Reflective Practice And Risk Social Work Essay

Reflective Practice And Risk Social Work Essay A good risk decision requires both good risk assessment and good risk management (Carson and Bain, 2008: 156). The intention of this assignment is to critically evaluate this statement with reference to my own practice experience. With the focus of this piece of practice being on children, this assignment will predominantly explore risk from the perspective of children. The assignment will start with a brief outline of the practice experience that will be referred to and will explore the social, cultural and political concepts that shape practice in relation to risk. The concepts of risk, risk assessment and risk management will be examined along with what makes them good. The assignment will then explore how Brearleys (1982) risk assessment was used before looking at theoretical frameworks of reflection. The practice experience that I will be referring to throughout this piece of work is the assessment process in preparation for a Full Assessment Report that had been requested from the Childrens Reporter Administration due to concerns for the safety of a child. During a domestic incident between Mr and Mrs Hassan, their son Raj (aged 12) was struck on the side of the face by Mr Hassan. As a result of bail conditions Mr Hassam was not allowed within a certain distance of the family home and he was not present during the first half of the assessment process. However halfway through the assessment process Mr Hassam was charged and convicted a Schedule 1 offender, with bail conditions no longer in place Mr Hassam returned to the family home. Towards the end of the twentieth century risk became a major concern within western society; Beck (1992) argues that we live in a risk society that has an emphasis on uncertainty and blame, and there is no longer a focus on succeeding in doing something good but where we are preventing the worst. Parton (1996) would agree with Beck and believes that globalisation has separated society and in turn created more uncertainty within social and economic life. As a result of the blaming culture professionals are finding themselves avoiding taking risks and feeling that they have to defend their practice and risk decisions (McLaughlin, 2007 and Barry, 2007). The media and public blame practitioners, particularly when there is a child death, and state that they put children at unnecessary high risk as they fail to intervene quickly enough. Examples of high profile child death inquiry cases include Jasmine Beckford (1985), Caleb Ness (2003) and Baby P (2008). Baby P is an excellent example of how the media and public blame practitioners and received high media attention. Media coverage of how risk assessments and risk managements have failed along with demands for minimising risks and organisational and professional accountability has constrained the role of a social worker and The 21st Century Review of Social Work (2006) acknowledges this (Barry, 2007). It implies that social work professionals were lacking in confidence when it came to taking risks in what has become a risk adverse society. One of the main areas highlighted in the report was the need for a new organisational culture and approach to risk assessment and risk management wh ich would promote merit (Scottish Executive, 2006). Official policies and guidance have been developed in recent years with the aim of improving practices and knowledge where high risks can be identified (DOH, 1991 cited in Parton, 1996). This is evident in documents that influenced my practice and I referred to them before making risk decisions, some examples include; Getting it Right for Every Child: Proposal for Action (Scottish Executive, 2005), Every Child Matters: Change for Children (HM Government, 2004) and Its everyones job to make sure Im alright: Report of the Child Protection Audit and Review (Scottish Executive, 2002). The word risk is a complex and comprehensive concept and there is no clear definition when it comes to defining what would be a low, medium or high risk (Stalker, 2003 and Barry, 2007). Many of the problems that arise during risk taking is a result of there being no exact definition of risk (Titterton, 2005). This in turn creates difficulties when defining definitions of risk, risk assessment and risk management. The Oxford English Dictionary (2002) describes the noun risk as a situation that could lead to a bad outcome or the likelihood of something unpleasant happening, and the verb risk as being exposed to danger or loss or act in a way that something bad could happen. All dictionary definitions will give the word risk negative meanings. Alaszewski and Manthorpe (1991) would agree with the negative dictionary definitions of risk and define it as, the possibility that a given course of action will not achieve its desired outcome but instead some undesired and undesirable situation will develop. Similarly Blackburn (2000) views risk as being a loss or cost as a result of uncertainty (cited in Carson and Bain, 2008). Carson and Bain (2008) and Titterton (2005) disagree with negative meanings of the word risk; they argue that such definitions are not good enough as they pose more difficulties when taking risks with peoples lives. They both argue that risk needs to be explained as looking at the potential benefits and also the potential harms. Alberg (1996) provides a useful definition of risk as, the possibility of beneficial and harmful outcomes and the likelihood of their occurrence in a stated timescale (cited in Titterton, 2005:25). Risk assessment is the stage in risk decision making where information on the elements of risk is collated and assessed, they are usually made to inform risk management. Risk assessment is concerned with collecting information on the two key risk elements; these are known as the outcomes (also known as the consequences, harm or damage) and their likelihood (also known as chance or exposure) and to assess a risk