Macro Intervention Outline

I. Student outlines the social problem, including a definition of the problem, a description of the populations affected, and the ways in which they are harmed.

a. Transgender people in our country are amongst the most marginalized.

i. But within this subgroup of people, transgender folks are incarcerated at higher rates than people who are not transgendered.

b. Definition by the DSM

i. Used to be referred to as a mental illness or gender disorder

c. Hard to calculate the amount of people that are currently trans and in prison since there are so many complications as to who is considered trans.

i. Prisons and jails do not specifically ask people if they are trans, only give the option of selecting male or female.

d. This leads to the specific

issue that I will be addressing which is that prisons don’t take into account gender preferences and will usually place people based on their assigned gender.
i. If people have not transitioned legally or biologically, their preferences are not taken into account.
ii. This leads to increased violence towards the transgender population while incarcerated
1. They are more susceptible to sexual assault, higher HIV rates, mental illness, and turning to sex work for income.
a.

Additionally, depending on the institution, they may withhold hormones from the inmates depending on what part of their transition they are in.

II. Student outlines two social work interventions, including descriptions of the specific roles and tasks that a social worker would undertake to help to solve the problem.

a. Macro Intervention: "In California state prisons, transgender inmates are housed with members of their gender at birth, not the gender they identify with unless they have had sexual reassignment surgery."

i. My proposal for the macro intervention will be to create a statewide policy that will allow the individuals to determine what facilities they feel they would be more comfortable in.

ii. The specific role that a social worker may play here is by being involved in all steps of the process.

1. Social workers should be an active member of helping craft this policy to assure that the rights of trans folks are actually being accounted for.

2. Social workers should play the role of rallying different people, the constituents of CA and our elected officials, to ensure that the policy will be approved by our government.

3. Social workers can help ensure that if passed, the policy is actually being implemented and rights are not being

infringed.
b. Mezzo Intervention: At the end of the day, prisons do not work for anyone, and therefore I will taking a prison abolitionist approach to prevent transgender people to even land in prison.
i. What I envision for this is to create a statewide foundation as a nonprofit, that is ran by transgender folks and serves only the trans population.
ii. Services provided: health care, free or reduced hormone subscriptions, mental health counseling, connections to surgeons that will offer transgender people surgery at free or reduced prices, legal assistance with official documents such as name changes, legal representation in court, pushing for transgender anti-discrimination laws, job trainings, jobs, peer support group, education, shelters or subsidized housing, early education for young children who might be transgender.
iii. I would like to see maybe five different locations: Sacramento, Bay Area, Central Valley, Los Angeles, and San Diego.
iv. Specific roles social workers can take
1. Advocate for a foundation such as this one and fundraise money for it to be successful.
2. Social workers can also offer their services by connecting organizations that are already doing work for the transgender population to come together to create this giant coalition.
III. Drawing upon course readings and/or other materials, student outlines how the two approaches are guided by the history and values of social work.
a. Macro: Policy
i. Connect it to Value: Dignity and Worth of the Person
Ethical Principle: Social workers respect the inherent dignity and worth of the person.
Social workers treat each person in a caring and respectful fashion, mindful of individual differences and cultural and ethnic diversity. Social workers promote clients’ socially responsible self-determination. Social workers seek to enhance clients’ capacity and opportunity to change and to address their own needs. Social workers are cognizant of their dual responsibility to clients and to the broader society. They seek to resolve conflicts between clients’ interests and the broader society’s interests in a socially responsible manner consistent with the values, ethical principles, and ethical standards of the profession.
I. Prisons and jails are already dehumanizing systems that were created to break down people and make them feel worthless and disenfranchised.
II. By demanding that transgender people should have a say in where they will be housed for whatever periods of time, putting their bodies at risk, this approach is in alignment with this specific social work value.
II. Mezzo: Foundation
a. Connect it to 1.02 Self-Determination
Social workers respect and promote the right of clients to self-determination and assist clients in their efforts to identify and clarify their goals. Social workers may limit clients’ right to self-determination when, in the social workers’ professional judgment, clients’ actions or potential actions pose a serious, foreseeable, and imminent risk to themselves or others.
I. I want to be intentional by the way the foundation is run and by who it is running it. LGBTQ and especially transgender people have very low numbers in professional settings. By making this a trans-led foundation for transgender people, they get to have the autonomy to make their decisions since they know what is best for their community.
IV. Student outlines the pros and cons of the two approaches, including potential difficulties or unintended consequences that could arise from the social worker’s intervention.
a. Macro: Policy
i. Pros
1. Stronger support network for this policy. Using the number of social workers and their partner organizations to rally and lobby for the passage of this policy.
ii. Cons
1. Not that many social workers being well informed about the specific needs of the transgender community.
2.

Backlash from the Department of Justice and overall population

b. Mezzo: Foundation

i. Pros

1. Will serve as an umbrella organization to house many services in one.

2. Serve as a home for transgender people who have been pushed away from resources continuously.

ii. Cons

1. Securing money for it will be difficult since foundations usually need giant endowments.

V. Student outlines how they would evaluate the effectiveness of both of the interventions, specifically describing the markers of success they would use to determine effectiveness?

a. Macro: Policy

i. If the law gets passed that will definitely be the biggest success indicator

ii. If the law gets implemented, and systems of incarceration actually ably will be another way to measure success.

b. Mezzo: Foundation

i. How many people the foundation is able to serve, are the right people being targeted?

ii. Is the staff primarily run by transgender people?

iii. Are the services either free or affordable?

iv. How many donors and supporters were recruited?

VI. Outline contains full and complete sentences demonstrating the structure of the paper’s arguments.

VII. Outline has clear organization, natural flow, and few or no grammar or spelling

errors.