Managing public opinion and understanding the balance between its influence and your advocacy goals is a delicate matter. It is a task fraught with uncertainty because, as a policy advocate, you must

Discussion: Policy Process and Public Opinion

Managing public opinion and understanding the balance between its influence and your advocacy goals is a delicate matter. It is a task fraught with uncertainty because, as a policy advocate, you must navigate through the territory of politicians, bureaucrats, and lobbyists whose primary goals are to appease and please their constituents.

In this Discussion, you select a social problem that is of interest to you and identify how public opinion influences the process and political approaches involved in addressing that social problem.

Respond to a colleague who has chosen a social problem that is different from the one you selected, addressing the following:

Offer an explanation of how public opinion can be influenced to address the problem identified by your colleague.
Suggest policy advocacy approaches and skills he or she can use to address the problem with political leaders.
Comment on the social justice implications of the approach or approaches you suggested.

The following are the original posts to which responses are needed:

Zan K

RE: Discussion - Week 4

COLLAPSE

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Post by Day 3 a description of the importance of public opinion in addressing the social problem you have selected. How does public opinion influence political approaches to the problem? Explain.

Hunger is a social problem that interest me because it is a major problem affecting all populations. This stems from young children to older adults. Forty million Americans face hunger each and every day (Move For Hunger, n.d.). The public’s opinion is so influential in addressing this social problem, mainly because they are the individuals experiencing it. They know and understand what their needs are and what changes should occur. The public’s opinion influences political approaches to this problem by opening up about their personal view points and experiences. It lends solution to political leaders and those who advocate to make way for change in society.

What policy advocacy approaches and skills can you use to address the problem with political leaders? What are the social justice implications of your approach?

With many service programs in place and policies that govern them, I would advocate to improve them, making better accessibility for all. This could be achieve through lobbying with political leaders such as legislature to pitch ideas. As much as people are starving, there is also food being thrown away by corporations as well. I would advocate for food companies like local grocery stores to donate to local food banks, facilitate community events to bring awareness to those in need, and even visit town-hall meetings to speak up about matters. In hopes of addressing this problem, I would make use of using analytic skills to effectively evaluate and develop a proposal for the problem. In addition, making use of political skills to develop the best strategy, interactional skills for persuading and value-clarifying skills to assist with considerations for ethical principle when it comes to engaging in any type of policy. Policy practitioners must use the four policy skills when taking concrete actions in organizational, community, or legislative setting (Jansson, 2018). Implications for my approach is to end hunger by way of addressing it from various positions such at the organizational level through the improvement of programs, community awareness, and creating policies through legislature that would ensure hunger is not an issue.

References:

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.

Move For Hunger. (n.d.). Hunger facts | Move for hunger. Move for Hunger: Everyone Can Fight Hunger. https://moveforhunger.org/hunger-facts?gclid=CjwKCAjw88v3BRBFEiwApwLevVINjlm_a0MSucqYUxpA0AHann3VR4eou18Q050SVcQ1sWbznH56JBoCHJkQAvD_BwE

Mac B

RE: Discussion - Week 4

COLLAPSE

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The social problem selected:

The social problem that I selected to address is the re-integration of the released person from incarceration in transition back into the community.

Post a description of the importance of public opinion in addressing the social problem you have selected:

The public opinion is the driving force in the perception of the transparency of the community. The community members who have worked, lived, raised children, paid taxes and presented themselves as accountable in the community wish to keep the community at ease and without problem disruption. Understanding the stake-holding within the community and the opinion of the assets of monetary allocations is important as well into what is fed into the community in subjective and objective natures as well. Understanding the opinion of the social problem would help the social worker in the justification process of advocacy for policy reform and community changes with providing objective evidence research as opposed to the subjective emotionally driven policies. Jansson (2018) reports that it is important to understand both sides of the fence in subjectivity and objectivity in the access of defining the social justice as contingent.

How does the public opinion influence political approaches to the problem:

When looking at the public influence for political approaches, there are interest groups that are influential in the legislation. Understanding the interest groups and the legislative points of view are important in the community. With the commitments of the First Step Act and the conversation of rehabilitation within and before incarceration appeared to be the selling point of reducing recidivism rates in providing possible and current inmates with the rehabilitation aspects in relation to pro-social behaviors within the community through required evidence based treatment programming (bop.gov, 2020). As the attempt and plan appears flawless, many of the programs cited were evidence based practices in the reduction of re-offending and coinciding with the reduction of recidivism rates. Many of the stake-holders within the Bureau of Prisons and reformist found this advantageous in the statistics found in reduction in recidivism rates and the opinion of the funding to be aimed at treatments for the treatable offender (bop.gov, 2020).

What policy advocacy approaches and skills can you use to address the problem with political leaders:

According to the Community Toolbox (n.d.) and addressing the gaps in the release of the recently incarcerated person to a community, such as programming and intervention immediacy, Using the SWOT analysis and approaching the strengths of the community, the weaknesses, opportunities within the community and threats to the community, showing an analysis of the gaps and statistical evidence by accessing community records implicating re-offense within that gap period would be beneficial in providing an objective overview of potential management in the gap. Persuasion of the allocating of some correctional state funding policy communications and adjustments to address the gap would be vital in providing significant and community related data.

What are the social justice implications of your approach:

According to the NASW and the social justice within, this gap can create a lack of service in the immediacy for the recently released (2017). Addressing the importance of human relationships in the reintegration into the community is vital in helping guide prosocial behavior and trust as well as create a smooth and quick transition without a lack of recidivism reduction evidence-based programming (2017). Social justice would be created in the protection of the individual in continued rehabilitation as well as the community being secure in the community assurance in its efforts. Addressing state and local policy may be the first step to provide statistically implicated improvements on a federal level as well.

Resources:

Bureau of Prisons: First Step Act. 2020. Retrieved from: https://www.bop.gov/inmates/fsa/overview.jsp

Community Toolbox. (2016). 2. Assessing community needs and resources. Retrieved from https://ctb.ku.edu/en/assessing-community-needs-and-resources

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.

National Association of Social Workers. (2017). NASW code of ethics. Retrieved 2020 from: https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English

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