Response to Lorie Mac
auntyvava
Week6LorieMac.pdf
RE: Discussion - Week 6 C O L L A P S E
A social work practice intervention is commonly rooted in a program (Dudley, 2020) and evaluation of a program can help us study their outcomes, make improvements, and answer important questions, such as: Does the program work?” (Logan & Royse, 2010). This question maybe asked by stakeholders of an organization who are funding the programs making it essential to provide them with an answer.
Description of the Program Selected
The program selected for this discussion is a cancer support group for children ages 6-13 who have a loved one with cancer. Program length is six weeks with weekly two-hour sessions in a group setting. Psychosocial interventions are used to help support the emotional needs of participants.
Recommended Program Evaluation Model & Its Benefits
Outcome evaluations concentrate on the targeted goals of the program, such as behavioral changes. The social work student is recommending an outcome evaluation using a quantitative method for collecting and analyzing program data gathered with a quasi-experimental design that uses pre-and post-testing before and after the program. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (2017) reported a the quasi-experimental design method is helpful for showing some evidence about the extent to which a program is responsible for the outcomes without ethical concerns of denying, postponing, or limiting treatment.
An outcomes evaluation can be used to evaluate whether client’s have met their goals (Dudley, 2020). For example, a goal of the program may be for children and their loved ones to be able to talk about cancer. In a pre-and post-test, the parents can be asked on a scale of 1 to 10 how hard it is for their child to talk to them about cancer. Program evaluation success is tied to the ability of the evaluator to develop useful, researchable questions (Logan & Royse, 2010).
Potential Stakeholder Concerns
Stakeholders should include both champions and challengers of programs and current and prospective clients (Logan & Royse, 2010). Three concerns that stakeholders may have about the selected evaluation are 1) What evaluation questions will be used? 2) Who will perform the evaluation? and 3) Where and with whom will the evaluation findings be shared? According to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, stakeholders are more apt to support a program if they are involved from the beginning to the end of the evaluation process. They can decide on evaluators, how the information will be shared, and what questions to be used in the evaluation process.
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. In B. Thyer (Ed.), The handbook of social work research methods (2nd ed., pp. 221–240). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
W. K. Kellogg Foundation. (2017). The step-by-step guide to evaluation: How to become savvy evaluation consumers. Retrieved from https://www.wkkf.org/resource-directory/resources/2017/11/the-step-by- step-guide-to-evaluation--how-to-become-savvy-evaluation-consumers
