| Course | MSW 555 Capstone/Integrative Seminar |
|---|---|
| Week | 5 |
| Paper type | Policy and practice brief |
| Length | About 360 words, 4 pages |
| Format | Memo with APA 7 citations |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | Master of Social Work (MSW) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MSW 555 Week 5
Memorandum
To: Clinical director
From: MSW student intern
Date: November 20, 2026
Re: The plan's continuation rule and what it makes clients and workers do
The Rule
The agency's largest managed care plan authorizes 12 outpatient sessions per episode. Continued sessions require a request showing "documented improvement in standardized measures." Requests are decided within 14 days. The wording above is a composite of the plan's criteria; the contract itself is on file with the contract manager.
What It Makes People Do
Workers time measures to session 11 and worry when scores rise. Clients in crisis near session 12 face a gap of up to two weeks. Some workers schedule sessions further apart early to stretch the authorization.
None of these responses is dishonest, but each bends practice around a measurement date instead of the client's needs. The rule rewards scores, and practice follows.
A Pattern
In the agency's records for July to September, 14 of 41 continuation requests were denied or reduced. Nine of those 14 involved a score that rose because of an outside event: a death, an eviction, a custody filing.
A Person
V., 28, scored 19 at session 11 after a custody filing, up from 12. The request was reduced from eight sessions to six. V. kept attending and finished with a score of 9.
V.'s case is typical of the nine in the pattern above: a rising score from an outside event, a reduced authorization, and a client who kept attending through the crisis.
The Change
Ask the plan to add to its continuation criteria: "or maintained engagement and treatment activity during a documented external crisis, with a plan to reassess within six sessions." This keeps measures central but stops treating a crisis as treatment failure.
Who Can Grant It
The plan's behavioral health medical director, who chairs utilization criteria review each January. The agency's contract manager can submit the request, with the pattern data above.
Why It Matters Ethically
Ending or reducing services during a crisis risks the abandonment the Code warns against (National Association of Social Workers, 2021).
Next Step
I can prepare a one-page summary of the nine cases, de-identified, by December 15.
References
National Association of Social Workers. (2021). Code of ethics of the National Association of Social Workers. https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English
The Chamberlain MSW 555 Week 5 instructions
The policy and practice brief connects one rule to the practice it produces and proposes a change. State the rule as precisely as its source allows. Describe what the rule makes people do, workers and clients, including responses that bend practice around it. Give a pattern from records, with numbers and a period, and one person whose experience shows the pattern. Draft the change in words specific enough to submit. Name the person or body that can grant it and when they decide. Explain the ethical stakes briefly. Close with a next step you can take. A brief should fit on one or two pages and be readable by someone who controls the decision.
How this MSW 555 Week 5 example is built
The rule section states 12 sessions per episode, continuation only on documented improvement in standardized measures and a 14-day decision, and notes the wording is a composite with the contract on file. A section describes workers timing measures, clients facing gaps and sessions being stretched. The pattern section reports 14 of 41 requests denied or reduced in a quarter, nine after outside events. V. is the person: a score of 19 after a custody filing and six sessions approved instead of eight. The change adds maintained engagement during a documented crisis. The grant section names the plan's behavioral health medical director in January. The ethics section cites the NASW Code (2021).
Where the points sit in the MSW 555 Week 5 rubric
Evaluators look for a rule connected to practice and a change addressed to someone who can make it. A brief that criticizes a policy in general terms loses the most. What earns credit: the rule stated precisely, its effects on behavior described, a pattern with numbers, one person's case, draft language for the change and a named decision-maker. The next step should be realistic for the student. Professional standards should be cited in APA. De-identification of any case data should be stated. The brief should read as a request, with the decision it asks for easy to find. Draft language that a contract manager could submit without rewriting shows the brief was built for use.
Common MSW 555 Week 5 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Briefs most often lose points by describing a policy's harms without a pattern from records. Another frequent gap is a proposed change too vague to submit, such as more flexibility. Some briefs never say who can grant the change, so the request goes nowhere. Others use one case as if it were the whole pattern. If your agency's records are not available, use a smaller sample you can document and say so. A brief that a contract manager could forward to the payer with little editing shows policy practice working at the level the capstone asks for. Count the pattern yourself from the records you can access, and give the period, so the director can check the figure.
Get a MSW-555 Week 5 example written to your instructions
Send the Week 5 instructions with any template your section supplies and the rule you are writing about, and a custom example is built to that format and returned inside 24 to 48 hours. The first one is free. Which rule is worth challenging stays your call.
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MSW 555 Week 5 questions, answered
What if I only have one case?
Use it for shape and find whatever pattern you can for weight: agency data, a supervisor's observation, published research on the same rule elsewhere, or simply an honest statement about how often the situation arises on your caseload. A brief that acknowledges thin evidence and says so reads better than one presenting a single account as though it settled the question.
Can I criticize my own placement's policy?
Carefully, and check your program's expectations first. Many agency rules originate above the agency, in funding conditions or state requirements, and aiming at the rule rather than at the setting is both more accurate and more useful. Keep the agency unidentifiable in anything submitted, which is usually possible without weakening the argument.
How long should this brief be?
Short, and your section will set it. These are graded partly on whether the document could be handed to somebody with authority, which means a page or two at most. Where evidence will not fit, it belongs in references rather than in reduced spacing, and a brief that overruns is usually one that never chose what to leave out.
Where can I find a free MSW 555 Week 5 sample paper?
Scroll down for the MSW 555 Week 5 brief in full: one managed care continuation rule, the practice it produces and a drafted change.
Who can grant the change in the MSW 555 Week 5 sample?
The plan's behavioral health medical director, who chairs the review of utilization criteria each January, with the request submitted by the agency's contract manager.