Policy Analysis for Social Workers

Richard K. Caputo

Sep 2013 · SAGE Publications

About this ebook

Policy Analysis for Social Workers offers a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to understanding the process of policy development and analysis for effective advocacy. This user-friendly model helps students get excited about understanding policy as a product, a process, and as performance—a unique "3-P" approach to policy analysis as competing texts often just focus on one of these areas. Author Richard K Caputo efficiently teaches the purpose of policy and its relation to social work values, discusses the field of policy studies and the various kinds of analysis, and highlights the necessary criteria (effectiveness, efficiency, equity, political feasibility, social acceptability, administrative, and technical feasibility) for evaluating public policy.

About the author

Richard K. Caputo is professor of social policy and research at Yeshiva University′s Wurzweiler School of Social Work in New York City. He has authored five books, including most recently U.S. Social Welfare Reform: Policy Transitions from 1981 to the Present (Springer, 2011), and has edited two books, including most recently Basic Income Guarantee and Politics: International Experiences and Perspectives on the Viability of Income Guarantee (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). He also serves as an associate editor of the Journal of Family and Economic Issues and is on the editorial board of Families in Society, Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, Marriage & Family Review, Journal of Poverty, and Race, Gender & Class. He has many peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, including Chapter 6 "Policy Analysis" in Social Policy & Social Justice (Sage, 2014). Between June of 2005 and May of 2013 he served as the director of the PhD program in Social Welfare at Yeshiva University′s Wurzweiler School of Social Work.