Macro Strategy Flashcards
Macro Tips:
When we as clinicians are faced with macro level questions on our exam, we often feel lost and as though we have no idea what we are doing or where to begin. If you’ve never done macro level work (which many of us have not), it feels way out of our comfort zone. What we want you to remember as you approach these questions on the exam is this: you don’t need to have had direct experience in this area to answer these questions correctly.
One of our favorite strategies for these types of questions is to think of them similarly to our clinical work, creating a link between the work you do in direct practice and these macro level scenarios. This quick study will help draw parallels between direct practice and macro level social work to help you grow in confidence and skill in tackling these questions on the exam!
Program Evaluation:
You might not have any personal experiencing doing program evaluation, but do you create treatment plans with clients that you then have to evaluate on a periodic basis? Most of the time, the answer to this question is yes. When you approach a program evaluation question, you want to imagine that you’re doing a review on a client’s treatment plan. As you do a treatment plan review, what are the steps you go through?
Look back and review what the presenting problem was
Identify what the goals and objectives you and your client came up with
Review how you determined success on these goals and objectives would be measured
You might look at client attendance (have they only shown up to 50% of the sessions), or other factors that could have impacted their progress
What progress has been made toward those stated goals? This is similar to the steps we take in program evaluation. Program evaluation is asking the question, have the goals been met that the program set out to achieve? As we do that, we want to look at:
What was the presenting problem that led to the implementation of the program we’re evaluating?
What were the goals and objectives of this program?
How are you measuring success for those goals and objectives?
What factors in the process of implementing this program may have impacted progress (i.e. how were services carried out, what was client attendance, did the program actually reach the people it was aimed at)? This is known as process evaluation.
What progress was made towards the identified goals and objectives?
As you can see, the ways we review a client treatment plan are quite similar to the steps we take when doing a program (also known as an “outcome”) evaluation.
Program Policy and Development:
We see the same parallels with creating a program or policy. If you’re creating a program or policy, it will look very similar to the steps you might take in creating a treatment plan for an individual client, couple, family, or group. When creating a treatment plan, what are the steps you take?
Before we can do anything else, we have to understand what client population(s) we, or our agency/place of employment, treat. We want to take on clients that are within our scope of competency and whose needs can be met through the services we are providing
A great first step that you want to be looking for amongst the answer options are to conduct a literature review. This is similar to ensuring we have the necessary knowledge and training to treat an individual client.
When a new client presents for treatment, we want to start by joining with the client, understanding what brought them to therapy at this time. What is the issue(s) they want to work on? What is the problem from their perspective? What do they want to get out of treatment?
What do we need to do next? Depending on the client and the presenting problem, we may identify others who will be part of their treatment team
Then we identify the goals and objectives we are going to work on with the client and create the treatment plan
During this time, we define with the client how success/progress towards goals will be measured
Then we engage in treatment to work towards the goals
Throughout therapy, we check in on how treatment is progressing and we look at overall client progress and outcomes
This is very similar to the steps we take when developing a program or policy.
First and foremost, we need to understand who the population is that we are serving and what the need/presenting problem is that we are developing a program/policy for
Note: this may already be identified in the question stem. If so, we can move onto the next step:
This is where we may create a task force, bringing together other individuals to work on the development of this program/policy with us or, on a smaller scale, we may identify other key players/individuals with an interest in this population/new program that we can partner with
Once you know the identified population and their needs, have brought a team together to work on the development of the program or policy, then you can begin creating the goals/objectives of the program or policy
During this time, the team will define how success/progress towards these goals and objectives will be measured
The program/policy is created and implemented
Ongoing you will check in on progress towards goals and overall outcomes
Advocacy:
There’s not a huge difference between advocating for a group/population than advocating for our individual clients.
Steps for advocating for an individual:
Identify the client’s need
Identify the person/people in power (or the people who have decision making power, or the power to make change).
Collect supporting data
Present data to person/people in power and advocate for client’s needs very similar to the steps we’re going to take when advocating for a larger group Identify the presenting issue/need of the group or community
Note: If it’s a first/next question we want to start with identifying the needs of the community if specific needs have not already been identified in the question stem
Note: You may have an additional step here of bringing together others to join you in advocacy on behalf of this group/population
Identify the person/people in power
It is some times harder to identify who the people in power are for macro questions compared to when we are working with individuals
Collect supporting data
Present data to the person/people in power and advocate for the group/community’s needs
If you’re going to say a problem exists to those people in power, you better go in with some data
