Response to Maranda R

RE: Discussion - Week 6 C O L L A P S E

Description of the Program The program identified is the rehabilitation program at a rehabilitation hospital for

individuals with brain injuries, including strokes and traumatic brain injuries. These injuries often result in physical and cognitive challenges which impact their social interactions, ability to regulate emotions, problem solving, and re-integration into the community along with a variety of other challenges. The program involves an inpatient hospital stay with a team including a social worker, physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, nursing team, physician, and others as appropriate depending on the needs of the client. The goals of the program involve increasing independence, offering education and training to the client and/or their families, and increasing the ability to return to community settings.

Suggested Program Evaluation Interestingly enough, this program just underwent the CARF accreditation, which

is the Certified Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities which is a voluntary process but demonstrates the program has been evaluated and met particular criteria (Dudley, 2020). For this program, the suggested program evaluation model is program monitoring which addresses the evaluation of an active program to assess its ability to meet the target goals, monitor satisfaction, and ongoing strengths and challenges within the agency’s program (Dudley, 2020). The program monitoring approach can involve client and staff interviews and other data collection methods depending on the needs of the program (Dudley, 2020). For this program, staff and client interviews regarding satisfaction, goal attainment, length of stay, community discharge, and psychosocial well-being approaches may be beneficial methods for gaining information. This evaluation appears to be the most holistic in gathering information pertaining to a program. Through this evaluation, both the perspective of the staff and from the clients served can be captured.

Potential Concerns from Stakeholders & Potential Solutions Though this program evaluation model appears appropriate, there are a few

concerns that stakeholders may have including the ability to capture the cost-benefits of the program. Though staff or clients may comment on the financial aspect of the program throughout interviews or questionnaires, this is not the priority of the program evaluation. Because this program is conducted by a for-profit agency, cost is often a consideration, so the copportate goal of the program may not be the same as what is obtained from the program evaluation. A solution to this concern relates to the understanding of the goals of the organizational evaluation. While a cost benefit analysis may be supportive in future program evaluations, this is not the goal of the evaluation at this time is to assess the program outcomes and progress itself.

Another concern from stakeholders may relate to the fact that program monitoring requires extensive effort from reviewers to capture the outcomes and ongoing processes of the program. Program monitoring, as with any evaluation model, requires an individual to conduct the program and therefore potential costs associated

with the evaluation (Logan & Royse, 2010). In this case, one solution to the concern is to involve a cooperate to address the challenge. While corporate teams may still have biases toward the outcome of the program, their biases are likely much less than the leadership team directly related to the program. Alternatives including outside organization reviews may be appropriate but could be inefficient financially.

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

Logan, T. K., & Royse, D. (2010). Program evaluation studies. Handbook of Social Work Research Methods, 221-240.