarks, qualitative or quantitative, would help make for implementation that would lead to a better program.

 

Conclude by suggesting how your evaluation empowers clients to address their concerns about the program in question.

 

Papers should be 7-9 pages, typewritten double-spaced with a separate title page that, as I always ask, has an interesting title.

 

Required Texts:

 

Bardach, E. (2004). A practical guide for policy analysis: The eightfold path to more effective problem solving. Washington, DC: CQ Press.

 

Stone, D. (2002). Policy paradox: The art of political decisionmaking. New York: W.W. Norton.

 

Mintron, M. (2003). People skills for policy analysis. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

 

Course Outline

 

1/22        Introduction

   Introductions to course and each other, overview of course, expectations, etc.                                                                                                                      

1/29        Policy Analysis: Nuts and Bolts

               Introduction to policy analysis, conventional approach, the rational model

 

               Bardach, Practical guide to policy analysis

 

2/5          Policy Analysis Reconsidered: Narrative, Framing and Metaphors

How are the very terms of analysis political and need to be examined from a political point of view if one is going to be an effective policy advocate

 

Lakoff, G. (2004). Don’t think like an elephant: Know our values and frame the debate. Chelsea Green Publishing.

  

   http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3114412735990235786

 

2/12        What Needs to Change Narratives or Institutions?

               Is it all about framing? Or is there more to the politics of policymaking?

              

               http://sociology.berkeley.edu/reich_videos/reich_forum.htm

 

Lens, V. Advocacy and argumentation in the public arena: A guide for social workers. Social Work 50, 3: 231-39.

 

2/19        The Politics of Policy Analysis: Political Rationality vs. Economic Rationality

Initial consideration of the political biases inherent in the conventional approach, the politics of the rational model

 

   Stone, Policy paradox, Introduction, c.1-5

              

               Policy Analysis Assigned

 

2/26        Social Welfare Policy Analysis: Problems as Political Constructions

               How do numbers operate like narratives to frame the analysis of policy in politically questionable ways, similar problems with other features of policy   

               analysis are discussed

 

               Stone, c. 6-10

 

3/4          Social Welfare Policy Analysis: Solutions as Political Constructions    

               Consideration of how solutions precede problems, and other ironies of policy analysis once we see this activity from a political point of view

 

               Stone, c. 11-15

                

               Policy Analysis Due

               Policy Evaluation Assigned

 

3/11        Spring Break

 

3/19        Policy Trip

 

3/26        People Skills in Policy Analysis

               Policy analysis as a social activity, how to relate to others in order to get policies analyzed in politically effective ways

 

               Mintron, People skills in policy analysis, c. 1-5

                

4/1          Policy Analysis as Outreach and Networking

               Consideration of specific activities associated with policy analysis as a social activity                          

 

               Mintron, c. 6-11

 

4/8          Policy Implementation in the Era of the New Public Management

Carrying out policy today: devolution, privatization, contracting, performance measurement as the cutting edge developments in policy implementation

 

Fording, R. Schram, S. F. and Soss, J. (2006). The bottom line, the business model and the bogey: Performance management, sanctions and the brave new world of welfare-to-work in Florida. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 31-September 3. 

 

4/15        Program, Process and Impact Evaluation for Social Welfare Programs

   The different types of program evaluation

 

   The Lewin Group (1999). An evaluability assessment of responsible fatherhood programs: Final report, Fatherhood Initiative.     

 

4/22        Building an Evaluation Culture in Agencies

               Who takes program evaluation seriously? What does that mean? Learning to be interested but also suspicious of different types of evaluation

 

Program evaluation: An evaluation culture and collaborative partnerships help build agency capacity (2003). Washington, DC: General Accounting Office.

 

4/29        Budgeting for Results in Social Welfare Agencies

               How budgeting is changing to be more performance-based as well, and what are some of the challenges in doing this type of budgeting

 

               http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/ASPA/UNPAN000526. pdf

 

               http://www.nonprofitsassistancefund.org/clientuploads/MNAF/ArticlesPublications/BudgetingProcess.pdf

 

               http://www.wcnwebsite.org/practices/financial.htm

 

               http://nonprofitconsultant.blogspot.com/2006/10/pressing-our-buttons.html

 

5/6          Policy Evaluation Due