As an advanced social worker, I recognize the importance of evaluation to advance practice, policy, and service delivery. Like most competencies, evaluation on the micro, mezzo, and macro levels is a continuous social work practice component. Evaluation is typically the final stage when working with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. To proficiently evaluate individual clients or systems, I will be mindful of selecting effective evidence-based strategies that best fit my clients’ specific needs, diversity, and situations. I will utilize multidisciplinary frameworks and critical analysis in the evaluation stages. I will continue to place high importance on evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of social work practice outcomes across systems.
9.1: Select evidence-based evaluation strategies according to their efficacy with specific client systems.
Course Evidence: For my Advanced Clinical Practice course, I was tasked with completing a Skills Self-Assessment Paper of a cognitive-behavioral therapy session conducted with a pseudo client. The paper included all dialogue, evaluation of my practitioner skills, and corrective options for clinical interventions. This paper provided me valuable insight into my professional practice as I evaluated my efficacy with the CBT model and practitioner skills.
Field Evidence: I completed the DCS Therapeutic Visitation Checklist following every family visitation. This provided an evaluation so the progress of family strengths and parenting skills could be monitored and presented to the rest of the team during every Child and Family Team Meeting. This was an important means of measuring progress towards reunification.
Additional Evidence: I created a treatment plan with specific evaluation steps for a pseudo client in my Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Case Conceptualization Paper. This included evaluation for each detailed treatment goal and objective to ensure the client benefited from the TF-CBT model and was eventually ready for discharge.
9.2: Evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of practice outcomes across systems.
Course Evidence: My Advanced Administration Practice: Program Development group created the Community Connect Project (CCP). The group created a detailed CCP Evaluation Plan to measure and monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of the program within the Chattanooga community.
Field Evidence: I created an evaluation survey for Omni Visions workers to complete after receiving my therapeutic visitation training presentation. The evaluation included post-test questions to measure knowledge learned, as well as rating the effectiveness, competency, and professionalism of the training and presenter.
Additional Evidence: During my advanced practicum, I created a Learning Plan for myself to ensure that I experienced field experiences for each of the nine social work competencies. I took the time to evaluate my fieldwork at the end of my practicum. Additionally, my field instructor and field director also evaluated my practicum work according to my learning plan and the social work competencies.