Description
Assignment 2: RA 2: Program Evaluation Plan
Program evaluation is an essential practice in human services organizations that provides a systematic and scientific approach for decision-making and program intervention. This process ensures that agencies perform effectively by being outcome-oriented and accountable. Since human services are often made up of many elements with complex relationships and dynamics, an evaluator needs to engage in collaborative reflection with key stakeholders, be grounded in people's experiences, and use data to ask good questions.
For this assignment, build upon the needs assessment conducted in M3 Assignment 2 RA 1 and design a program evaluation plan using appropriate evaluation frameworks discussed in the earlier modules.
Tasks:
Using at least 3–5 scholarly resources from the professional literature, research program evaluation. The literature may include the Argosy University online library resources, relevant textbooks, peer-reviewed journal articles, and websites created by professional organizations, agencies, or institutions (.edu, .org, or .gov).
Create a 10- to 12-page evaluation plan, including the following:
- Program's Context: Identify the setting (including mission and objectives of the program), target population, and environmental influences within which the program operates.
- Purpose of Evaluation: State the purpose of your evaluation. Having a clear purpose prevents hasty decisions in how an evaluation should be conducted. It could be for introducing a new approach to practice, to change an existing one, or to evaluate the effect of existing program activities.
- Expected Effects: Describe the desired outcomes (short- and long-term ones) for the program to be successful.
- Stakeholders: Identify all the stakeholders who would need to be engaged in the evaluation.
- Design of Framework: Choose an evaluation framework that will influence what type of resources will be used as evidence, how that evidence will be gathered and analyzed, and what kind of claims can be made.
- Resources (What Is the Required Data?): Determine criteria for effectiveness of the program and the data that would need to be collected to meet the selected criteria.
- Selection of Methods (How Can We Get It?): Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different data-gathering techniques and information analysis approaches to ensure quality in the evidence gathered.
- Findings (What Does the Data Mean?): Highlight important evaluation findings, including effective strategies to interpret, and present results and recommendations for the program to the stakeholders.
- Dissemination of the Findings: Select appropriate communication strategies and develop a communication plan using appropriate media and technology to inform the stakeholders.
- Plan for Follow Up for Ongoing Improvement (What Are We Going to Do Now?): Determine how the results will be implemented and monitored.
Explanation & Answer
Kindly, find the completed paper.
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Fostering Program Evaluation
Fostering Program Evaluation
Name:
Institutional Affiliation:
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Fostering Program Evaluation
Fostering Program Evaluation
Context of the Program
Foster care is an indispensable tool for young persons and children who cannot be able to
live in the absence of their families. It is a service that offers out-of-home care, just like
residential care and kinship in several areas in the world. The society is confronted with a crucial
issue of ensuring that the providers of the foster care are adequately supported and skilled to
meet the sophisticated needs of the beneficiaries of these programs. Some issues of fundamental
concern in foster programs include enhancing a stable placement experience and retaining the
persons taking care of the foster centers. The programs also need to be regularly evaluated to
establish whether they are headed in the right direction and whether the resources are efficiently
utilized. DeVooght, Malm, Vandivere, & McCoy-Roth (2011) found that the annual number of
children in America awaiting foster care had been consistently more than the number adopted.
The importance of fostering programs in the United States cannot be disparaged,
particularly for children whose reunification with birth families is not feasible. As such, adoption
helps mitigate the negative effects associated with the lack of a place to call home and the
absence of a permanent family. Further, adoption programs help the governments save costs for
the taxpayers. The recruitment of adoptive parents requires additional work from the agencies,
rather than solely relying on persuading the public on the importance of providing the service.
They should embrace more creative and innovative strategies to identify able and willing
individuals, who can comfortably and adequately commit themselves to offering their services to
the children. The conventional adoption recruitment procedures have faced serious
insufficiencies in the past, mainly because of the large numbers of young persons on the waiting
lists and the emancipating children. Until recently, there existed limited scholarship on the best
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Fostering Program Evaluation
practices for the increase of foster care adoptions. An evaluation plan is essential for the
identification of the most effective services for achieving efficiency in the adoption programs.
The plan should be able to highlight approaches which can be utilized to show how the fostering
program has been implemented (DeVooght, Malm, Vandivere, & McCoy-Roth, 2011).
Purpose of Evaluation
The importance of evaluating programs is to allow the stakeholder to make informed
decisions regarding foster care. It helps in creating an understanding of how the needs of
vulnerable young persons can be amicably met and how the outcomes of the programs can be
met. It integrates practice and research in the examination of the efficiency of the fostering
service to the beneficiaries (Edelstein & Lowenstein, 2014). The purpose of the foster care
evaluation will be one of the primary factors determining the kind of stakeholders involved in the
evaluation. The current evaluation will yield information on the effectiveness of foster programs
in the region and identify some key milestones that have been achieved.
It will also help in the examination of any other ways options that may be explored to
improve the service to the vulnerable children. The current evaluation is essential for the
elimination of any redundancies and inadequacies from the system and focusing on the models
that have shown better results in the past. It will also ensure that the resources are allocated
efficiently to avoid situations whereby the available resources are not appropriately matched to
the needs of the fostering care programs. Overall, accountability and program development are
the basic reasons for this evaluation.
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Fostering Program Evaluation
Expected Effects
According to the research conducted by Richards (2014), every project has its in...
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