SOCW6530 Week 8 Potential Challenges for Evaluation

SOCW6530 Walden University Week 8 Potential Challenges for Evaluation

SOCW6530 Week 8 Potential Challenges for Evaluation

Respond to the blog posts of three colleagues in one or more of the following ways:

• Share an insight from having read your colleague’s posting.
• Validate an idea in your colleague’s post with your own experience.

Response to Marissa

An explanation of potential challenges for evaluation during you field education experience

Evaluation holds an important role in social work because it allows us to assess the effectiveness of our practice (Shaw & Lishman,1999). In my field education experience, I am using evaluation both with my clients and with the programs. I am evaluating my clients’ progress in reaching their goals but I am also evaluating the success of the program. I am measuring outcomes and then determining if changes need to be made or not (KARC, 2019). A potential challenge during evaluation, is bias. This may come from the social worker or from the client.

For example, a social worker may evaluate their work and feel that they were especially effective because a certain outcome was met. However, another social worker may feel that the outcome is not important and therefore, not effective. This is a personal opinion, but it can make the evaluation process difficult if no formal test is being completed. Another way this could cause a challenge is if the clinician uses a self-report method in evaluating effectiveness, the client may say that the intervention was not effective at all because they still are experiencing symptoms.

An explanation of personal action plans you might take to address evaluation in your field education experience

In order to address these potential challenges in evaluation, formal tests need to be utilized. An example of a quantitative test to use, to avoid personal biases and opinions, is by providing a pre-evaluation to each client to assess their levels of certain behaviors or emotions. For example, if a client is receiving services for substance use, the clinician can measure their amount of use before intervention and then provide a post evaluation to measure use after intervention. (Epp, 2008) This is a simple evaluation but will answer whether or not the intervention is leading to a lessened amount of use. These evaluations can also measure levels of depression, anxiety, or negative behaviors both before and after intervention. This would take out any biases and only measure actual behaviors.

References

Epp, K. M. (2008). Outcome-based evaluation of a social skills program using art therapy and group therapy for children on the autism spectrum. Children & Schools, 30(1), 27-36.

KARC. (2019). Retrieved from kennedyaddictionrecoverycenter.com

Shaw, I., & Lishman, J. (Eds.). (1999). Evaluation and social work practice. Sage.

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Response to Denise

An explanation of potential challenges for evaluation during your field education experience

In evaluation it is an assessment of whether clients are progressing with the set objective and if the client is in need of other services to complete a goal (Birkenmaier & Berg-Weger, 2018). In the social work field, we deal with many clients from all walks of life. Conducting evaluations can be challenging, especially going beyond the intervention process. In my evaluation course we are discussing practice evaluations, program evaluations, and needs assessments thus far.

The ultimate goal of many health programs is prevention. Evaluating programs is challenging because the ultimate outcome is not easily measurable. While it may not be possible to directly evaluate if prevention is happening, communities can measure prevention activities and processes or policies to prevent certain unhealthy behaviors or health outcomes.

Also, another approaching challenge is the end of our course, it is critical that interns are evaluated on their progress so that they can work on areas of weakness. One important aspect of being evaluated by the field supervisor is actually accepting the feedback and criticism. At this point, all feedback is positive, even if we don’t agree because we are receiving it in efforts to improve our professional growth as a social worker.

An explanation of personal action plans you might take to address evaluation in your field education experience

Engaging in strategic evaluation of client progress and program evaluations allows therapist to address questions that can in fact be answered. The process of asking and answering questions result in therapist operating as clinical experts, which leads to more involvement, greater control, and more enduring success in the intervention process (Kamhi, 2011).

A personal action plan that I would take in addressing a client’s progress. Would be addressing this with my supervisor. As interns when we discuss our sessions with the supervisor, we should be sharing information about our clients and their progress so that our supervisor can offer suggestions on how we can utilize interventions, while also giving feedback on our interventions. Therefore, they should constantly evaluate our work, interventions, and skills.

In addition, another personal action during field it is important to adhere to our learning agreement and agency policy. According to Birkenmaier & Berg-Weger (2018), it is important to utilize the learning agreement during the field as a tool for monitoring our practicum, personal and professional goals.

References

Birkenmaier, J., & Berg-Weger, M. (2018). The practicum companion for social work: Integrating class and fieldwork (4th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.

Kamhi, A. G. (2011). Balancing certainty and uncertainty in clinical practice. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 42, 59–64.

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Response to Charmaine

• An explanation of potential challenges for evaluation during your field education experience

Potential challenges for evaluation during my field education experience can occur in cases where clients discontinue treatment by no longer attending their appointments. This is not uncommon for ChildNet clients as the majority of our clients are court-mandated to participate in services whether the client is ready for change or not. Evaluation of social work practice is a fundamental aspect of providing social care and delivering services to individuals (Kiefer, 2014). Thus, should our clients not continue with services, the opportunity to fully evaluate the client’s needs and progress is jeopardized.

• An explanation of personal action plans you might take to address evaluation in your field education experience

My personal action plan I take when evaluating o

My personal action plans to address evaluation in my field education experience is to understand that not all clients will be motivated to change based on the removal of their children. I also plan to address evaluation through self-awareness and self-reflect. This is done by engaging in supervision to address different approaches, strategies, and skills I could improve on when working with clients. Evaluating myself is central to the implications of Thyer (2013), who asserts that this is a good opportunity to assess my approach independently, but also with my supervisor, and see where improvements can be made in the future.

References

Kiefer, L. (2014). How social work practitioners evaluate their practice. Retrieved from https://sophia.stkate.edu

Thyer, B. A. (2013). Evidence-based practice or evidence-guided practice: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet [Invited response to Gitterman & Knight’s “evidence-guided practice”]. Families in Society, 94(2), 79–84. SOCW6530 Week 8 Potential Challenges for Evaluation

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Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, including a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words. Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source. One or two-sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words. I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

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Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately. In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies. Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work). Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week. SOCW6530 Week 8 Potential Challenges for Evaluation

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• Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage over-utilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Master’s level and deduct points accordingly. As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content. It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

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The university’s policy on late assignments is a 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies. Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances. If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect. I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension. As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading. SOCW6530 Week 8 Potential Challenges for Evaluation

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Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class. Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.

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