Week 8: Evaluation—Part 2
Learning Objectives
Students will:
- Students will:
- Analyze potential challenges for evaluation in field education experience
- Analyze personal action plans for evaluation in field education experience
- Analyze evaluation in relation to social work practice
- Apply social work practice skills
Learning Resources
Note: To access this week’s required library resources, please click on the link to the Course Readings List, found in the Course Materials section of your Syllabus.
Required Readings
Garthwait, C. L. (2017). The social work practicum: A guide and workbook for students (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Chapter 3, “Learning from Supervision” (pp. 28-40)
Optional Resources
Click this link to access the MSW home page, which provides resources for your social work program:
MSW home page
Assignment 1: Week 8 Blog
Refer to the topics covered in this week’s resources, and incorporate them into your blog.
By Day 3
Post a blog post that includes:
- An explanation of potential challenges for evaluation during your field education experience
- An explanation of personal action plans you might take to address evaluation in your field education experience
By Day 4
Respond to the blog post of three colleagues in one or more of the following ways:
- Share an insight from having read your colleague’s posting.
- Validate an idea in your colleague’s post with your own experience.
You will be assigned to author regular blog entries as well as make comments on each other’s blog postings.
Response 1
Noelia Antonio at Monday, January 13, 2020 10:36:31 AM
A potential challenge for evaluation would be turning to someone for feedback and they are not being supportive. Although I do not see that necessarily being a challenge in my field education experience, it’s not to say that it will never happen. Also, it is not to say that it will not happen in my professional social work career, which makes it important to be prepared. In supervision, it is important to be supportive. The importance of it is that it “ focuses on sustaining staff morale, cultivating a sense of teamwork, building commitment to agency goals and mission, encouraging workers by providing support, and dealing with work-related problems of conflict and frustration” (Garthwait, 2017, p. 30).
If I ever feel that I am not being supported, I would address that with my supervisor. If that is unsuccessful, I would address it to my field instructor to gain some more insight in how to deal with an unsupportive supervisor. Working in social services is difficult as it is, so having to deal with a leader that is not being supportive makes it that much more difficult. It can lead to feelings of stress and burnout, which is not beneficial for the clients we work with (Garthwait, 2017).
References:
Garthwait, C. L. (2017). The social work practicum: A guide and workbook for students (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Response 2
Emily Worley
Posted by 
Emily Worley at Tuesday, January 14, 2020 9:14:57 AM
Evaluation can be challenging to complete for several different reasons. In regards to program evaluation there can be a multitude of challenges such as environmental and societal barriers that affect the delivery of the program, lack of follow up with the client’s, and lack of staff to complete evaluations. When discussing evaluations with individuals the challenges that may arise are fear of hurting someone’s feelings, lack of confidence and poor management and/or high caseloads. Evaluations are a critical part of programming and professional growth, the way in which an evaluation is completed is important, evaluation should be thought of at the beginning, throughout and end. Evidence-guided practice reinforces client empowerment and clients’ right to self determination and it adopts an ecological view of client problems and worker interventions (Thyer, 2013). Within my field, evaluation will pose other types of challenges, such as most of our treatment spans for over 20 weeks therefore being to perform evaluation with client’s can be difficult due to their incomplete status.
My action plan to address the challenges is to review evaluation performed by the agency, continue to evaluate ways to improve the ways of presenting interventions and education to adolescents. I also plan to review more Clinical Assessments before this field ends, so that I can continue to improve my documentation skills.
Thyer, B. A. (2013). Evidence-based practice or evidence-guided practice: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet [Invited response to Gitterman & Knight’s “evidence-guided practice”]. Families in Society, 94(2), 79–84.
Response 3
Surnita Warner New
Posted by Surnita Warner at Wednesday, January 15, 2020 12:54:37 PM
An explanation of potential challenges for evaluation during your field education experience
Social workers evaluate the effectiveness of intervention plans toward desired change using a variety of measures. Garthwait references (2016) that the social worker terminates planned change process when appropriate and incorporates results in future planned change processes.(p. 174) At the agency the evaluation effectiveness is rated based on whether the caller continues to call the agency or whether they end the call without having to contact active rescue. This can become a potential challenge because the caller is unable to be followed up on due to being admitted to a hospital and their suicidal ideation could return. Without the hotline specialist being unable to intervene.
An explanation of personal action plans you might take to address evaluation in your field education experience
A personal action plan I might take to address evaluation is to suggest that callers that are at a high rate of suicide or active rescue has been used as an intervention be followed up within the following day. Using this to address evaluation, would make sure that the caller who is at a higher risk of suicide has returned to stability. This evaluation can also provide the caller with a benefit to speak about the issue and allow the hotline specialist to assess once again. Upon assessing, the caller can be at potential risk again and a second attempt can be eliminated of suicide.
References
Garthwait, C. (20160222). The Social Work Practicum, 7th Edition [VitalSource
Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from vbk://9780133948554
Submission and Grading Information
To submit your completed Assignment for review and grading, do the following:
- Please save your Assignment using the naming convention “WK8Assgn1+last name+first initial.(extension)” as the name.
- Click the Week 8 Assignment 1 Rubric to review the Grading Criteria for the Assignment.
- Click the Week 8 Assignment 1link. You will also be able to “View Rubric” for grading criteria from this area.
- Next, from the Attach File area, click on the Browse My Computer button. Find the document you saved as “WK8Assgn1+last name+first initial.(extension)” and click Open.
- If applicable: From the Plagiarism Tools area, click the checkbox for I agree to submit my paper(s) to the Global Reference Database.
- Click on the Submit button to complete your submission.
Grading Criteria
To access your rubric:
Week 8 Assignment 1 Rubric
Post by Day 3 and Respond by Day 4
To create your Blog post:
Week 8 Assignment 1
Assignment 2: Process Recordings
A process recording is a written tool used by field education experience students, field instructors, and faculty to examine the dynamics of social work interactions in time. Process recordings can help in developing and refining interviewing and intervention skills. By conceptualizing and organizing ongoing activities with social work clients, you are able to clarify the purpose of interviews and interventions, identify personal and professional strengths and weaknesses, and improve self-awareness. The process recording is also a useful tool in exploring the interpersonal dynamics and values operating between you and the client system through an analysis of filtering the process used in recording a session.
For this Assignment, you will submit a process recording of your field education experiences specific to this week.
The Assignment: (2–4 pages)
- Provide a transcript of what happened during your field education experience, including a dialogue of interaction with a client.
- Explain your interpretation of what occurred in the dialogue, including social work practice or theories, and explain how it might relate to evaluation covered this week.
- Describe your reactions and/or any issues related to your interaction with a client during your field education experience.
- Explain how you applied social work practice skills when performing the activities during your process recording.