we must consider both (Carson and Bain, 2008, Titterton, 2005). The two basic assessment tools used to assess risk are; clinical which involves professional judgement and information from research on risk factors, and actuarial is based upon statistical calculations of risk and is used in the insurance industry (Barry, 2007 and Davies, 2008). Although not exclusively, actuarial data tends to be used during risk assessments and clinical during risk management (Carson and Bain, 2008). In order to undertake a good risk assessment we should include all the outcomes that could occur as a result of the risk decision and which could happen in the period that the risk is being assessed. If an outcome would happen regardless of a risk assessment being made then it did not happen as a result of a risk decision. The risk decision must have made the outcome more likely or serious; both the seriousness of the outcomes and their likelihood must be considered (Carson and Bain, 2008). When assessing the likelihood of a situation it should be based upon the best knowledge available and whether the decision would have been the same had a responsible body (i.e. SSSC) had considered it (Carson and Bain, 2008). A good risk assessment has a purpose and this is to explore the potential benefits over the possible harms. If the value of the likely benefits outweighs the value of the likely harms then we will be able to justify taking a risk decision (Titterton, 2005). We need to be able to justify taking a risk before we can learn whether harm will result. If harm does result then it is not bad risk assessment, similarly if a risk decision leads to successful outcomes we cannot say it is good risk assessment. A risk decision needs to be judged on the risk decision processes and procedures, not by the outcomes (Carson and Bain, 2008). It could be argued that there are no benefits of taking a risk and this would be deemed as bad risk assessment and must be challenged (Carson and Bain, 2008). After a risk assessment has been carried out a decision needs to be made on how to manage the situation. Risk management is discovering and controlling the dimensions of the proposed risk into a plan to manage the risks; it is involved with implementing, monitoring, influencing, controlling and reviewing the risk decision (Carson and Bain, 2008). Risk dimensions are features of risk that could be influenced by the practitioner, for example the available resources to manage the risk and uncertainty (Carson and Bain, 2008). Risk management also means making the most of the potential benefits and including service users in managing risk decisions (Stalker, 2003). In order to have good risk management we must be able to make effective use of all the dimensions of the risk assessment. This includes the time during and the amount of time of a risk decision being made and the time available to intervene if necessary. We need to be able to identify people and their skills as a resource and use their qualities, knowledge and ability to recognise problems and opportunities should they arise. We should identify and consider both positive and negative opportunities that arise at different stages as we go along a risk path. Before making a risk decision we must explore the quality and quantity of available knowledge and its significance. Knowledge is a form of power and this creates degrees of control, this includes recognising our professional, ethical and legal limits to intervene and control a risk. Good risk management is being able to use all of these resources however there is a barrier, they all cost money. Risk management is political as it is about resources, we require adequate resources for a good risk management plan and lack of resources will have an impact on this (Carson and Bain, 2008). Risk decisions are complex and may be based on unreliable or uncertain knowledge. If harm could not occur then it would not be a risk, if harms do occur then decision making and risk management will need to be examined and a risk decision that was justifiable before the event must remain justifiable after the event. The practitioner will also need to show that any decisions they did make were in line with best current practice on risk assessment and risk management. Many risk decisions will be good irrespective of poor risk management. (Carson and Bain, 2008 and Davies, 2008). Risk management is often overshadowed by risk assessment, despite the fact that it can only identify a risk and not lessen it (Stalker, 2003 and Titterton, 2005). It is important to give risk management more credit as it can prevent bad risk assessment. If a poor risk assessment is made then it can result in harm, inquiries and court proceedings. As risk management comes after the risk assessment has been made it can in turn prevent a poor risk assessment from causing harm (Carson and Bain, 2008). Also risk management concerns the implementation of the risk decision and can therefore protect against the consequences of poor risk assessment. In order to make a good risk decision we therefore require good risk assessment and good risk management (Carson and Bain, 2008). Titterton (2005) argues that risk assessment and risk management should be interconnected within the same risk framework. Brearleys (1982) definition of risk focuses on the negative outcomes of risk (i.e. damage and harm) however despite its restrictions it is argued that it is relevant as he has provided a framework that provides a good starting point for understanding and assessing risk, and that helps assist workers to recognise risk factors when faced with risky situations (Watson and West, 2006 and Kemshall and Pritchard, 1996). Brearleys risk assessment framework is interactive and uses concepts of the systems approach, task centred approach to the actuarial assessment of risk. His framework identifies two types of hazards which he refers to as general predictive hazards (background hazards) and situational hazards (current hazards); a