Response Lorie Mac

Lorie MacIsaac RE: Discussion - Week 8

C O L L A P S E Needs Assessment

Individuals receiving cancer treatments at a non-profit cancer center were assessed for whether a Spanish- speaking support group would be beneficial for identified patients and their families. Spanish-speaking patients were provided a short questionnaire in their native language identifying their interest and availability for this novel group. The cancer center has several support groups that provide psychosocial support to its patients. All groups are in English, which creates a barrier for 25% of the patient population who are Spanish-speaking and would like to participate in a cancer support group. Additional key stakeholders will be invited to a community roundtable to discuss how best to support Spanish-speaking patients with cancer in the community. Evidence-based research on the use of support groups with Spanish- speaking participants will be evaluated.

Sources of Information

A needs assessment requires considering client needs to ensure the program will be successful and useful to those it seeks to help (Dudley, 2020). Collecting quantitative data by administering a questionnaire to potential clients will be important to understand if a Spanish-speaking support group will be supported in the community.

Tutty et al. (2010) reported needs assessments often use sources from three groups: target group, community leaders or service providers, and relevant members in a community. For the needs assessment, other stakeholders or key informants that will be included will be the board of directors, key employees, volunteers, and outside referring physicians. The board of directors will help provide overall funding and direction and key employees, volunteers, and outside referring physicians may have valuable insight and work closely with the target population. A benefit of using key informants is due to their extensive knowledge of services in the community that may not be identified by clients (Tutty et al., 2010). Yegetis and colleagues (as cited by Tutty et al., 2010) proposed using three or more sources (triangulation) to collect credible, unbiased data for a needs assessment. Healthcare professionals who are interviewed may have different perspectives than clients and discussing the differences may be valuable to learn more about this unique population. Utilizing evidence-based research on the effectiveness of support groups for Spanish- speaking patients will help to justify creating a new group and add credibility to garnering support from key stakeholders.

References

Dudley, J. R. (2020). Social work evaluation: Enhancing what we do (3rd ed.) Oxford University Press. Tutty, L. M., & Rothery, M. A. (2010). Needs assessments. In B. Thyer (Ed.), The handbook of social work research methods (2nd ed.,pp. 149–162). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.