Course 423: Social Work Practice: Organizations & Communities
Community Practice & Evaluation
Total Points: 400
Overview
This Signature Assignment fulfills the BASW Program Learning Outcome #9 Evaluate Practice with Individuals, Families, Groups, Organizations, and Communities. The assignment also fulfills the University ILO #3 Civic Engagement
Be sure to review all rubric criteria prior to submitting your assignment.
Directions
Step 1: Use information from your Week 4 Community Needs Assessment project for this assignment, the textbook, coursework, and other sources such as: websites or journal articles that have been identified as appropriate resources in the course or are evidence- based. The sources are to support your response and indicate your source for any concepts that you discuss.
• All responses should be in your own words and your examples should be original (not from another source).
• The goals, evaluation measures, applications of theories, application of findings, and your insights, must be original and specific to your project. Do not use goals or measures previously published, restate other’s findings, or provide generic insights unrelated to specific course material.
• Your ideas should be specific to your topic and unique (clearly distinct from ideas or examples in other sources).
• Specifically answer the assignment questions and relate your discussion specifically to the assignment questions. Responses that do not answer the assignment questions will not be accepted.
• See further paper formatting instructions at the end of the assignment.
Step 2: Outcome Goals
● Identify one immediate/short term outcome goal and one long term outcome goal for intervention in the topic area selected for your Community Needs Assessment project. This can be goals that you have used previously in an assignment or new ones. Clearly identify each of your goals. Be explicit and provide a goal that is measurable.
● Discuss how and why you selected these goals. Review Chapters 3 & 4 on community intervention and assessment for this response. Provide examples from your plan to explain your process and factors/reasons you considered in making your decision. For example, who you might include in the decision process and why.
● Provide evidence and theoretical support for your plan by applying one community development or planning concept/strategy and one other relevant theory or perspective such as: crisis theory, empowerment perspective, and person-in-environment perspective to support your response. Review the Week 3 Assignment on applying theory for this prompt. Specifically, and in your own words, explain the theory and how it relates to your plan. Be explicit in your example. This response should be at least one paragraph, include no quotes, and the source of the theory or concept that you discuss should be cited, in-text.
Step 3: Process Goals
● Select one of your outcome goals from Step 2, above. Write this in a full sentence.
● Using the outcome goal from step 2, Identify, describe, and discuss three process goals (an action, step, or process that needs to take place to achieve the outcome). Use headings for your responses. Such as: Three process goals. Clearly identify each goal. Such as: My first goal is, my second is, etc. and clearly explain the relationship of each goal to the outcome.
● For one of your goals, describe an activity that represents a different one of the three areas listed, below. Use a heading for each of the activities (a-c). Provide a discussion of the activity that includes the topics indicated in d-f.
a) engage community members
b) collaborate with community groups
c) policy or advocacy activity
• Be specific in describing the activity engaged in for the goal.
d) identify the type of groups, individuals, organizations, or institutions
e) the actions taken to achieve the goals
f) discuss how your planned actions work together to advance the goal
Step 3: Evaluating Effectiveness:
Part I: Description & Indicator
a) describe how you would evaluate the effectiveness of one of your process or outcome goals
b) identify an indicator of effectiveness (what you will evaluate to show effectiveness). For example, a score of 5 on a measurement scale. of 1-5, a majority positive response in a survey or interview, a 5% increase in service use, increased number of participants in a group or project, etc.
Part II: Measurement
c) explain how and from whom you will collect information for your evaluation. Who will your subjects (respondents to study) be? What steps will you take to obtain subject participation and to implement your evaluation study?
d) develop one quantitative and one qualitative measurement instrument with at least 3 questions for each measurement instrument, for a total of 6 questions. These must be original instruments developed by you. Review the Week 5 organizational assessment assignment. Each of the questions should clearly link to the goal.
Step 4: Applying Theory:
● Apply two theoretical approaches to your evaluation. Clearly explain in your own words how the theory apples to your program or project evaluation process. Cite the source for the theory.
a) one social/behavioral approach, such as: systems theory (identifying barriers or supports to achieving outcomes), strengths perspective (strengths in the community, organizations, government, etc. that could help remove barriers or provide resources), or person-in environment perspective
b) one community practice approach, such as: social capital, social network, etc. and topics from the community development, planning, and organizing approaches discussed in Chapters 3 & 4 of the textbook.
Step 5: Applying Findings:
● Describe how evaluation findings (the results of an evaluation study of a program, project, or intervention) can improve practice effectiveness at each of these three practice levels:
a) micro (individual & family)
b) mezzo (group)
c) macro (community or societal)
Step 6: Insights: Discuss insights gained from engaging with community practice.
Format
● Use APA style format for student papers.
● Title page (not included in the page count)
● References (not included in the page count): Include references for the textbook and at least two other evidence-based sources (journal article, facts from a valid, evidence-based website, etc.)
● Use APA style in-text citations as appropriate
● Use headings and subheadings to organize your assignment.
● Respond to each question in the order of the assignment.
● Write your responses to each part of the question in complete sentences.
● Write in a series of paragraphs, as indicated in APA style format for student papers.
● Provide examples, evidence, and a discussion of the issues addressed in the questions. Fully explain your responses and incorporate information from the textbook, and other evidenced-based sources to support your response.
● The assignment should be written primarily in your own words. Significant use of quotation or primarily paraphrasing with little original writing, will not meet this requirement.
● Submit your assignment in Turnitin.