hazard is the possibility of loss or damage that will result in danger. These hazards need to be weighed up with the strengths in order to identify if a risk decision has to be made (Kemshall and Pritchard, 1996). I incorporated Brearleys (1982) framework with the assessment triangle (DOH, 2000 and Aldgate and Rose, 2006) during my risk assessment and I identified that identified that there were no general predictive factors for Raj, he was not known to social work prior to this assault and there was no evidence to suggest that there had been any issues in the past. The situational hazards for Raj were; he had been assaulted by Mr Hassam, his behaviour changed and he became withdrawn and angry, poverty and poor housing. His strengths were; he was resilient, he attended and enjoyed school, he openly spoke out about how he felt. The danger for Raj was that he was at risk of further physical and/or emotional abuse for being open and honest with me after his father had warned him not to speak to any professionals. During my risk assessment I had to consider how capable Mr Hassam was of further assaulting Raj and how likely it was to happen. I thought about the severity of the outcomes, for example if I thought there was a chance that the outcome would be death then the likelihood would be lower than if I thought the outcome could be assault. I therefore considered the outcome of my assessment to be that Mr Hassam could assault Raj again and although the outcome could be very serious but I felt that the likelihood of it happening was very low as Mr Hassam had never been violent towards his son before and showed true signs of remorse for his actions. However just because it was extremely unlikely that Mr Hassam would assault Raj again did not mean that I could consider it a low risk. An unlikely event does not become any more likely merely as it could have serious outcomes (Carson and Bain, 2008). During my assessment I referred to The Children (Scotland) Act 1995 as I had a duty to safeguard an d promote the welfare of Raj and his welfare is paramount (SCLC, 1995), and also to the values of the SSSC (2005), particularly codes 4.1 and 4.2. When considering the risk period to work within and how we are basing our assessment we should examine research based upon that period. During my risk assessment I looked at research on domestic violence and child abuse and several studies show that there is a high association between domestic violence and child abuse (physical and emotional); Morely and Mullender (1994) found that between 40-60% of children are physically assaulted by the perpetrator and Epsein and Keep (1994) found that 38% of children who called Childline had been assaulted by the perpetrator. To make the use of the highest knowledge available I also consulted with my practice teacher and PTL and considered their recommendations before making my decision. My risk decision was that it was safe for Raj to remain in the family home with his father, as the potential benefits (e.g. prior to the assault Raj and his father had a good relationship) outweighed the likely harms. I was able to work in partnership with Mr and Mrs Hassan and the school and they were all resources that assisted me with identifying opportunities for Raj. On reflection I felt confident that I had used the resources available to me well, particularly research and knowledge and I could justify my risk decision if harm was to occur and would be able to explain how I came to my risk decision. Reflective practice involves being able to think holistically and in turn this includes exploring facts and feelings, the knowledge and understanding of the situation and being able to look at perspectives subjectively and objectively (Wilson et al, 2008). Schà ¶n (1983), Kolb (1984) and Boud et al (1985) have given reflective practice currency in recent years by developing ideas and using and applying them to reflecting on experience and improving action and practice (Brown and Rutter, 2008). I based my reflective accounts in practice on Kolbs (1984) model of experiential learning. Kolbs model explores having concrete practice experience which we then reflect and observe on, construct new ideas on and then experiment with. His model emphasises the importance of using observation and testing our reflection on what we see and experience and being able to build upon how we experience the real world (Adams et al, 2002). Kolbs model has helped me understand that learning is individual a nd I have to make the connections to existing knowledge, theories and legislation when reflecting on what I have learned. A number of self evaluation questionnaires derived from Kolbs learning cycle with the aim of helping people identify their learning styles. I used Honey and Mumfords (1992) learning style questionnaire to discover that I am a reflective learner; I will watch and reflect, gather relevant data and examine all the possible options available before making a decison. Using my learning style as a reflector and incorporating Kolbs model of learning I was able to confidently make a risk decision for Raj. I used the supervision process to discuss my learning style and how this assisted me when I put plans of action in place with the Hassam family and how I went through the cycle of experience, reflection, conceptualisation and experimentation (Parker, 2006). To conclude this piece of work has proved that in order to have a good risk decision then we must have a good risk assessment along with good risk management and my own practice experience was integrated throughout as an illustrative. Todays risk society has a lack of confidence in professionals and this has an impact when they need to make risk decisions, although after using risk and reflective frameworks along with supervision I was confident to be able to make my risk decision and justify it. With the right policies, procedures and support professionals will be able to make good risk decisions and feel confident when doing so.

