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Context
I took a Social Welfare Policy (SWRK) class with Dr. Delavega in my Spring 2020 semester. I wrote this backgrounder as an analysis of the effectiveness of the Pell Grant as an educational policy.
The purpose of the backgrounder was to summarize the history and purpose of the Pell Grant, examine its effectiveness since its creation, and propose how it can be improved or otherwise better implemented in the future. As with many federal subsidies, I found that the Pell Grant would be more impactful if it granted more funds to lower-income students. I also determined that the grant would help more students if it was better promoted as a financial aid toward the families of high school or even middle school students.
The major drawback of this backgrounder, based on the feedback I received from peers at the time of writing, was that I needed to more thoroughly examine the effectiveness of the grant within the context of other federal funding provided to potential college students, such as federal loans and scholarships. A strength of my backgrounder is that I included as many statistics as I could, including graduation rates, income levels of recipients, and rates of inflation compared to the grant amounts over time.
Lessons Learned & Future Plans
I learned that social workers are required to write complex, research-based documents just as experts in medical and legal fields do. Backgrounders are not only analyses of the historical and contemporary effects of policies, but also their future implications and possibilities for improvements. Social workers not only work with clients, but also advocate for policy change in the community; as such, they need the same advanced writing skills as other evidence-based fields (Mosley).
Although this backgrounder is fairly straightforward in its evaluations and summaries, I think that my suggestions for future enactments of the Pell Grant contribute to the social work field by allowing the possibilities of greater promotion of the Pell Grant and similar grants for the purpose of improving higher education opportunities for all social classes.
Having an understanding of a variety of document types, including backgrounders, is essential to my career as a technical editor. I am certain that my familiarity with the social work field will be crucial because it is related to social and political documentation; these, as well as medical and legal document types, can only improve my spectrum of editing skills.