This invaluable text provides a rigorous guide to the assessment and evaluation of treatment programs through a multi-disciplinary, holistic model of care. It highlights issues of race, social justice, and health equity, and offers real-world guidance to effect community healing and transformation. Written by a researcher and experienced evaluator, the book begins by outlining the theories and research which frame our understanding of substance misuse, and upon which treatment programs are based. It then examines the principles which should underpin any evaluation, before detailing the practical various steps required to conduct an evaluation, from data collection to outcome measurement. The book shows, too, through detailed and effective evaluation, policy changes can be made and treatment programs improved. Including practical examples of evaluation and assessment throughout, and also assessing the numerous social systems which can support recovery, the book builds to a four-step public health model for establishing sustainable treatment programs. In an era where substance misuse has reached epidemic proportions in the United States and beyond, this book will be essential reading for anyone involved in public health policy and practice in this important area.

This timely and much-needed book provides insights and guidelines for what is increasingly becoming one of the most important tasks in therapy services administration-program evaluation. Here in one concise yet comprehensive source are expert insights and suggestions that will help administrators to determine which critical activities demand their attention now in order to best ensure the survival of the department, as well as to effectively meet patients’therapy needs in a cost-efficient manner.

Contains an inventory of evaluation reports produced by and for selected Federal agencies, including GAO evaluation reports that relate to the programs of those agencies.

Comprehensive yet accessible, this text provides a practical introduction to the skills, attitudes, and methods required to assess the worth and value of human services offered in public and private organizations in a wide range of fields. Students are introduced to the need for such activities, the methods for carrying out evaluations, and the essential steps in organizing findings into reports. The text focuses on the work of people who are closely associated with the service to be evaluated, and is designed to help program planners, developers, and evaluators to work with program staff members who might be threatened by program evaluation.

This text provides a solid foundation in program evaluation, covering the main components of evaluating agencies and their programs, how best to address those components, and the procedures to follow when conducting evaluations. Different models and approaches are paired with practical techniques, such as how to plan an interview to collect qualitative data and how to use statistical analyses to report results. In every chapter, case studies provide real world examples of evaluations broken down into the main elements of program evaluation: the needs that led to the program, the implementation of program plans, the people connected to the program, unexpected side effects, the role of evaluators in improving programs, the results, and the factors behind the results. In addition, the story of one of the evaluators involved in each case study is presented to show the human side of evaluation. This new edition also offers enhanced and expanded case studies, making them a central organizing theme, and adds more international examples. New online resources for this edition include a table of evaluation models, examples of program evaluation reports, sample handouts for presentations to stakeholders, links to YouTube videos and additional annotated resources. All resources are available for download under the tab eResources at www.routledge.com/9781138103962.

Program Evaluation: Embedding Evaluation into Program Design and Development provides an in-depth examination of the foundations, methods, and relevant issues in the field of evaluation. With an emphasis on an embedded approach, where evaluation is an explicit part of a program that leads to the refinement of the program, students will learn how to conduct effective evaluations that foster continual improvement and enable data-based decision making. This text provides students with both the theoretical understanding and the practical tools to conduct effective evaluations while being rigorous enough for experienced evaluators looking to expand their approach to evaluation.

Concentrates on the steps vital to program evaluation, including systematically identifying stakeholder needs, selecting evaluation options best suited to particular needs, and turning decisions into action.

Understand and evaluate family violence programs for your community! Twenty years ago, the major issue in creating interventions to prevent domestic violence was persuading the courts, the funding agencies, and society that domestic violence was a serious problem worthy of time, trouble, and money. Now that the importance of domestic violence has been established, we need safe and effective ways to evaluate those interventions to see which ones are working and how they can be improved. Program Evaluation and Family Violence Research brings together some of the best minds in the field discussing such vital evaluation issues as policy implications, alternative designs for evaluation studies, and ethical concerns. This comprehensive book approaches the vexed question of evaluation with compassion as well as scientific rigor. Clearly, traditional double-blind studies and control groups are difficult to conduct when family violence is the subject; it is ethically indefensible to sit back and watch abusers hurt their mates or children when interventions are available. Yet finding usable methods of program evaluation is also essential. Program Evaluation and Family Violence Research confronts these questions and discusses practical ways to evaluate a variety of domestic violence programs. Program Evaluation and Family Violence Research draws on years of experience to address the difficult questions raised, including: going beyond evaluating program effectiveness to analyze why and how interventions help change behavior creating new research designs to adapt to the unique concerns of the family violence field using meta-analysis for program evaluation research determining the interaction between research and program results identifying barriers between community activists and social scientists that may impede research Program Evaluation and Family Violence Research offers fresh and creative ways to do program evaluations, guarantee subjects’physical and emotional safety, and make good science humane.

Introducing students to the real world of evaluation and focusing on issues that arise in professional practice, this book shows readers how to systematically identify stakeholders' needs in order to select the evaluation options best suited to meet those needs.