Business Requirement Analysis Essay

Introduction On my paper, I will be discussing the analysis of an e-commerce function of General Electric website. I chose to do General Electric because they are well established and have diversified services, technology, and manufacturing. General Electric is a company that is committed to being an industry leader world side and is striving to be the example for the world to follow its leadership of its businesses. Currently Forbes has ranked GE as the world’s second largest company with over 287,000 employees around the world. Jeffery Immelt is the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of General Electric. He was selected by the General Electric Board of Directors in 2000 after Jack Welch retired. Before Jack Welch retired, he announced that General Electric will become the leader in global internet business. He saw what the internet is capable of and saw that it was critical for General Electric to lead the pace in the internet business. During Jack Welch tenure, he has developed values that are taken seriously within the General Electric organization. Jack Welch used what he called the 4 E’s of leadership, which are Energy, individuals with energy love to â€Å"go, go, go†. These people possess boundless energy and get up every day ready to attack the job at hand. High energy people move at 95 miles-per-hour in a 55 mile-per-hour world, Energizers, know how to spark others to perform. They outline a vision and get people to carry it out. Energizers know how to get people excited about a cause or a crusade. They are selfless in giving others the credit when things go right, but quick to except responsibility when things go awry, Edge, those with edge are competitive types. They know how to make the really difficult decisions, such as hiring, firing and promoting, never allowing the degree of difficulty to stand in their way, and Execute, the key to the entire model. Without measurable results, the other â€Å"E’s† are of little use. Executers recognize that activity and productivity are not the same and are capable of converting energy and edge into action and results. Jack Welch took twenty years to develop his leadership model. For General Electric to have a successful implantation of the e-commerce tactics, they had to overcome some cultural issues. General Electric had also to ensure that their operations would run smoothly and to be able to build good relationships with their customers. What General Electric has done in the past was they would keep a large sales staff to help customers with their purchase of General Electric products. With the introduction of the internet and General Electric new e-business, the sales staff had become worried that they might lose their jobs because of the internet and they feeling not needed. What General Electric did to help overcome this misconception, they offered bonuses to anyone on the sales staff that helped the customers buy over the internet. They help make the staff understand how the internet can benefit them and the company as a whole and this calmed down the sales staff. With the sales of home appliances, it has become a very completive market with sales and reduce pricing on most to all appliance that anyone sales and a web presence is essential to have within this market. In today’s market though, having just one centralized website will not due and General Electric understood this and General Electric wanted to give each store the ability to sell on the internet to their customers in there general location. With each store having its own website, they should be able to manipulate the website to reflect their own personal pricing of the appliances along with advertising and home delivery terms and conditions. General Electric decided that the website drive by the postal code, meaning customers find their local General Electric store by their postal zip code. Once you are on that particular website, the website offers the traditional search and select stores, gives product details, you can compare modes and so on, but you would be offered that particular store price and specials. The websites for the stores have an user friendly, easy to use website editor where the store can change the data to reflect their current prices and sales and they can change their store banners and graphics. With this type of interface, store owners are able to reflect their website to exactly what is happening in the store. The two requirements that I have selected from the list is as followed: 1) Develop and implement a new website or enhance an existing website to include customer service. This might include features for self-service or use of real-time customer support. 2) Add Internet-based advertising capabilities such as pop-up ads, banner ads, and pop-overs. Now what we will do is discuss the two topics in more detail. The first topic I picked was Develop and implements a new website or enhances an existing website to include customer service. This might include features for self-service or use of real-time customer support. With today’s completive and customer driven market, whether you are a local small town shop or a huge e-commerce business, customer satisfaction is your number one priority as a business. Customers rules that market and the key to be successful and to grow in this world today, your business needs to provide the best customer care money can buy and you need to have better customer care then your competition. With e-business, it can be tough to make it customer friendly because of the lack of face to face contact, but to make e-business customer friendly, it will be necessary to upgrade or enhance the current