Assignment - Agency Memo - Final

Purpose

In this assignment you will be crafting a memo detailing your recommendations for an intervention to use with a client population and developing a single subject design for testing your recommended intervention in a social work setting. The memo should be of professional quality. In other words, it should pass as a document that a master level social worker would provide to a supervisor in practice.

Instructions

Overview

The memo should be between two to three pages single spaced and should be formatted as a memo (a sample format is provided). The memo will detail:

- the scope of the population/issue;
- various interventions to improve an aspect of the population/issue;
- an evaluation of the existing evidence to support the use of each intervention;
- recommendations on which intervention to choose; and
- a plan for evaluating the use of the intervention using single subject design within an agency.

Final

The final of the memo is due in the final week of the course (see syllabus). The final is 45% of the Agency Memo assignment grade.

The Final must also be completed using the Memo Template form and follow the Memo Structure section below.

The final should include/address all Outline and Draft feedback from your instructor.

Memo Structure

Your memo should follow the organization below and should include subheadings.

Scope

You should detail the scope of your population/issue by citing statistics detailing your population and why it is important to assist the population. This section:

- sets the stage for your entire memo by laying out for your supervisor why your agency should address the needs of your selected population;

- must be fact based and should contain citations rather than your opinions;

- should also be short in comparison to the rest of the memo. For example, if you had selected adults with disabilities and wanted to focus on their vocational needs, you would state how many adults have disabilities. You would then document the challenges of adults with disabilities in finding jobs.

Available Interventions

You should detail various interventions that have been used to improve an aspect of the population/issue. Depending on your topic, you may have many interventions that can be grouped together in a summary or you may have one or two standard interventions that are used.

Briefly describe the interventions. Appropriate descriptions may include whether:

- the intervention is considered evidence-based;

- the intervention has been tested on various demographic groups (children, non-English speakers, etc);

- what the intervention purports to change in a client population (improve depression, decrease teen pregnancy, etc.);

- specialized training is required; and/or 5) the intervention is free to use.

Evidence for Intervention Use

Select two of the most promising interventions and describe in more detail how they have been evaluated to demonstrate evidence that they will work with your client population. Explain how the interventions have been implemented and why researchers have suggested that they are effective.

Recommendation for Intervention

Based on everything you have written above, suggest to your supervisor which recommendation you feel will work best at your agency. This section should be brief in relation to the other sections.

Single Subject Design

Now that you have selected an intervention, design a single subject evaluation that you can use in your practice to evaluate your intervention. Describe a validated measure that you will use to change the target behavior of your client. Describe data collection and potential limitations of your design.

Topic and Group Selection

In the first week of class, you will select one of the five topics: foster care, child maltreatment prevention, substance use treatment, mental health treatment or teen pregnancy prevention. Using this topic, you will begin to search for an intervention that can successfully be used with the population. You can adjust your topic selection to narrow down your population and issue. For instance, if you choose foster care, you have the leeway to narrow your memo topic down to youth aging out of foster care who need jobs.

Based on your topic selection, you will be assigned to a group of students who also selected the same topic. However, this is not a group assignment. The group is a learning community where you will have the opportunity to answer discussion posts related to your topic and engage with your peers also working on your topic. Although you are strongly encouraged to collaborate with your group, you are responsible for writing your own memo.