SOCW 6311 WALDEN UNIVERSITY WEEK 4 SW Practice Res II

Needs Assessment

Oftentimes, social workers must justify the development of a new program to stakeholders through a formal needs assessment that generates scientific data about needs and gaps in the agency or community. They can use existing data from their agency, practice, or community setting to assess whether clients are receiving the help they need. They can also gather information from their clients through interviews, surveys, focus groups, and more.

In this weeks Discussion, you informally observed a problem in your agency or community setting and critically thought about an appropriate program to address the problem. Now, in the Assignment, you consider how to support the need for your proposed program more scientifically.

To Prepare

• Review and refine your potential program based on the feedback received in Discussion.
• Consider which clients will be included in the program and why.
• Review the methods for gathering information from clients and other stakeholders, including interviews, surveys, focus groups, etc. Determine which two methods would give you the most pertinent and reliable information to justify the development and implementation of your program

POST

Submit a 1- to 2-page paper expanding on and justifying the potential program you identified in this weeks Discussion. Include:

• A brief description of the program to be developed
• Criteria for inclusion in the program (which clients and why)
• Justification for the proposed program. What two best methods would you use to gather credible information to support the need for your program (e.g., interview, surveys, focus groups, etc.). Why? Be sure to state from whom you would gather the information.

Use the Learning Resources and peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles to support your paper. Make sure to include appropriate APA citations and a reference list.

RESURCES

• Dudley, J. R. (2020). Social work evaluation: Enhancing what we do (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
• • Chapter 4, Common Types of Evaluations
    • Read Common Program Evaluations (pp. 7889).
  • Chapter 5, Focusing an Evaluation (pp. 96111)
  • Chapter 6, Needs Assessments (pp. 115147)