Doing effective evaluations: a case study of family empowerment due to welfare reform

Effective evaluation of human service programs is rapidly becoming more cri tical as more and more stakeholders demand dependable documentation of a pr ogram's impact. Comprehensive evaluation, done purposefully, improves servi ces to our clientele and, ultimately, increases the chances a program will be sustained long-term. To meet this requirement for more rigorous program assessment, program planners and evaluators can benefit from theoretically sound tools that help them evaluate the impact of social service programmin g has for clients, organizations, states, and federally based programs. Thi s manuscript presents an evaluation framework and applies it to a family em powerment program in Montana called Educating Families to Achieve Independe nce in Montana (EDUFAIM), developed in response to welfare reform. The fram ework is sufficiently broad in that it has applications within a variety of activities and settings. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserve d.