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| Community Needs Assessment× | Program Evaluation in Social Work× | |
|---|---|---|
| Field | Social Work | Social Work |
| Family | Process / pipeline | Process / pipeline |
| Year of origin≠ | 1972 | 2004 |
| Originator≠ | Social-planning tradition; need typology by Jonathan Bradshaw | Evaluation-research tradition (Rossi, Lipsey, Freeman); social-work application by Royse, Thyer & Padgett |
| Type≠ | Systematic assessment of the unmet needs of a community or population | Systematic assessment of the need, design, implementation, and outcomes of a program |
| Seminal source≠ | Bradshaw, J. (1972). A taxonomy of social need. In G. McLachlan (Ed.), Problems and Progress in Medical Care: Essays on Current Research, 7th Series (pp. 71–82). Oxford University Press. link ↗ | Rossi, P. H., Lipsey, M. W., & Freeman, H. E. (2004). Evaluation: A Systematic Approach (7th ed.). SAGE Publications. ISBN: 9780761908944 |
| Aliases | Needs Assessment, Community Needs Analysis, Needs Assessment Survey, Community Assessment | Social Program Evaluation, Human Services Program Evaluation, Outcome and Process Evaluation, Evaluation Research (Social Work) |
| Related | 4 | 4 |
| Summary≠ | A community needs assessment is a systematic process for identifying, documenting, and prioritizing the unmet needs of a community or population in order to plan programs, allocate resources, and justify funding. It draws on multiple kinds of evidence — statistical indicators, what people say they need, the services they actually seek, and comparisons with other areas — and a guiding typology, such as Jonathan Bradshaw's four types of social need, helps assessors recognize that 'need' is not a single, self-evident quantity but a judgment that depends on whose definition and which standard is applied. | Program evaluation in social work is the systematic application of social-science methods to judge a program's need, design, implementation, outcomes, and efficiency, in order to improve programs and inform decisions about them. Drawing on the evaluation-research tradition of Rossi, Lipsey, and Freeman and adapted for social work by Royse, Thyer, and Padgett, it spans a hierarchy of evaluation questions — from whether a program is needed and well-conceived to whether it is delivered as intended, produces the intended outcomes, and is worth its cost. |
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