SOCW 6311 Week 6 Discussion Responses

Discussion: Program Evaluation: Benefits and Concerns of Stakeholders

Dudley (2020) points out that social work practice is usually embedded in programs. While you looked at practice evaluation using single-subject design in Week 3, this week, you shift focus to program evaluation. Program evaluation serves many purposes, including accountability to funders and to the public. Often, funding sources such as government agencies or private foundations requires periodic program evaluations. These evaluations can help provide answers to many different questions, and can contribute to improvement of services. There are a variety of program evaluation models that are appropriate for addressing different questions as well as facilitating the collection and analysis of many different types of data.

To prepare for this Discussion, identify a program within an agency with which you are familiar, which could benefit from process evaluation and outcome evaluation. You do not need to identify the agency in your post. Also, review the different evaluation models highlighted in this week’s resources (needs assessment, program monitoring, client satisfaction study, outcome evaluation, or cost benefit study).

Provide Responses to Original Discussion Posts by doing all of the following:

· Identify the stage or stages of the program to which your colleague’s selected question relates.

· Suggest an additional question or concern that stakeholders may have about program evaluation.

· Recommend an alternative model for the evaluation.

Must provide at least 1 reference and citation.

Colleague #1 – Manuel Ortiz-Car 

RE: Discussion - Week 6

COLLAPSE

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            A community mental and behavioral health agency in Cincinnati, Ohio has been selected to implement a program involving supervised family visitations. The agency has partnered with the county’s courts to implement the visitation program. The court requires families to complete an assigned number of supervised visits with their children following court cases involving custody battles, divorce, and/or abuse/neglect situations. The court or family, depending on the family’s financial status, compensates the agency. It is the agency’s first year implementing the program, which has grown rapidly. The agency offered families to use several therapy treatment rooms with toys, video games, snacks, and outdoor space for families to convene. A licensed professional, who only intervenes when conversation or behavior is no longer helpful or therapeutic, supervises all visits. All visits are monitored via security systems and families can never be left alone. A police office is also always on site as well. The visits are held three times weekly (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturdays) at various times. The agency is able to accommodate 6 families at a time (about 12 per day) and the county would like the agency to expand their service capacity. In order to best meet the needs of the families and ensure the families are satisfied with the agency’s services, the agency would like to explore the perspectives of families who have completed their visitations.

            In order to gage whether the families served are satisfied with the center’s services, they have decided to conduct a client satisfaction survey. Dudley (2020) highlights the importance of client satisfaction studies when evaluating an intervention. The purpose of this agency’s client satisfaction survey is to determine the families’ level of satisfaction and gain insights into needs or ideas the families have to improve visitations. The evaluation survey will be conducted anonymously. Families will be provided with an online link or paper copy of the survey to conduct after termination. The survey will have 10 questions related to the quality of the center, access to tools/resources (toys, snacks, games, etc.), the satisfaction with the visitation supervisor, privacy and safety, and also an area for any suggestions or needs for improvement. Results from the survey will be used to present to stakeholders in the agency who supply funding, space, staffing, and resources for the program. If results from the client satisfaction survey are high, the family visitation team will request more staffing and resources to improve and expand the program.

            Some concerns stakeholders may have may involve input gathered from involuntary clients. Dudley (2020) highlights client satisfaction surveys as subjective and at times biased too. Because the families involved in our program are involuntary, their responses may be biased or influenced by their desire to regain visitation rights. Their responses could also be more negative given the sensitive nature of supervised visitation.  Dudley (2020) also notes concerns regarding confidentiality of client satisfaction surveys. Stakeholders and families might assume the surveys are shared with the courts and visitation specialists who are assumed to have control over their custody status. Finally, stakeholders may have concerns about adding resources to a program that is still new and not linked to the agency’s original purpose- mental and behavioral health.

Reference

Dudley, J. R. (2020). Social work evaluation: Enhancing what we do (3rd ed.) Oxford University Press.

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Colleague #2 – Ken Queen  

RE: Discussion - Week 6

COLLAPSE

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Brief Summary of Program

A non-profit agency in St. Louis, Missouri offers community living services to adult individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities.  These services include, but not limited to, assistance with activities of daily living, medication administration, transportation, setting goals and outcomes and behavior modification services.  Despite international accreditations and state licensing, the program continues to lose individuals that they support to poor services and poor quality of care.  

Evaluation Model

I would recommend the quality assurance evaluation model for this program.  The quality of the program's functioning is the main purpose of this model. The Quality Assurance activities are implemented to gather information about the processes of programs and to determine whether they function as they are supposed to (Dudley, 2020).  Seeing how the program is losing clients due to poor quality, there is an issue within the program that needs to be discovered and addressed.

Stakeholders Concerns

The stakeholders may have concerns about identifying the issues within the program.  Depending on the issue, this can draw a lot of attention of the clients and their families about other disparities and quality issues in other programs.  This model is also peer-reviewed with heavy reliance on company records (Dudley, 2020).  Looking through records in a company can show other disparities and needs and lack of a paperwork trail that can verify the services.  This is a headache for the reviewers and the agency that is having to provide the records. Opening up the agency for a review of this type, can raise red flags throughout the agency if anything substantial is found.  

References

Dudley, J. R. (2020). Social work evaluation: Enhancing what we do (3rd ed.) Oxford University Press

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