webpage for the company with a dedicated page for customer support. This page needs to be easy to find on any page within the website and it should be easy to read for the customer with numbers and addresses clearly labeled for customer support. There are several features that helps with the organization and layout of the webpage to make things easier for the customer to na vigate. The first feature should be to make sure there are multiple selections for the customer to have to reach the customer service if there are any issues that should arise. The second feature would to include a customer satisfaction form where they can send information about the experience and/or troubles with the products. The third feature is a new feature that is making its way into the e-commerce market and that would be a live chat. With a live chat, customers can get real time customer service and assistance with the issue they are having with customer representatives. The company should be able to provide these options to the customers with a customer support staff that is experienced and able to resolve the issue for the customer. Just as with the phone support, any support that is requested on the website should be handled and resolved quickly and with accurately. This would be the same for the staff that is online helping to resolve issues, they all should understand the company, policies, products, and services and they should have to keep getting refresher training throughout their time with the company. With web chat, it can be very difficult to get logged on and get help and this can frustrate the customers even more before they even get any help. to keep this from happening, the web chat should use the best web technology so that the customer can log on easily and get into a chat session. The chat window should not take much time to load and there should be little wait time to reach a representative. The customer support staff should be provided with CRM software to make sure that all problems are understood and that all the information they need to solve the customers issue are within hands reach. The use case for the customer service process 1. Customer calls the toll free number, fills out an online survey, or logs into the online web chat 2. The customer then lets the customer support knows there grievance/issues with the company or product. 3. If this customer is on the phone, the phone representative will have CRM software so that they have the information available to them. If the issue requires the representative to find out additional information, then the representative will place the customer on hold to get the answers to solve the issue and then get back with the customer. If the customer submits an online form, the representative handling the form will get the issue/problem resolved as quickly as possible and email the user with the solution to resolve the issue. If it is a chat session, the representative will help the customer as soon as they let the representative know the issue. They will also use CRM software to help the customer or get help from their fellow co-workers. 4. Once the issue or problem has been resolved, the representative will ask the customer if all issues or questions have been taken care of. If the customer stats that they have had all there issue resolve, the task is complete. The reason for such an in-depth customer service section and service are because customer service is because customer service is the driving key for any company’s success for its e-business and is vital for the company to continue to enhance its corporate image by providing the best customer service. The second topic that I picked was to add Internet-based advertising capabilities such as pop-up ads, banner ads, and pop-overs. Another important factor that is missing in internet advertising is search engine optimization; I will include this component within this category. Search engine optimization has become the most important component to internet advertising and without search engine optimization; no business will stand out in the hoard of businesses out there that is using search engine optimization. What search engine optimization does is it helps your website get to the top of a list within search engines. When using internet search engines like Google.com, we type in what we are looking for and a long list of search results that come back. The sites that come first have better search engine optimization technique then the sites towards the bottom, thus making them the first sites that are seen by the customers. To put it plainly, search engine optimization techniques are tools that help your website to become the first choice to appear, in turn increasing the traffic to your website which helps enhance your brand name which will increase your web traffic even more. There are several internet and marketing programs which will help with your search engine optimization but the most popular one today is Google’s Ad words program. When using this service, it will allow your website to be among the first few search results on a search engine such as Google. Use case for advertising and marketing process. 1. The prospect types their inquiry within a search engine such as Google.com or Bing.com 2. The search engine results appear for the inquiry, which will also display the company’s website link within the first few results as long as the search inquires is related to the company. 3. Once all the results have displayed, the customer then clicks on the company’s web link and reaches the homepage for the company. 4. Once the customer has directed their attention to the company’s website, the task is successfully completed.

