Building Evaluation Into Group Work

If you do group work in a community agency or an institution, you may be required to demonstrate the efficacy of your treatment approach. Federal and state grants typically stipulate measures for accountability. In most settings you will be expected to devise procedures to assess the degree to which clients benefit from the group experience. We suggest that you include in your proposals for groups the procedures you intend to use to evaluate both the individual member outcomes and the outcomes of the group as a unit. (Developing a research orientation to practice is addressed in detail in Chapter 2.)

There is no need to be intimidated by the idea of incorporating a research spirit in your practice. Nor do you have to think exclusively in terms of rigorous empirical research. Various qualitative methods are appropriate for assessing a group’s movement, and these methods may be less intimidating than relying exclusively on quantitative research techniques. One alternative to the traditional scientific method is evaluation research, which provides data that can be useful when making improvements within the structure of a group. The practice of building evaluation into your group programs is a useful procedure for accountability purposes, but it can also help you sharpen your leadership skills, enabling you to see more clearly changes you might want to make in the format for future groups. We have been greatly influenced by feedback we have received from member evaluations.