Program evaluation for child and family services: What can be done?

This article is about program evaluation for child and family services. It sets out to offer some basic frameworks for thinking about program evaluation and about the issue of program effectiveness. A rationale for the emphasis on effectiveness is identified and then linked to three areas of possible measurement. These areas, changes in user/client condition, quality of services provided and user/client satisfaction, are then considered in more detail. Finally, it is argued that service users/clients will gain from program evaluation exercises. The evaluation of services contributes potentially to an improvement in the effectiveness of child and family services so service users/clients obtain benefit from such evaluations.