Synthesis Essay Topics List at a Glance

Synthesis Essay Topics List at a Glance The Downside Risk of Synthesis Essay Topics List Terrible synthesis topics can arrive in an assortment of forms. Look at more than 1 synthesis introduction example to get a wide range of different suggestions and methods since there is more than one method to compose an introduction on precisely the same topic. You consider synthesis essay variations, consider different subject matters and the dearth of sources where you could discover related info. Every examples of synthesis essay should stick to a structure to be able to convey the message in the most effective manner. The Upside to Synthesis Essay Topics List It is really difficult to influence the point of view of a person who's connected to a topic through a highly effective feeling. Now you have your argument down in words, you will need to work out how you wish to organize and support that argument. The most important requirement of a synthesis essay is to produce a robust pos ition whilst also going in-depth to check at the many relationship which exists between sources. Every essay should have an introduction in the start and a conclusion at the end. Synthesis Essay Topics List - Is it a Scam? If you choose to go your own way a write your paper, here's an easy guide on how best to compose a synthesis essay fast. Now you have a notion of what sorts of topics you may expect to see, let's get down to how to really write your synthesis essay. Thinking up an excellent topic for an argument synthesis essay is a difficult undertaking. A complete topic for a synthesis paper is one which encourages you to have a stance on a debatable iss ue. If you're unable to do proper proofreading, you can get an expert at Essay Agents look at your synthesis essay for a reasonable price. People, who understand the significance of introduction for synthesis essay, must want to understand a few important suggestions about how to create the synthesis essay introduction shine over the rest. Synthesis essays must be written with a meticulous strategy. Argumentative essays are frequently more philosophical and synthetic essays are devoted to a specific matter. Synthesis Essay Topics List - Overview Even though the principal parts stay common in a myriad of essays there continue to be differences in the variety of paragraphs and arrangement of body paragraphs. Convince your reader that you're right. Once you get a detailed outline, all you've got to do is fill in the information and ensure it is sound pretty. The Upside to Synthesis Essay Topics List Among the few methods by which local businesses can thrive is by learning about the necessities of the community and focusing on such locations. People today synthesize data in their everyday life. The Do's and Don'ts of Synthesis Essay Topics List The target is for the writer to reveal their familiarity with the topic and prove he or she's qualified to provide an opinion. It is possible to discover a lot of lists that present various topics for synthesis papers on the internet but the reality is that not all of these are created equal and not all writing ideas are good if you wish to make a huge essay that will stick out. What you will need is a topic that has many sources that may support more than 1 position. Now that you know what a terrible topic appears like, it's time to speak about what a fantastic topic resembles. When the paper was completed, the conclusion provides the final touches by offering suggestions or further comments. Synthesis essay produces a discourse which can be a profound argument, though your topic and the manner in which you investigate it can provoke interesting thought in the audience's minds. The debut of your essay must present your topic clearly so the reader is certain of what he will learn in the remainder of the essay. The thesis for an expository term paper will probably recognize the topic and explain how that topic will be explored. What You Don't Know About Synthesis Essay Topics List If it is all about figuring out how to compose an AP English synthesis essay, it is necessary to open the official AP website with the present requirements and study the grading rubric to comprehend what things to concentrate on. There are lots of scenarios in which a student may need to finish an informative essay. Ahead of enlisting in any AP training course, it's wise to go through the analysis program summary and get accustomed to the examination. Before entering any AP class, it's most effective to read over the program overview and become acquainted with the exam.

Poverty With Hiv And Aids - 2242 Words

Due to gaps in policy oversight, the percentage of minorities living with HIV and AIDS in the United States remains high. It has remained high due in part to policies that were implemented during the early 90’s, emblematically The Ryan White Care Act, along with in policy makers for their failure to recognize the special needs and factors that pertain to minority groups, specifically African Americans and Non-white Hispanics. The racial disparities that have historically plagued these minority groups were initially overlooked in the policy making and implementation process. In turn, it is no disheartening wonder that certain figures and data are now representative of the minority demographic; example: African Americans, who make up only 14†¦show more content†¦Of those gay and bisexual men, 39% (4,321) were young men aged 13 to 24.6 From 2005 to 2014, the number of new HIV diagnoses among African American gay and bisexual men increased 22%. But that number stabilized in recent years, increasing less than 1% since 2010.6 From 2005 to 2014, the number of new HIV diagnoses among young African American gay and bisexual men (aged 13 to 24) increased 87%. But that trend has leveled off recently, with the number declining 2% since 2010.6 In 2014, an estimated 48% (10,045) of those diagnosed with AIDS in the United States were African Americans. By the end of 2014, 42% (504,354) of those ever diagnosed with AIDS were African Americans.6 One could only surmise how drastically different these statistic might have been if policy took a more holistic approach in the initial implementation process. The Ryan White Care Act It is often cited that the HIV/Aids epidemic that hit the United States in the 1980’s (though there is some evidence that it started even before then), came into light due to several high profile incidents and the eventual loss of several thousand lives. Many believe that due to