The Policy-Based Profession: An Introduction to Social Welfare Policy Analysis for Social Workers

by Philip R. Popple

Process analysis is less concerned with policy content than with how a policy comes into being. The focus of this analytic approach is on the interactions of the many political actors, which include public officials, bureaucrats, media, professional associations, and special interest groups representing those likely to be affected either positively or negatively by a p...

do the child no harm and do not embarrass the agency.”

The result of all these forces was a piece of legislation that did not break significant new ground in dealing with the problem of children who need substitute care.

If there is a theme that describes social welfare policy in recent years, it is increasing skepticism. Voters, elected representatives, bureaucrats, and academics have all ceased to assume that social welfare pro...

result is a demand for evaluation of all aspects of socia...

evaluation is intended to...

may judge a policy’s logical consistency, empirically evaluate its effectiveness and efficiency, or a...

Logical evaluation is similar to content analysis in looking at the content of a social ...

goes beyond content analysis, however, by assessing a policy’s internal r...

Social welfare policies are created to solve pressing social problems, and in so doing they expend large sums of money. Thus, it is natural to demand a rigorous, databased evaluation of whether policies achieve their intended goals and at what cost.

generally two parts to quantitative evaluations: effectiveness (sometimes called outcome) evaluations and efficiency (sometimes called cost-effectiveness) evaluations.

The most common type of evaluations are ex post facto evaluations of programs that are set up and operating at the time researchers are brought in to a...

culture-of-poverty...

also process evaluations. Here, instead of reporting their conclusions at the end of the study, the evaluators report findings to the program managers and staff as they go along. This allows adjustments in the program immediately.

less common type of evaluation is the policy experiment. In this type of evaluation, research questions and hypotheses are developed and a program to test them is designed following generally accepted social science criteria.

All types of policy analysis discussed thus far are, at least theoretically, value-free.

social welfare policy is heavily value laden. The issues that social welfare policy deals with are, at their core, issues of good and bad, right and wrong, should and shouldn’t. Therefore, ethical evaluation is a common and important type of social welfare policy analysis. Because there are sharp differences between value systems, ethical policy evaluations are often controversial.

none of the methods we have described actually exists in pure form in the real world. Rather, they are what sociologists refer to as ideal types.

we have artificially separated them and described what they would look like in pure form if such a form existed.

most policy analyses contain elements from se...

Good policy analysis almost always begins with solid description and historical analysis; always is based on the best empirical data available; and then proceeds to focus on logic, efficiency, effectiveness, or ethics...

policy analysts consider themselves to be social scientists and what t...

generally employ conventional methods of social science, beginning with formulating the problem and proceeding to stating the hypotheses, developing data collection procedures, collecting and analyzing data, ...

important to understand that there are limits to the degree that conclusive knowledge can be obtained...

analysis cannot provide conclusive answers to po...

the mind at its best simply cannot grasp the complex...

we must recognize that policy analysis is as much an art as it is a science.

synonymous with creativity.

thought exper...

illustrates, thought experiments, perhaps even more than other forms of policy analysis, are heavily inf luenced by the political perspective of the analyst.

impact of those policy analyses is due more to their art than to their science.

Policy analysis—whether conducted using rigorous, scientific methodology or more as an art—is, in the final analysis, political.

becomes part of the play of power, a tool of persuasion.

partisan policy a...

effective policy analysts realize that their analysis will be used i...

target it to people or groups of people they wish...

done by taking the values of the group or person to be inf luenced and analyzing the policy to show how t...

Policy analysis, be it art or science, is used as one of a number of tools of persuasion ...

When you begin to conduct your own practitioner policy analysis using the methods described in the following chapters, you will be relying heavily on th...

The Framework Applied

Regardless of how focused on individual practice a social worker is, he or she is often sharply brought back to the realization that practice occurs within a policy context and that practitioners will experience problems and provide inadequate services if they do not understand this context.

After four years I’m beginning to realize that there is a lot about my job that I simply don’t understand.

Also, I’m really tired of people buttonholing me at a party, asking my opinion about this or that welfare program, and then looking at me like I’m some sort of a fool because I don’t know much, if anything, about it.

but I really worry about profit goals interfering with treatment goals.

every client referred to their clinics is assessed as needing twenty-one days of inpatient treatment, no more and no less. The reason for this is, of course, that twenty-one days is generally the maximum that most insurance plans will cover for this type of thing.

say, “You’re fully licensed, aren’t you? Then what...

When I told the senator about my job, the senator said, “Tell me, Bill, do you believe in the philosophy that seems to be dominant now in your department that it is nearly always best to leave a child with the natural parents? This seems unconscionable to me and many of my fellow legislators. Parents who do some of these things to their kids should lose their right to be parents. Surely we can do better by this state’s kids than to leave them in unwholesome and often dangerous home environments. All this stuff about family preservation seems to me to be so much liberal pap designed to mask the unpleasant fact that evil does exist, is irreparable, and is present in many of these parents.” Fortunately, we were interrupted before I could reply because I was stunned. I work in the Families First unit and believe in it. But I feel I should write the senator a letter explaining the approach and correcting his misrepresentations. However, I’m really not sure where to start.

REALLY CURIOUS ABOUT THIS ONE!!! BRING UP IF POSSIBLE!!!

I spend a lot of time processing these folks’ feelings, but I really wish I could give them more concrete information on how real these threats to their security are. I suspect that some of the rumors are just that—rumors. However, some may be real and I feel a responsibility to separate facts from rumors so we could begin to develop strategies to deal with the true threats.

all involve social work practitioners who find themselves in the position, whether they would describe it this way or not, of needing to conduct a policy analysis.

The first thing most social workers who find themselves in this situation will do is go online to look up policy analyses in...