At the end of last year, something that helped me reflect and digest on the termination of a course was to blog about the experience at its conclusion, and what I learned. Sometimes (especially because semester’s end in the beginning of the holiday season or summer), I run from academic work, and fail to “take stock” of the biggest pieces of learning. In an effort to more fully digest my learning, this post is an attempt to “take stock” of this semester, in Social Policy.
First of all, it was really a privilege to do this learning with an incredibly small class size - consisting of all of you! Each week, I felt really accountable for comprehending and retaining our reading, and more inspired to bring in news articles and current events that tied into our work. Staying abreast with city to country wide events is not something groundbreaking or new for me, necessarily, but I definitely noticed that as the semester went on, I was reading news through a systemic, policy lens. It was meaningful to be engaged and supported by a fantastic group of people.
Learning at City Hall definitely added an air of seriousness and legitimacy to the course - more than being on campus ever could! Former social policy classes, while an excellent foundation for this year’s work, provided less opportunity to make connection with city leaders, and gain comfort in a context that social workers sometimes shy away from. It was exciting to meet people who are so invested in this city, and exchange between policy and in school- social work perspectives.
The way I think about policy has certainly changed as well. Through practice, I’ve definitely trained my brain to think systemically (while obviously, still caring deeply for the work I get to do with individual people, daily).
Because of this change in thinking, writing this policy analysis has been a MONSTER! Both the writing process, engagement of community members, and sharing a brain with Chelsea have been such a learning journey. The more systemically we think, and the more research we do, the more (and more and more) we write! We both have an affinity for working with the substance using population, but we started this work in collaboration with the Parks and Recreation Department. Sure, I’d read about Safe Injection Sites but when we met Ethan, I never anticipated addressing his expressed need with a center devoted to Harm Reduction practices. And yet, even though on the surface level, it can feel unrelated, addressing the debacle of the homeless engaging in unsafe behavior in community space in this way is one direction that community leaders are heading.
Obviously, opening in-house-social-service shelters throughout the city (supporting the homeless & de-ghetto-ing the Oxford/Preble region) would be ideal. However, the plans have been in place 6 years, and little has been done due to zoning restrictions. As beneficial as it might have been to zero in on zoning laws for our policy analysis, where we chose to focus our energy (I feel) is much more pragmatic. Putting chairs in a medically supervised, sterile environment serves a number of purposes, and could be enacted much faster than proposing, constructing, and battling with the city and homeowners over zoning, while still addressing a community need.
The approach we analyzed is a “band aid” at best to what is a web of complex, systemic issues in this community. However, it is one area where we felt passionate, and perhaps, able to have some level of influence in advocacy.
I started to realize that this is sort of how policy work, “goes.” Identify an issue, learn to respect its complexity, and then choose one miniscule avenue for action - that to an outsider might seem completely unrelated.
The last three months have been a great chance to immerse myself in some deep learning about policy action, the unwritten history of the city in which I live, and identifying one area where I feel enacting a change is not only necessary but possible.
The re-solving adventure continues.
