First published in 1994, this text is designed to be used by graduate-level social work students in courses on evaluation and program design. Over the course of 20 years and 6 editions, the goals of the book have remained the same: to prepare students to participate in evaluative activities within their organizations; to prepare students to become critical producers and consumers of professional evaluative literature; and to prepare students for more advanced evaluation courses and texts. Grinnell, Gabor, and Unrau aim to meet these objectives by presenting a unique approach that is realistic, practical, applied, and user-friendly. While a majority of textbooks focus on program-level evaluation, some recent books present case-level evaluation methods but rely on inferentially powerful — but difficult-to-implement — experimental baseline designs. This text assumes that neither of these approaches adequately reflects the realities of the field or the needs of students and beginning practitioners. Instead, Program Evaluation for Social Workers offers a blend of the two that demonstrates how they can complement one another. The integration of case-level and program-level approaches provides an accessible, adaptable, and realistic framework for students to more easily grasp and implement in the real-world.

Table of Contents:
Program Evaluation for Social Workers: Foundations of Evidence-Based Programs 7/e ; 1. New chapter layout so it's ecstatically pleasing and easy to read. ; 2. Format entire book to CSWE's new 2015 EPAS. ; 3. Every chapter contains Core Competencies and respective Practice Behaviors covered in chapter. ; 4. Every chapter contains a quiz at the end where each question is geared towards a specific practice behavior. ; 5. Every chapter contains a Tips section. ; Part I: Contexts of Evaluations ; 1. The Process of Program Evaluations ; 2. Toward Accountability ; 3. Evaluation Ethics ; 4. Culturally-Competent Evaluations ; Part II: Designing Programs and Implementing Evaluations ; 5. The Social Service Program ; 6. Logic Models ; 7. The Process of Implementing Evaluations ; Part III: Doing Evaluations ; 8. Needs Assessments ; 9. Process Evaluations ; 10. Outcome Evaluations ; 11. Efficiency Evaluations ; Part IV: Making Decisions with Data ; 12. Data-Information Systems ; 13. Making Decisions with Data ; Part V: Writing Grant Applications ; 14. Writing Grant Proposals ; 15. Not Enough Money? ; Appendixes: Evaluation Toolkit ; A. Logic Model Examples ; B. Meeting Evaluation Challenges ; C. Reducing Evaluation Anxiety ; D. Using Common Evaluation Designs ; E. Budgeting for Evaluations ; F. Using Evaluation Management Tools ; G. Gathering Credible Data ; H. Training and Supervising Data Collectors ; I. Effective Communication and Reporting ; J. Developing an Action Plan