Program Evaluation: Looking in the Mirror

One of the greatest in quantity challenging assignments in professional practice is looking in the mirror. Indeed, the natural scope among professional organizations, whether they be institutes agencies, or government entities, is to disclose a process that stabilizes the organization. There is useful reason for seeking stability. Stability simplifies the proces and allows the organization to function at least relatively efficiently. on the contrary stability does not promise effectiveness. Actually, as organizations mature, efficiency frequently compromises program effectiveness and the organization begins to drift from its mission and from its clientele.

Because of this natural leaning organizations periodically must look in the mirror and self-assess their operations processes, and objectives so they can remain faithful to their mission and to serving their clients as well as possible. The professional literature directs to this process as program evaluation.

A favorite assignment in counselor preparation programs is to ask the scholar "If you were designing a place of education counseling program (or agency program) from scratch, by what mode would you decide what to include in the program? What would you single out to emphasize, and why? What would you not do? in what way would you know you were achieving your objectives? by what mode would your clientele be affected by the agency of the program? How would you exhibit the community that your program is effective and valued?" As learners attempt to respond to questions similar as these, they quickly realize that they are lacking information about the clientele, about the mission, about funding, and about staffing. At that point they begin to understand the importance of building programs on a knowledge base as well as a values base.

The reality is that scarcely any students will ever have like an opportunity. Instead, they will be hired into existing institute or agency programs, organizations that drawn out since have established objectives, guidelines, managements and outcomes that the of recent origin counselor must quickly learn and accommodate. An equally probable reality is that the organization has not kept up with the changing social milieu of its clientele, has compromised more [i]or[/i] less of its service objectives (because of fiscal or personnel constraints), and has unfolded service formats that allow it to do abundant more (though less effectively) than its original mission. Unfortunately, of that kind devolution leads to less effective consequences fewer rewarding days at work, les recognition and praise from the combination of parts to form a whole and increased personnel burnout

APPROACHING THE MIRROR: PROGRAMS AND EVALUATION

Programs are "any organized collection of activities designed to reach certain objectives" (Royse Thyer Padgett, & Logan, 2001) This includes seminary guidance programs, community-based intervention programs, client-support programs, self-help programs-the list could pass on and on. In all of these programs, a specific audience has been identified, a enigma targeted, an intervention defined, and an consequence promised. Or at least that is in what way the program was originally justified.

All too repeatedly though, the intervention and consequence have been theoretically based on the contrary not always demonstrated. Consequently, the program maintains a vulnerability of result justification. Schools and agencies alike have felt this vulnerability at various times in their existence. This vulnerability is what is the pair the threat to and the promise of survival. Understandably, then, when organizations begin to perceive the need to examine themselves, the consequence even in the planning stages, is classical approach-avoidance behavior.

PROGRAM EVALUATION DEFINED

Program evaluation can be described as a stamp of research that uses established social science research rules to evaluate a need for, effectiveness of or springs of a counseling or other social science program (Mark, 1996) Evaluations generally are framed in boundarys of one or more questions. For example: What marks of services does the Class of 2006 ne that could be provided by dint of the Counseling Department (the Ne criterion)? To what expansion did the 3-hour workshop upon diversity impact the current services of the Agency (Effectiveness criterion)? As a be the effect of the College Aid Orientation, by what mode many of our students have submitted a guild aid application (Outcome criterion)?

WHY EVALUATE?

Few institutes or agencies have uncommitted time available that could be directed toward program evaluation. Indeed, when organizations make the decision to pierce into a program evaluation, this typically means that a certain quantity of other service is going to be temporarily curtailed or that the program staff will be taking upon additional duties temporarily. Neither alternative is a morale booster still there is a strong rationale for periodic and systematic program evaluations, ranging from refinement of services to justification of one's existence.

Among the greatest in quantity popular reasons for conducting program evaluation are: learning about one's clientele; defining one's job; realizing what impact you (or your program) is having; convincing yourself (and others) that you can achieve tall goals; and, in some cases, maintaining funding from outside sources that require accountability.