Social Work Evaluation

Social workers are increasingly faced with the demands of evaluating their own programs and practice to maintain accountability to funding agencies, secure funding, and remedy a number of social problems facing our society. One of the nine basic competencies required by the social work accreditation agency is to be able to conduct evaluations. Evaluation is a critical area of practice for demonstrating accountability to clients, communities, numerous other stakeholders, and funding and regulatory agencies. Social Work Evaluation, Third Edition, offers a straightforward guide to a broad range of social work evaluations at both the program and practice levels. Author James R. Dudley's seven-step approach to evaluation makes use of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed research methods to provide oversight and address important issues at the planning, implementation, and outcome stages of a program or practice intervention. His unique focus on involving clients in the evaluation process ensures that social workers consistently improve their capacity to impact their clients' well-being and remain accountable to them and others they serve. Case examples from the extensive evaluation experience of the author and others illustrate a wide range of logic-based methods discussed throughout the text for real-world application. This comprehensive text effectively aims to enhance student and practitioner skill sets to meet these demands of a changing field.

Revised editon of Program evaluation for social workers, 2012.

Over thirty years of input from instructors and students have gone into this popular research methods text, resulting in a refined ninth edition that is easier to read, understand, and apply than ever before. Using unintimidating language and real-world examples, it introduces students to the key concepts of evidence-based practice that they will use throughout their professional careers. It emphasizes both quantitative and qualitative approaches to research, data collection methods, and data analysis, providing students with the tools they need to become evidence-based practitioners.

Program Evaluation uses a practical, reader-friendly approach to de-mystify evaluation research, clarifying evaluation's relationship to social work practice and providing the knowledge necessary to conduct it. This book assumes some familiarity with traditional research methods and basic statistics or are currently studying them. It contains all necessary definitions and brief explanations of essential research terminology and concepts. However, it relates them directly to their usage in evaluation research, which is often quite diffent from the way they are used in traditional research. Well organized with excellent flow from chapter to chapter, Program Evaluation does not read like a research methods book, making it the most accessible book on evaluation research available.

Accountability to stakeholders is essential for program funding and policy development. It is increasingly the responsibility of all professionals to provide evidence supporting the relevance and effectiveness of their programs and individual practices. Social Work Evaluation is a straightforward guide to conducting evaluations during the planning, implementation, and outcome stages of programs and practices. Dudley has developed a seven step process for evaluations using qualitative, quantitative, and mixed research methods. This comprehensive book offers students the knowledge and skills to play a more accountable role in the future of their profession.

This book is the longest standing and most widely adopted text in the field of social work research and evaluation. Since the first edition in 1981, it has been designed to provide beginning social work students the basic methodological foundation they need in order to successfully complete more advanced research courses that focus on single-system designs or program evaluations. Its content is explained in extraordinarily clear everyday language which is then illustrated with social work examples that social work students not only can understand, but appreciate as well. Many of the examples concern women and minorities, and special emphasis is given to the application of research methods to the study of these groups. Without a doubt, the major strength of this book is that it is written by social workers for social work students. The editors have once again secured an excellent and diverse group of social work research educators. The 31 contributors know firsthand, from their own extensive teaching and practice experiences, what social work students need to know in relation to research. They have subjected themselves to a discipline totally uncommon in compendia-that is, writing in terms of what is most needed for an integrated basic research methods book, rather than writing in line with their own predilections.

Over the course of 20 years and eight editions, the goals of the book have remained the same: to prepare students to participate in evaluative activities within their organizations, become beginning critical producers and consumers of the professional evaluative literature, and reap the benefits of more advanced evaluation courses and texts. The authors aim to meet these objectives by presenting a unique approach that is realistic, practical, applied, and user friendly. Unlike other textbooks on the market, Program Evaluation for Social Workers presents both program-level evaluation and case-level evaluation methods; assuming that neither of these two distinct approaches alone adequately reflects the realities of the field, the book demonstrates how they can instead complement each other. This integration of approaches provides an accessible, adaptable, and realistic framework for students and beginning practitioners to more easily grasp and implement in the real world.

At a time of change and review within social care, it is relevant to explore traditional skills, knowledge and values associated with assessment in the context of changing practice. This book introduces and explores assessment in social work in a user-friendly, yet comprehensive way. The author reviews the interpersonal skills necessary for social work practice, applying them particularly to assessment and outlines fundamental knowledge and theoretical models that can inform assessment. The professional social work value base underpinning assessment and the power balance between assessor and the person being assessed are also taken into consideration.