In your reading for this week, you meet Jose and Iris, two individuals who are in situations that require assistance and guidance from a professional social worker and policy advocate. In this Discuss

Discussion: Policy Proposals

In your reading for this week, you meet Jose and Iris, two individuals who are in situations that require assistance and guidance from a professional social worker and policy advocate.

In this Discussion, create a policy proposal that will impact the situations faced by either Jose or Iris. Describe the trade-offs you used to develop your proposal.

Respond to colleague who selected the Iris case:

Provide another approach to address the identified problem.
What is the responsibility of the social workers working with Iris to advocate for a change in the social policy?

Be sure to support your post with specific references to this week's resources. If you are using additional articles, be sure to provide full APA-formatted citations for your references.

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.

Chapter 8, "Placing Policy Proposals in Policy Briefs in the Second, Third, and Fourth Steps of Policy Analysis” (pp. 246-283)

Plummer, S.-B, Makris, S., Brocksen S. (Eds.). (2014). Social work case studies: Concentration year.Baltimore, MD: Laureate International Universities Publishing. [Vital Source e-reader].

"Working with Clients with Addictions: The Case of Jose" (pp. 65–68)
"Working with the Aging: The Case of Iris" (pp. 68–69)

Stuart, P. H. (1999). Linking clients and policy: Social work’s distinctive contribution. Social Work, 44(4), 335–347

Midgley, J., & Livermore, M. M. (Eds.) (2008). The handbook of social policy (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Chapter 6: "The Impact of Social Policy" (pp. 83–100) (PDF)

Working With the Aging: The Case of Iris

Iris is a 78-year-old, divorced, Caucasian female who lives alone in a mid-sized Southern city. Her main sources of income are a pension from her more than 35 years of work as an elementary school teacher and monthly Social Security retirement benefits. Iris has no children but was married for 34 years. Two years ago her husband, completely to the surprise of Iris, announced that he wanted an immediate divorce and was planning to marry a much younger woman he had met just a few months earlier.

Within 2 years of her divorce, Iris started noticing increasing challenges with her mobility. One day she fell while carrying groceries and had to be hospitalized overnight for an injured knee. To help meet Iris’ needs during her convalescent period, the local Older Adults Services Agency (OASA) arranged for Iris to receive daily Meals on Wheels deliveries, and her health plan arranged for visiting nurses to see her once every 2 weeks. Within about 3 months, Iris recovered to the extent that she could again drive short distances and walk with the assistance of a cane.

Iris was determined to fully regain her independence, but she was rapidly approaching the age of 80 and had no family and few friends who could assist her. She nevertheless insisted on continuing to drive longer distances even though her driving skills were significantly impaired. Over the course of a 3-week period, Iris was involved in three vehicle accidents, one in someone’s driveway, one near her home, and the last one in the parking lot of her local grocery store. The first two incidents were fairly minor fender benders, but the last accident was much more serious. When parking and getting out of her car, Iris neglected to place the vehicle in park and the car rolled backward, with the open door striking Iris and one of the vehicle’s tires running over her right foot.

Iris was severely injured and was hospitalized for more than 2 weeks. The local police suspended Iris’ driver’s license, and she agreed to no longer drive. The hospital social worker arranged for Iris to stay for 4 weeks at a licensed long-term care facility upon discharge. After her stay there, staff at the OASA found a moderately priced assisted living facility where Iris could live.

Iris is now living in the new facility, which includes about two dozen other older residents. She continues to tell the staff at the home and her OASA social worker that she is depressed, badly misses her independence, and wishes that she could go back to driving and traveling. Because Iris still has difficulty even getting back and forth to the bathroom and dining room, however, the prospects for this currently appear dim.

Original Colleague Posts:

Mar Bug

RE: Discussion - Week 6

COLLAPSE

Top of Form

Brief summary of the policy proposal and its purpose that you created based on either Jose's or Iris's situation and the trade-offs you used to develop your proposal.

Policy advocates often have options when proposing policy. Policy advocates often identify options, select and weigh criteria, rank options and make a matrix to help with decision making (Jansson,2018). It is rare that a policy analyst will have only one policy approach. Select and weigh criteria allows advocates to have criteria for the policy such economic criteria, feasibility criteria and externalities criteria. These criteria are weighed and compared to see which option is best. The criteria help the policy meet certain standards.

In the case of Iris policy advocates should have options for older adults to have options about their living arrangements and care. The policy advocate could consider other programs that put services into the home such as HCBS (home and community-based services) such as homemaker and personal care services, some programs even pay for companion services. These programs still give older adults their independence within their own home and is cheaper than the cost of living in assistant living facilities or nursing homes. Another option would be to add more elderly mental health services to address things they may dealing with such as decline in health, loss of independence and social isolation. These options are cost effective would save money on assisted living or nursing homes which are expensive.

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.

Plummer, S.-B, Makris, S., Brocksen S. (Eds.). (2014). Social work case studies: Concentration year.Baltimore, MD: Laureate International Universities Publishing. [Vital Source e-reader]. "Working with Clients with Addictions: The Case of Jose" (pp. 65–68)

Keg Suger

RE: Discussion - Week 6

COLLAPSE

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In the case of Iris, she is a 78-year old female who has lost her independence as she has aged. She does not have any family to help her, and her husband of 34 years wanted an immediate divorce. Iris was then later involved in an accident involving a car in which she was driving and forgot to place the car in park. The car then rolled onto her foot and caused a 2 week stay in the hospital, and upon discharge, she moved into an assisted living facility and had her driver’s license suspended (Plummer, Makris & Brocksen, 2014, p. 90)

The policy that should be enacted for not only Iris, but all members within the elderly community, is to have resources, such as transportation, available to individuals who are no longer able to provide their own transportation due to age or other condition that is free of charge. This will allow for a larger sense of freedom for individuals of the elderly community in which they are able to still do activities that allow them to be independent, even if they are not able to drive themselves they can still run errands or attend social events that they may not otherwise be able to attend.

According to Jansson (2018), “The term trade-off refers to assessing the competitive advantages of policy options.” The policy practitioner must then determine or discover which option of a policy is able to hold the most weight or score the highest net score based on the criteria that are presented (p. 272). An advantage of having this policy put into place for individuals who are elderly is that it will allow them to be more social. According to Loneliness and Social Isolation Linked to Serious Health Conditions (2020), elderly individuals who are socially isolated or lonely have an increased risk of many health conditions as well as an increased risk of premature death from all health causes (p. 4). This could prove to be an asset in allowing elderly individuals increased freedom as well as a decrease in loneliness, which, in turn, could be a trade-off for individuals of the elderly populations having an increased life span as well as a decrease in many different illnesses. This, in turn, could be a trade-off from having increased illness of the elderly population or loss of freedom or self-worth due to not being independent, as well as adding another level of safety as elderly individuals will not have to physically drive themselves where they may be at risk to not only themselves, but other drivers as well.

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.

Loneliness and Social Isolation Linked to Serious Health Conditions. (2020, May 26). Retrieved July 09, 2020, from https://www.cdc.gov/aging/publications/features/lonely-older-adults.html

Plummer, S.-B, Makris, S., Brocksen S. (Eds.). (2014). Social work case studies: Concentration year.Baltimore, MD: Laureate International Universities Publishing. [Vital Source e-reader].

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