Outcome Evaluation Aimed at Enhancing the Cultural Competence of Workers in Family for Families - Essay Example

Lecturer An Evaluation Plan for An Outcome Evaluation Aimed At Enhancing The Cultural Competence Of Workers In Family For Families (FFF) Evaluation Scope and Purpose The Department of families and Communities, Disability Support Services together with The Department of Health jointly fund an organization called Family for Families (FFF). The Families for Families Project is designed for parents of disabled children who experience mental health difficulties and extreme stresses. A ‘host’ family volunteers to offer respite care to the child’s family. The FFF takes a multi-disciplinary approach by offering various types of respite care. The program aims to enable families to continue to care safely for their disabled children through respite-care. Of interest to these funding bodies is an evaluation plan which identifies the project’s strengths and weaknesses so that they will have the means to improve the service offered by the FFF project. Emphasis is especially laid on the need to enhance the cultural competence of the organisation’s workers. The ethical issues around confidentiality and privacy of both the host and client family need to be evaluated due to political considerations. There is the apparent need to enhance the cultural competence of the workers therefore. The funding bodies, like all government entities are liable to public scrutiny hence they ought to have a surety that indeed the FFF workers training project is a good investment of public resources. Lack of the same could lead to a backlash when the dream idea is launched. It will give a sound basis of the commencement of the training project to enhance cultural competence for the FFF workers. The evaluation result will be instrumental in accessing the viability of the FFF worker training project especially in concern of the cultural competence of the project workers. It will as well be instrumental in finding out possible reasons for disparity in cultural competence of the workers that are not in the training project design foresight and hence have possible remedies to them sought a forehand before training commences. The evaluation result will also come in handy in determination of possible remedies for other social organisations that have poor cultural competence with their workers and seek to have training projects for them. The evaluation seeks to answer the questions; i. Is there a dire need to improve the cultural competence of the workers in the Family for Families? ii. Are the people involved in the FFF organization satisfied with the cultural competence of its workers iii. What should be detailed in their cultural competence training project? Evaluation Team Members and Stakeholders The evaluation team will consists of a group of ten (10) chosen from several disciplines. There will be one (1) general overseer who will be the evaluation comptroller. The general overseer gives tasks and will act as the project coordinator. It is important to have an in-charge for any group to function effectively. There will be one (1) audit officer, two (2) community social workers with expertise in volunteer organisations and ethical issues, two (2) child protection workers, two (2) disability nurses and two (2) external evaluators. It is generally considered wise to conduct evaluations using ‘outsiders’ who are not involved in the implementation or the funding of the program. These external evaluators will identify a set of useful indicators; they will describe pre- and post-program levels of stressors; they will assess the program in relation to quality, effectiveness and efficiency. They will also provide a neutral approach since they are not linked to the organisation hence provide a fresh perspective to the program; they may be recognised as bringing an impartial eye to the evaluation. However, there are limitations in using an external team; they may lack specialised knowledge about the field of disability and its service users and outsiders may create extra stress on the contracting agency. The evaluation progress and result will be of importance to the funders who are also the commissioners. The evaluation comptroller will furnish them with relevant information in the course of the evaluation and disseminate the documented result to them after the evaluation is over. The results are also of importance to the designers and proposers of the FFF workers training project. The findings will help them alter their proposed training project design where need be. The result should be disseminated to them through documented journals that should be made available through the Department of Health website. Project Logic and Indicators Selection of the type of evaluation method is crucial since it should feed accurate information about goals and outcomes to the stakeholders. Moreover, this method should be useful later to other similar programs when assessing themselves if properly used. (Green & Ellis 2007, p.307). The FFF evaluation aims to focus on the effect of the program on the participants’ lives and verify if the program met the goal and objectives by using resources efficiently. Given all this, the most appropriate type of method for our purposes is the Impact/Outcome approach (I+O). This method offers a useful way to get particular information on estimated costs associated with the program and ways to improve its implementation. It produces qualitative data through the use of interview and survey (Kettner, Moroney & Martin 2008). The first activity is the collection of qualitative data. The Impact/Outcome method requires evaluators to work in mutual partnership with key stakeholders, to intentionally seek to develop a project. The evaluators will conduct telephone or face-to-face interviews with case-workers, the participating families and families who no longer use, or never used, the service. Case notes, reviews, medical and police reports and families’ current situations will be documented in order to compare to pre- and post- use and to other families not in the FFF project. The project will run on a budget from the funded by the major stakeholders. The budget breakdown is as follows: Incomes Expenditures Grants Received Donations Salaries and On costs Salaries On costs Total Salaries and On Costs Administration Costs Office Expenses Photocopying, Printing And Stationery Computer Repairs/Maintenance and Software/Supplies Insurance Internet Expenses Motor Vehicle Running, Repair and maintenance Program Costs Staff Training Volunteer Expenses Contingencies Total Other Costs Staff Training Staff Amenities Total Operating Expenditure Communication: Land line, Mobile Phones and Postage TOTAL Evaluation Methods The evaluation process will use two instruments, the interview and the survey, to collect information about the intended cultural competence of the FFF workers. The