Questions We Can Help You To Answer
Paper instructions:
Question: Policy Action Bulletins
Write a policy action bulletin on a specific concern that is currently impacting children or families. Model your bulletin after the ones developed by professionals who are members of the Minnesota Council on Family Relations (see the unit readings). Although you will not be able to list questions that arose from a group of professionals at a conference as these bulletins do, develop action questions based on your scholarly information gathering and synthesis. Your content does not have to be formatted as the examples are, but be sure to use headings to separate the sections of your bulletin content. Note: There are many policy briefs posted online; your policy action bulletin will be submitted to Turnitin for an originality report.
(you must use at least two references from the readings to support your answer)
unit reading: Families and Social Policy
INTRODUCTION
Policy, in its broadest definition, includes a set of goals or objectives that are guided by a deliberate and strategic action plan to achieve a set of rational outcomes. Family policies are a set of "political beliefs about how the government should assist families in caring for dependents" (Cherlin, 2008, p. 472).
Policies, like theories, reflect a micro-, macro-, and multilevel approach. Regardless of the policy's focal target, family policies are highly controversial. At the heart of the debate are these questions: How involved should the government be in families' lives? Should family be a private or public domain? This debate becomes even more heated as issues of gender roles, race, class, sexual orientation, and ethnicity often emerge. As you have seen in the previous units, gay and lesbian families argue that government policies in the United States should recognize gay marriages. At the heart of this debate is the question: who makes up a family, and who should determine the definition of family?
How family policies are formulated depends on the theoretical perspective one takes regarding policy development. The first is a rational model, which assumes that policymaking is rational. In other words, you can identify all the goals and objectives of a particular social problem and then identify all the alternative options to address the problem. All the consequences of the choices are known, and the decision is made on the basis of achieving the greatest good with the least harm. Many critics assert that the rational model is too simplistic and linear to serve as a model for studies of a dynamic, multilevel, and highly complex reality (Hyman, Wadsworth & Alexander, 1991).
Another policy model is incrementalism. This policy model has been called the science of muddling through. It describes the benefits of changing the status quo only by small, incremental steps. Critics have raised concerns that an incremental approach minimizes social innovations (Bendor, 1995).
The third model for policy formulation is the value criteria model of policymaking. It argues that all social policies are value-laden and reflect broad societal values (Hyman, Wadsworth & Alexander, 1991). The question becomes: who selects the values to guide the policy?
In terms of application to family issues specifically, in the article by Hong, Algood, Chiu, and Lee (2011), the authors use an early form of Bronfenbrenner's ecological model, with its five ecological systems, to analyze kinship foster care.
Dr. Karen Bogenschneider is one of the premier family policy researchers in the United States. In their decade review in the Journal of Marriage and the Family, Bogenschneider and Corbett (2010) elaborate upon this distinction between policymaking in general versus family policy and a family perspective in policymaking. They state, "Intuitively accepting the importance of healthy families to a strong and vital society is one thing; it is quite another to consciously and systematically place families at the center of research and policy" (p. 788).
Eshleman and Bulcroft (2010) point out that three types of research are needed to support effective family policy:
Research to determine what type of policy is needed.
Research to evaluate an existing program or policy.
Research to assess the impact and consequences of a program or policy beyond its specific intent.
As the composition of families continues to reflect social trends and pressures, the need for families to adjust to the demands of change will continue. How the social context supports these changes while also supporting families will ultimately be reflected in family policies.
