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
Discussion: Analyses of Social Problems in Case Studies
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).
Respond to a colleague who chose a case different from yours by addressing the following:
Describe another way the identified problem can be defined.
What policy advocacy skills do you think should be used to address the identified problem?
What makes a social problem a social work problem?
The following are the original Posts to which responses are needed:
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Patrakis Family
COLLAPSE
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Who is defining the problem?
In the Petrakis case, the social work intern has defined the problem as elder abuse and the issue in which elder abuse cases within Adult Protective Services (APS) are closed quickly with what seems to be minimal investigation (Laureate Education, 2013). The intern is advocating for additional funding for APS to process claims more effectively and for the creation of forensic centers to enhance knowledge of elder abuse causes, prevention, etc. (2013). Therefore, part of the problem is lack of funding. In fact, there is a major descrepency between the large amounts of state and federal fudnign being used for Child Protective Services, but “to this day, the federal government does not provide formula grants to states to support APS” (Greenlee, 2020). In defining the problem, the intern is supported by her supervisor.
What values are reflected in this definition of the problem?
One of the values that the social work intern has expressed by defining the problem of elder abuse is the need to protect our elders, as she specifically relates it to wanting to protect her own grandparents (2013). They also identify that due to the baby boomer generation, there is a great need for social workers advocating for the elderly since there will be an overwhelming number of elderly individuals needing services at the same time. She also expresses the values of commitment to social justice by her desire to see the grandson, Alex, be caught and penalized for taking advantage of his grandmother (Jannson, 2018).
What is being omitted in this definition?
One of the things briefly mentioned in the video but isn’t necessarily addressed in the definition of the problem is that APS “isn’t the police” (2013). It seems that by the individual, Alex, skipping town, he was able to dodge further investigation, so perhaps there needs to be more collaboration with police departments in tracking elder abuse and enforcing laws protecting elders.
What other problems do you see that are not being acknowledged?
It is important to remember that “problems are caused by physiological, personal, familial, community, and society factors” (2018). The social worker in the video has focused primarily on the community and societal problems regarding funding for prevention programs and APS funding to conduct more thorough investigations. One of the problems that wasn’t acknowledged in the video, is that the grandson was battling with an addiction which needed to be addressed. It’s important the social worker recognizes that the root of this particular case of elder abuse stemmed from an addiction and that the family unit needs to be treated as an entirety to ensure that the grandmother has the supports she needs without being taken advantage of.
Laureate Education. (Producer). (2013). Petrakis (Episode 6 of 42) [Video file]. In Sessions. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
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.
Greenlee, K. (2020). Our national shame: Little to no funding for elder abuse prevention and response. Generations, 44(1), 117-123.
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Keeg S
RE: Discussion - Week 3
COLLAPSE
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In the video that further explains the case of Tiffani Bradley, the social worker is expressing what is perceived as great news to Tiffani in the form of the criminal charges of prostitution being dropped against her by the state. They state they reside in recently passed a safe harbor law that protects minors that are forced into exploitation and are instead offered and administered help and rehabilitation. Tiffany, however, is perceived to not be as enthusiastic about this news as her social worker is, and Tiffani defines the problem of her safety. Her pimp has recently been arrested for criminal acts and Tiffani is worried that he will think that she “ratted him out” in order to cut a deal and have the charges dropped against her. She is worried for her safety once she is released from the court system and her social worker is quick to address the problem with suggesting getting her some form of police protection once she is out in order to keep her as safe as possible from any threats or harm (Laureate Education, 2013).
Out of all of the principles and values that were reflected in this definition of the problem, it is apparent that three core values stand out the most. The first value that is reflected in the definition of the problem is the value of dignity and worth of the person. When Tiffani expresses her concern for her safety given the circumstances, the social responded to her in a respectful, careful manner and was quick to try to implement resolve with any conflicts between the client and the environment. Another value that was expressed in the definition of the problem was the value of social justice. When the problem was defined by Tiffani, the social worker made readily available a valuable resource for her to utilize in order to help her stay safe in the face of danger due to a worry that she might be harmed or oppressed for a perceived action. Finally, a value that was also reflected in the definition of the problem was the value of service (National Association of Social Workers, 2017) (Laureate Education, 2013).
According to Jansson (2018), policy makers and analyses would need to seek out information if an option for a policy would actually be effective for a problem it is addressing and if it would even be a plausible option due to a high demand for potentially low resources (Jansson, 2018, p. 208). In this, something that is being omitted from the definition is if constant police protection for Tiffani is a viable option for her to have in order to ensure her safety. Tiffani claims that she did not name any names in her case and she is worried that her former pimp will think she “snitched” on him since he got arrested at the same time she is being released. While the safe harbor act that was passed in her state made it so that she was not being charged as a criminal and was being offered rehabilitation and help in “getting off the streets,” it is never mentioned what assistance this policy provides in terms of what happens to the client after this period of help and what resources, even some examples, they have access to (Laureate Education, 2013). The social worker suggests getting Tiffani police protection immediately, but for how long will this protection go on for? Will Tiffani’s case be used in the charges against her former pimp? Will she have to testify? What protections are in place for these minors who have been exploited against those who exploited them? Answers to these aspects that have been omitted in the definition of the problem would need to be addressed in order to fully help the client and anyone who falls under this safe harbor act.
As was stated earlier, there are some issues that arise with the information that is given in the video about the continuation of the case of Tiffani. According to Community Toolbox (n.d), community members and those who have a vested interest in a policy that is being created that are not the policymakers themselves often provide important insights and aspects that the policymakers might have overlooked due to creating the policy in a vacuum that only includes their personal understandings of certain issues (Community Toolbox, n.d.). In this, it means that multiple points of view are a valuable resource to have when creating a policy, especially from those who might have experienced or are experiencing factors of the policy first-hand. With these insights, the safe harbor act that was mentioned in the Bradley video might be better defined with relations to what sort of protections are available to minors who are being cared for under this policy and making known the services and resources they have available to them during and after this time of assistance. Having community members and individuals who have experienced factors like these, such as possibly being exploited, could give policymakers the valuable insight of how these children might be feeling, what they might be thinking, and what their actions and lives might be like currently and what resources and services can be offered to them in order to help out the clients as best as the social workers possibly can.
References:
Community Toolbox. (n.d). Chapter 5 Section 3: Social planning and policy Change. Retrieved from http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/promotion-strategies/social-planning-policy-change/main
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.
Laureate Education. (Producer). (2013). Bradley (Episode 7 of 42) [Video file]. In Sessions. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
National Association of Social Workers (NASW). (2017). Code of ethics. Retrieved from https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English
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