Introduction
Iris is a 78-year-old female who started witnessing a few issues when she was getting older. Iris lost her independence and experienced difficulties with many daily routines, including driving. That situation resulted in the fact that the individual suffered from depression and anxiety, denoting that appropriate assistance was required. Thus, a specific policy proposal by creating community agencies that will provide older adults with daily support seems rational, and the discussion of trade-offs supports this decision.
- Background: Aging processes result in the fact that people’s mental and physical abilities deteriorate, which makes these individuals feel depressed. Furthermore, when such individuals do not have close relatives or other people to take care of them, adverse psychological consequences become even more impactful.
- Objective and Expected Outcome: The policy proposal aims at ensuring that every aged individual can get assistance in their routine activities, which will lead to the mental well-being of the elderly.
- Target Population: The focus is on aged individuals (65 and more years) who do not have relatives or close friends. The absence of these persons typically denotes that older people cannot get sufficient emotional and physical support with many tasks.
- Proposed Solution: The possible solution is to establish community agencies that will support the target population. In particular, an aged person can contact an agency to request support, for example, with driving or shopping. Iris’s case demonstrates that she was depressed because she could not drive her vehicle, and the proposed solution addresses this problem because Iris could contact a community agency and ask for a driver.
Describing Trade-Offs
When it comes to creating a policy proposal, it is necessary to admit that a few trade-offs accompany this process, and it is reasonable to comment on them regarding the proposal above. According to Jansson (2018), there should be various options on how to improve the issue under analysis. As for Iris’s case study, an alternative solution is to establish a system of assisted living facilities and place people in them as soon as individuals show first signs of impaired abilities. The comparison of the two options reveals that community agencies are a more suitable solution to the problem because placing individuals in assisted living facilities can adversely affect their mental well-being. It is also necessary to comment on the policy effectiveness which depends on the clarity of goals (Midgley & Livermore, 2008). The proposal to create community agencies offers curative services, meaning that the focus is on providing people with problems with direct assistance (Jansson, 2018). These trade-offs demonstrate that the policy proposal above offers a suitable and practical solution to assist the needs of the elderly population.
Conclusion
Iris is an older adult who suffers from impaired mental and physical abilities. She is an example of what problems many elderly individuals face in their lives. The presented policy proposal reveals that establishing community agencies that would provide people with assistance in shopping, driving, and other daily tasks can be a suitable solution. The described trade-offs also demonstrate that the proposed solution is appropriate because it is aimed at people who need assistance. Furthermore, such agencies’ services are better than placing people in assisted living facilities because the latter decision can deteriorate older people’s mental state because they can interpret life in these facilities as isolation.
References
Jansson, B. S. (2018). Becoming an effective policy advocate: From policy practice to social justice (8th ed.). Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning Series.
Midgley, J., & Livermore, M. M. (Eds.). (2008). The handbook of social policy (2nd ed.). Sage Publications.