Assignment Paper

Students are to develop a broad outline of a piece of legislation that addresses a social problem they are
interested in. Students will also create a short presentation of their piece of legislation.
Students should:
Define the social problem that the legislation will address, such as its nature, scope, prevalence, history,
variability, and causation (the problem-defining task).
Using some ethical concepts drawn from Chapter Two of Jansson’s text, students should identify some
normative positions about the kinds of resources or interventions that they would prefer that society would
develop. Also discuss some political and economic realities that they would likely confront in the legislative
process. Throughout this assignment, students will need to balance their view about the ideal or preferred
legislation that they would want with possible compromises that would need to be made to give its
legislation “a fighting chance” of being enacted.
Brainstorm the broad outlines of a piece of legislation to be enacted by a specific legislature of governing
body, whether at the federal, state, or local level. Students should use the seven recurring policy issues
identified in Chapter Eight as a springboard for developing the outlines of their legislative proposal.
Students should discuss here:
The mission, or implicit and explicit intent, of their policy.
The structure of the service, where they analyze who will administer it, and the kinds of organizational
structures that will be developed.
The resource path that will be developed, the source of funding, and the amount of funding.
The nature of services to be authorized by the legislation including preventive and curative services; the
nature and competencies of staff; the extent multi-professional, generic, or specialized services will be
offered; the extent to which legislation provides “hard” services (such as money or housing) versus the
extent it provides “soft” services such as counseling.
Issues pertaining to eligibility and rationing, such as how eligibility will be structured, diagnostic criteria,
indirect methods of restricting access (e.g., placement of services, the title of the program or legislation,
and the use of fees), the intensiveness of the service, and any limits the legislation might place on its
duration.
Community issues or factors that are relevant to the legislation such as the use of boards or advisory
boards, the provision of advocacy services, linkages to other community agencies, and relationships with
regional agencies.
Methods of overseeing the implementation of the programs established by the legislation, such as through
monitoring and evaluation.
Present the outlines of the proposed legislation.
Students are to develop a piece of legislation within a one to two page double-spaced paper addressing the
above topic areas. Students are also to present their legislation in a short video (no more than 2 minutes)
Make sure to use academic sources (i.e. your book and/or scholarly articles) in writing your paper and
include proper APA format including citations and references, title page, abstract, headings, and a
reference page.
Please do not state opinions or first person in your writing