The objective of the course is to give each student an opportunity to master necessary skills and become successful when working on public policies (formulation, analysis, implementation or evaluation) that are relevant to all levels, from local authorities to the European Union. The focus is on social policies that encourage and enable social changes. Particular attention is paid to education and social policies related to social development and its consequences. The course provides students with basic information on public policies, the stages of the public policy process, and the basic instruments used in this process. One of the course goals is to equip students, so that they are able to work at different institutions and levels (from local to EU) and be able to identify different networks and stakeholders (local authorities, entrepreneurs, civil society organizations, parents and students as actors, colleagues and associates). This course avoids reducing the process to a simple top-down implementation, emphasizing the complex effects of interaction and, above all, trying to highlight the role of actors involved in the process. The framework thus seeks to answer the following three questions; 1. What are the specific features of policies for social change; 2. What are the stages of action and what are the instruments used to achieve policy goals at local, national and EU level; 3. What is the role of actors in the process of formulation, implementation and evaluation of public policy. The course is also aimed at providing students with competencies necessary to understand the basic dimensions of public policy change and to incorporate those competencies into their professional work as social workers. Goals, stages, actors and instruments in the public policy process. Typologies of public policies and welfare states. Beliefs and values in public policy. Forms of responsibility and accountability in public policies. Citizens as actors in social policies. Social workers as professional actors in the public policy process. Types and definitions of economic, social and political development. International indicators of economic and social development (role of key international organizations in determining development criteria). Europeanization of the Croatian social policy. European social model and basic EU development goals.

To make distinction between different political dimensions (politics, policy, polity), To recognize the basic features and mechanisms in the process of agenda setting, formulation, implementation and evaluation, To recognize the distinction between the rational and incremental model of public policies, To identify the basic forms of welfare states and the ideas behind these regimes, To explain different ways and models by which the basic categories of growth and development are determined, To make a distinction between the outputs, outcomes and impacts of social policy, To explain and use properly different types of accountability, To explain the basic goals, actors and instruments of social policies in Croatia with the focus on implementation (street level bureaucracy), To explain the basic goals and instruments of development policies in the EU and the place of social policies in these developments, To make a distinction between the basic forms of networking in the process of social policies at local, national and EU level,