City, county, state, or even federal public programs can be established at any governmental level. Technical legislative details can vary state to state and even city to city. Legislation starts with a group of citizens who are concerned about a difficulty they have in common. Interest groups then gather together on moral grounds for or against civil rights of minorities, discrimination on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, and etc. All human service organizations have to deal with public policy to keep from losing their organizations or having law suits in their hands. Clients need to feel comfortable about the organization they chose. Human service organizations need to know the proper legislation tasks and how important the role of the judiciary is in shaping public policy.
To accomplish public policy, there are eight tasks legislation has to accomplish (Social Policy and Social Programs, 2005). For the first task, an interest group is to define its issue clearly and achieve an agreement on what the problem is and what it wants by way of legislation. This is a difficult task and is very critical because individual legislators and the general public need to know precisely what the interest group wants if they are to give public and legislative support. The second task consists of framing a position paper which organizes the arguments into pros and cons. It also summarizes what is known or unknown about the issue or problem which might be seeking experts for some advice. By doing this might not persuade every opponent, it can often be used to get support from those who are on the fence, who are neutral, or who are unmoved. In the third task of the legislation process is to create solutions for the issue or social problem of concern. That is a public policy, program design, or a benefit that will reasonably correct the problem. This too is a very difficult problem or task to do well. Interventions, resources, or planning have to be gathered to be...