interview will be carried out on the prospect social workers for the FFF project and social workers already working for other organizations. The survey will be carried out on randomly sampled ‘host’ and child families. The evaluation process will run in a scheduled time frame of fourteen (14) weeks. The interview method provides detailed information and can develop relationships among participants. The limitations of this method are that it takes large amounts of time, can be costly and participants may feel uncomfortable (Kettner, Moroney & Martin 2008). The second activity is to design surveys to be filled in anonymously. By using data from the interviews to identifying the emerging major issues, a survey can then be designed around those issues. The survey is used to create another set of data. The strength of this methodology is that it enables quick and easy access to a rich set of information from various people. Furthermore, the anonymity of the survey provides the opportunity for participating families to give their opinion freely. There are some limitations in the survey method: wording may create bias in the responses; it may not reflect the whole situation; it can be considered impersonal (DePoy & Gilson 2003). The evaluation principles of informed consent, voluntary participation and a guarantee of confidentiality and anonymity will be adhered. Evaluators will avoid exposure of respondents and conflict of integrity and honesty. Families for Families evaluation time line Week Activity 1 2. 3 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. Preparation … … … Activity1 … … … Survey Preparation/ distributing … … Activity 2 … … … … Result … … Sampling and recruitment The evaluation will use the interview and survey tools putting to consideration the target respondents and hence come up with the best sampling methods. Sampling for the interview will be done through none probability convenience sampling. The evaluation targets people and families that have been involved with the FFF project or those that hope to in future. In light of such, this is the best suit sampling method. Probable interviewees will be randomly picked from the FFF registry. The survey which will be conducted as activity two will be determined by the outcome of activity 1, the interview. Sampling method that is best suit is the probability (random) sampling using the simple random sample technique. Subject will be randomly picked provided they are above eighteen years of age, are of sane mind and willing to take part in the survey. Issues in the evaluation Throughout the two activities it is important to address two key conceptual issues, namely, that the evaluation is client-oriented and that evaluation is connected to monitoring and reviewing the program. These are possible sources of error and researcher bias. They bring about the social desirability bias from the subject and the researcher expectancy from the investigator. Strategies could be selected with the clients’ benefits in mind, using tools for planning and reviewing which meet the needs of target group. It would mean showing an understanding of their position within the community, providing analysis of the program’s implementation to see how the program affects families who have various disadvantages positively, ranging from being Indigenous, residing at rural/remote locations, and to coming from non-English speaking background (DePoy & Gilson 2003 p.33). Issues around ethics and evaluators will be glide along considerations of the guidelines set by the Australasian Evaluation Society (AES) and the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) Code of Ethics 2010. These AES Guideline for the Ethical conduct of Evaluations, 2010, are intended to encourage better practice in evaluation. Managers or funders may attempt to influence or control evaluation findings and for this reason the evaluation must be independent and objective. It could result to conflict between the organisation and the clients due to different expectations nonetheless; evaluators must focus on the goals rather than the parties involved. AES Guideline for the Ethical conduct of Evaluations (2010, p.10) clearly states Principle 1: An evaluation should respect the rights, privacy, and dignity of the people involved. Principle 2: An evaluation should ensure that the judgements are derived from the results of the evaluation. These principles will be upheld to avoid positive or negative impact on aspects of the program. The ethical issues around informed consent and confidentiality because there is a call for personal information from the participants will be held in dignity. The participating families will be informed and checked to make sure they understand the evaluation process and how personal information is reported. Evaluators will clearly explain confidentiality and all the consent forms will have to be reviewed and signed-off before the evaluation begins. The evaluators will inform of their right to withdraw; they have the right to participate, or not, without any penalties. Evaluators will be diligently trained to understand power imbalances between the service user and the evaluation process and hence be sensitive so as to not force the participation of the target evaluation group or the responses they give to favour any party. References Australian Association of social Workers Code of Ethics, 2010. Australasian Evaluation Society 2010, AES Guidelines for the Ethical conduct of Evaluations, AES. Bamberger, M, Rugh, J, Church, M & Fort, L 2004, Shoestring Evaluation: Designing Impact Evaluations under Budget, Time and Data Constraints, American Journal of Evaluation, Volume 25, Issue 1, pp. 5 – 37. Chan JB & Sigafoos J 2002, ‘Does Respite Care Reduce Parental Stress in Families with Developmentally Disabled Children?’ Child and Youth Care Forum Volume 30, Number 5, 253-263. DePoy, E & Gilson, SF 2003, Evaluation Practice: Thinking and Action Principles for Social Work Practice, Thomson Brooks/Cole, Canada. Green, RS & Ellis, PT 2007, ‘Linking structure, process, and outcome to improve group home services’, Evaluation and Program Planning, vol,30, pp. 307–317. Kettner, PM, Moroney, R & Martin, LL 2008, Designing and Managing Programs: An Effectiveness-Based Approach, 3rd edn, Sage Publication, London. McDavid, JC & Hawthorn, LRL 2006, Program Evaluation & Performance Measurement: An Introduction to Practice, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, London. Newman, DL & Brown, RD 1996, Applied Ethics For Program Evaluation, Sage Publication, USA. Turner, D 2003, ‘Evaluation Ethics and Quality Results of a Survey of Australasian Evaluation Society Members’ AES Ethics Committee, viewed 8th November 2011. http://www.aes.asn.au/about/Documents%20-survey_summary.pdfhttpwww.aes.asn.au/ Windschuttle, K & Elliott, E 1999, Writing, Researching, Communication, McGraw-Hill Book Pty. Limited, Australia. Read More