Over the course of 20 years and eight editions, the goals of the book have remained the same: to prepare students to participate in evaluative activities within their organizations, become beginning critical producers and consumers of the professional evaluative literature, and reap the benefits of more advanced evaluation courses and texts. The authors aim to meet these objectives by presenting a unique approach that is realistic, practical, applied, and user friendly. Unlike other textbooks on the market, Program Evaluation for Social Workers presents both program-level evaluation and case-level evaluation methods; assuming that neither of these two distinct approaches alone adequately reflects the realities of the field, the book demonstrates how they can instead complement each other. This integration of approaches provides an accessible, adaptable, and realistic framework for students and beginning practitioners to more easily grasp and implement in the real world.

Preface

Part I: Toward Accountability
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Approaches and Types of Evaluations
Chapter 3. The Evaluation Process

Part II: Evaluation Standards, Ethics, and Culture
Chapter 4. Evaluation Standards
Chapter 5. Evaluation Ethics
Chapter 6. The Culturally Competent Evaluator

Part III: The Social Work Program
Chapter 7. Designing a Program
Chapter 8. Theory of Change and Program Logic Models
Chapter 9. Evidence-Based Programs

Part IV: Doing Evaluations
Chapter 10. Preparing for an Evaluation
Chapter 11. Needs Assessments
Chapter 12. Process Evaluations
Chapter 13. Outcome Evaluations
Chapter 14. Efficiency Evaluations

Part V: Gathering Credible Evidence
Chapter 15. Measuring Program Outcomes
Chapter 16. Using Common Evaluation Designs
Chapter 17. Collecting Data and Selecting a Sample
Chapter 18. Training and Supervising Data Collectors

Part VI: Making Decisions with Data
Chapter 19. Using Data-Information Systems
Chapter 20. Making Decisions
Chapter 21. Effective Communication and Reporting

Glossary
References
Credits
Index